Chapter 1 #4
Bentham never should have left that restaurant in anything but a stretcher.
Or a body bag. That fucker had touched Toby.
And what he’d said, enjoy your slut, had sounded like bullshit to Jake, something a sadistic fuck would whisper to get a victim softened up—but Toby’s reaction wasn’t bullshit. Something had triggered him badly.
Jake knew the vague outlines of what had happened to Toby and didn’t want to push in case something broke, but he had the terrible feeling that Toby had already broken.
He didn’t want to even think about peeling back another layer of Toby’s pain, but Toby couldn’t stay in full-on shutdown mode.
God, Jake had hoped he’d never see a shutdown like this again.
He would do fucking anything if it meant that Toby would look at him again, trust him, wouldn’t flinch from him.
If Toby would believe that Jake wouldn’t abandon him at a time like this.
Jake kept silent until they were inside their room, door locked and barred, window shades drawn tightly shut.
Toby drifted almost without seeming to notice what he was doing until he stood between the second bed and the bathroom: a silent ghost, the wonderful, slyly funny, caring person Jake loved lost within that pale, hunched-over shell waiting for the next blow.
Though Jake could have gladly gone for something in his system significantly stronger than Barbara’s watered beer, Toby was skittish around alcohol at the best of times, and this was not that.
Jake filled a little plastic cup with water and took it to him, careful to hold it by the top, leaving enough of the bottom free so Toby could take it without brushing his hand.
“Drink,” he said, afraid Toby wouldn’t move without a verbal prompt.
Toby took it at once, dropping his head back as he drained the cup, his gaze falling again as he handed the cup back. His eyes never once touched on Jake.
Jake nodded toward the close-set twin beds. “Have a seat, Toby.” He kept his tone quiet—an invitation, not an order.
Toby folded his knees as he sat on the edge of the bed, arms once again hugging his chest and hair hiding his eyes. When he spoke, it was soft and broken, a terrible beaten tone Jake hadn’t heard in over a year. “I’m sorry.”
Jake nearly flinched. He hated hearing those words from Toby, and he almost choked on the frustration that threatened to bleed into his voice, his body language.
“For what, Toby? It’s not your fault that fucker exists.
” It’s mine for bringing you to a hunter town.
And mine for letting that bastard still exist.
Toby’s shoulders twitched, like he’d taken a hit and didn’t want to show it. His throat worked for a moment, but nothing came out.
Jake rubbed his hand across his mouth, pressing hard. He didn’t want to do this. He really didn’t want to do this, but fuck, he had to ask. It was cowardice otherwise.
* * *
“Can you tell me?” Jake’s voice was low and soft, but Tobias could not meet his eyes. He could not look up and see the slow disgust growing there, the accusations Tobias couldn’t turn aside because they were true. “Can you tell me what he was talking about?”
Some days—the best days—Tobias had managed to forget that this moment would come.
He had dreamed of it countless times, both sleeping and waking, and each time it had been the end.
There was no other outcome possible, no way he would ride shotgun next to Jake in the Eldorado again after this.
But even so, Jake deserved the truth. He had always deserved the truth, but Tobias had been too cowardly to offer it.
He had always known, though, that when the moment came that Jake asked him for the truth, Tobias would not keep it from him.
“I’m sorry.” He stared at a point just beyond Jake’s arm, right hand locked on his left elbow like that would hold him together while everything else crumbled.
“I’m sorry, I know I shouldn’t have, I should have held out, I should have waited for you—but it wasn’t for the h-hell of it, I swear it wasn’t.
Only . . . only when it was important. When Kayla was crying, she couldn’t stop crying and that would just bring the guards and the smell—”
Tobias could feel it again: lying in the cold on the threadbare bunks, the disgusting slough of shifter skin, and the certain, sick knowledge that when the guards arrived, they wouldn’t have mercy on the girl-seeming creature weeping in terror near him.
“Toby, Toby.” Jake was crouched beside him, hand outstretched but not touching.
