12. Chapter 12
Chapter 12
Not dead.
Colt rolled those words over in his brain again and again, trying to cast light on them to where they made sense. He could only stare blankly at Sera as he did this, waiting for the punchline of some really bad—and poorly timed—joke. When Sera continued to say a whole lot of nothing, Colt glanced at the mural, then squinted at Sera.
"Uh. Okay. I think I'd know better than you would that my mom's dead."
"She's not," Sera repeated softly. "She didn't die when you were five; she left."
More words to make his head hurt in confusion. What could he even say to that? How could he believe that? "That makes less than zero sense. Why would Dad tell me she'd died?"
Sera hugged himself, shifting uncomfortably. "I don't know. I didn't... I mean, I went into all this assuming you knew. But then you mentioned her death, and I just..."
Colt opened his mouth, closed it again, rubbed at the back of his neck. "Why not tell me back then?"
His green eyes darted away guiltily. "I tried. I've been trying. I told you, I didn't know how."
A long pause.
"This was that 'something'?" Colt finally asked, so soft it almost got lost in the room. "It wasn't about the money?"
Sera blinked. Frowned. "Money?"
That response should've relieved Colt, put his stupid fears and insecurity to rest, but it was overshadowed by the Mom-shaped secret in the room. Putting his back to Sera, he laced his fingers behind his neck and tried to remember to breathe. Tried to keep some kind of rational thought in his head. He had so many questions to ask.
"What did Dad tell you? Why did he tell you?"
"I came over and found him in his room one afternoon, going through old home movies. I must've caught him at a vulnerable time, because he—"
"His room?" Colt whirled back to face him. "You're lying. Dad's room is packed. He hasn't been able to step foot in there in twenty years!"
Sera visibly flinched, whether at the raised voice or the accusation, Colt couldn't be sure. "It's not..."
" Stop it! "
Colt didn't mean to snap, but the panic had a chokehold around his brain, made it hard to think, to rationalize. And when Sera responded by immediately shutting his mouth and dropping his gaze to the floor, Colt couldn't stomach seeing him like that on top of everything else. He turned and stormed from the room, down to the door at the far end of the darkened hall.
This room had been off-limits for as long as he could remember. Dad kept it locked. The persistent curiosity of a child had Colt trying to get a peek inside, of course. He'd tried picking the lock, tried pushing his cellphone under the door with the front-facing camera going, hoping for even a glimpse of this mysterious land beyond. Nothing worked.
Then Glenn caught him one day. It was one of the only times Colt could recall his father yelling. Truly, sincerely yelling, his face red and strained. He'd looked like a complete stranger to Colt.
That was the last time Colt ever so much as approached the door.
His upset outweighed the ingrained thoughts that he needed to get away. Colt grasped the doorknob. Locked, of course. It was always locked. He violently jiggled the handle, let go, stepped back. Dad had to have had the key somewhere, especially if Sera was truthful about him having gone in there. How long would it take him to tear apart the rest of the house in hopes of finding it?
Vision blurring, Colt threw his shoulder into the door. Once, and then again. He thought he heard the faintest hint of cracking wood, but it didn't give. Colt pulled back, ready to kick the fucking thing in, even if it meant splintering the original wood and fittings that'd been in this place since the 1800s.
"Colt..."
He almost ignored Sera until he caught the sound of jangling. When he looked back, Sera had a set of keys in hand—probably taken from Glenn's things after his death. Colt reached for it. Sera hesitated, drawing back slightly.
"You're upset. Let's sit down and talk, then we can..." He trailed off beneath Colt's hard, frantic stare. Didn't object further when Colt plucked the keys from his grasp.
None of them were labelled (of course they weren't) but he found the right key on the third try. The quiet click of it unlocking made his stomach turn. He had to stop, gripping the old ornate knob so tight the patterns in the metal dug into his hands, and steel himself.
When he finally dared to open there door, he expected resistence from clutter where their was none. In fact, Colt found himself standing in the doorway, staring at a room that looked...well, like a bedroom. A cluttered, unkempt bedroom caked in dust, drenched in the cloying smell of stagnant damp and mildew, but a bedroom none the less. Colt took a tentative step inside. After so long entombed in the other full rooms, this one looked completely alien to him.
It wasn't any larger than his own room. Bed, two bedside tables and lamps, a dresser with an old analog TV atop it. Framed photos hung from the wall, with the exception of a few that'd fallen and lay shattered on the hardwood floor. Casualties of repeated earthquakes over the years. Likewise, the bed had been jostled away from the wall by a good two feet, and a bookshelf canted to its side, halted from completely toppling over by the adjascent wall. The anger simmered under Colt's skin, temporarily dimmed by his confusion.
"I don't understand," he murmured. "If he had this, then why was he living out of the den? Why..."
"He couldn't stomach being in here much, I think." Sera stepped up cautiously beside him, speaking gently. "I imagine it was a painful reminder."
Colt turned to face him. "Of what ?"
"I don't know all the details, I'm sorry." Sera averted his gaze to anywhere other than Colt. "All I know is, after your mom left, this place became too much for him."
"The day you found him in here...?"
"He was sitting on the foot of the bed, watching something. He paused them when I came in, so I couldn't tell you what they were, but...there were tapes scattered all over the bed..." Sera crossed the room to the dresser. There was, in