Tobias wished, with every particle of his filthy and worthless being, that he could meet and grip those fingers one last time.
Ending it with that final touch would be a shocking kindness.
“Slow down.” Tobias could feel his gaze like a burning heat, though he would not meet it. “What was important?”
Tobias swallowed hard. “Blankets. Th-there was only o-one, and it w-wasn’t enough in the worst of w-w-winter. Food, s-sometimes, when it was r-really bad.”
Jake stayed very still. On the edge of his vision, Tobias saw the revelation move over Jake’s face, into his body.
He was still the way he was when a case slotted into place in his head, when they knew where the killer freak would strike next.
If anything, that threatened to choke Tobias off even more.
“Toby,” he whispered. “You’re saying that—”
“Yes, Jake, I sucked them off to get stuff.” Tobias let go of himself and locked his hands on the bedspread on either side of himself, turning his head with his eyes closed.
He was braced for a blow, for the words he had dreaded for so long to hear from Jake.
Fucking whore, this is not what I paid for, some easy piece of ass.
Nothing came. Not a blow, not a word. Instead of relief, Tobias’s nerves tightened, his fears doubling. Worse than physical abuse, worse than any damning words, would be Jake walking out without a word.
If these were the last moments with the man who was his whole world, Tobias couldn’t let Jake walk away without one last glimpse. He cracked his eyes open.
Jake hunched forward, palms pressed to his forehead. He couldn’t look at him.
Tobias swallowed, tried to find enough saliva to speak again. No use apologizing—he already had, and Jake wouldn’t want to hear it now (that was one of the rules Jake had gifted him: only one Sorry a day. But rules wouldn’t save him now).
Hoarsely, he whispered, “I never let them fuck me.” One last bone.
Maybe Jake would keep him around long enough for that.
One last memory to cherish before whatever happened to him after.
Even now, when Jake couldn’t stand him, Tobias still wanted it.
Better Jake than anyone else, always. It wasn’t as though Jake would, or could, treat him any worse than Tobias deserved.
But the longer Jake didn’t touch him, didn’t take him, the less Tobias could hang onto even that fragile hope.
He was dirty, used, worthless. Maybe Jake would give him a bullet instead of taking him back to camp.
Jake was so good, so kind. Tobias prayed for the feel of the barrel tucking up behind his ear, a hand on his shoulder—his last touch—holding Tobias down while Jake pulled the trigger.
That would be better, so much better, than going back.
When Jake finally looked up, Tobias cringed away from the anger in his face.
Contained, suppressed, but so much anger that Tobias couldn’t see it without shaking.
Jake’s eyes were red, as though he had been crying, or close to it, and his face was marked white where his fingers had pushed indentations into the skin.
When Jake reached for him, Tobias flinched instinctively, and then called himself a fucking idiot.
He knew that Jake didn’t get off on pain, and if Tobias wanted this to happen he would have to make it as good as possible for him or Jake might stop.
He closed his eyes, tight enough he saw white afterimages, praying that Jake would touch him, wouldn’t be so disgusted that he went to the bathroom for whatever relief he would’ve gotten from using Tobias.
When hesitant fingers touched his shoulder, Tobias almost cried in relief. He relaxed into the touch, pressing himself into Jake’s hand, eyes still closed.
He felt the mattress shift as Jake moved to the bed beside him, felt the heat of Jake’s shoulder pushing against his, but he still didn’t look.
Any flinch, any sound now, might drive Jake away.
If he looked up and saw hatred and disgust in Jake’s eyes, Tobias wouldn’t be able to stop himself from reacting—even though everything depended on it.
“Toby,” Jake breathed. He sounded frightened, unsteady, un-Jakelike. “Toby, look at me.”
He couldn’t. He couldn’t watch it coming. Couldn’t make himself.
Then he felt Jake’s lips against his cheek, and Tobias’s eyes snapped open.
Kisses. He hadn’t thought there would be any more kisses.
He hadn’t thought Jake would think him worth that gentle caress of mouth against skin, knowing now what he had done.
Tobias didn’t even think about the possibility of Jake’s mouth against his again—disgusting, to think that Jake had been so gentle where Tobias had whored himself to so many others—but just the soft pressure of lips made Tobias relax, made him ready for whatever came next.
Jake whispered in his ear, “I knew.”
Tobias’s whole body recoiled from Jake’s. Finally he stared at him full in the face, astonishment making him bold (shockingly disrespectful, the Director would have made him pay). But it couldn’t be true. It simply couldn’t, though he didn’t think Jake ever lied to him before.
Jake gazed back at him, his gray eyes sad, almost bleak. It was a terrible look for him, and absolutely Tobias’s fault. He would rather think about his own guilt and Jake’s sad eyes than what those words meant.
“No,” he whispered at last. It was all he could get out.
Jake gave one nod, never looking away. “I knew. It doesn’t change anything. It’s okay. I still love you just as much as always. Nothing’s gonna change that.”
Tobias let out a low keening moan, pressing the heels of his hands to his forehead. “Y-you don’t u-understand.”
“I do,” Jake said levelly. “I heard you, Toby, I swear.”
Tobias could only swing his head from side to side in denial. No, no, no.
“I get that those—evil motherfuckers made you sell yourself to survive.” Jake’s voice cracked. “And I hate them for it. Never you. Fuck, Toby, I’d have done the same in your place.”
“No!” Tobias’s head jerked up, forgetting himself as he looked at Jake in horror. “You can’t—don’t say—”
“I would have,” Jake said flatly. “In a fucking heartbeat. And I wouldn’t have lasted as long as you—”
“Stop it.” Tobias put his hands to either side of his head. “Stop, stop, please.” He struggled to breathe normally while Jake remained, thankfully, quiet. Jake doesn’t belong in Freak Camp. He would never, never be there, never know. He couldn’t.
After a few minutes, Jake said, “Toby,” and Tobias forced his hands away from his ears and turned to look at him. “I heard you,” he repeated.
That repetition, that steadiness, finally hit Tobias. Maybe it was true. Maybe he could believe that Jake had known for so long and hadn’t walked away. No matter how little Tobias thought he deserved, Jake was still there. And he knew.
Something broke inside Tobias, something big and awful, and he didn’t know what was on the other side.
His shoulders shook, raw sobs tearing through him.
Ever so gently, Jake put his arm around Toby’s shoulders.
Toby sagged against him, and Jake tightened his grip, holding him close as he always did after each nightmare.
* * *
Tobias didn’t sleep, not even after Jake had settled again beside him, his breathing easing into the steady rhythm of deep sleep. Tobias lay there, keeping his breathing even and slow so as to not wake Jake, and tried to make sense of what the fuck had just happened.
He couldn’t think about it, couldn’t wrap his head around it. Jake had learned Tobias’s biggest, dirtiest secret, and instead of calling him what he was (whore, slut, monster), he had said he loved him, that he was perfect. That he’d already known.
To hear that, after knowing that Jake understood what he had done in the camp, Tobias would have walked through fire without hesitation. It was hard to parse how he should feel now when he had expected so little.
He laughed at that, perilously close to tears again.
Jake shifted in his sleep, pulling him closer. Tobias relaxed, burrowing into his warmth and breathing in the heat and familiarity of him.
He didn’t know where they were going from here.
He still felt shaken and halfway to panic thinking of the revelation.
But beneath that was the knowledge that two of his worst fears (the hunter pinning him to that chair, and himself confessing the worst to Jake) had come to pass, yet he was still here, sharing Jake’s bed.
He wasn’t in any pain other than the echoes of his own fear.
Tobias had never expected to come through either of those experiences intact. Now that he had survived them, he didn’t know where he was going or what waited ahead, but something had changed.
Strange and remarkable as it seemed, the future glimmered with real hope now. Hope that stretched further than the here and now.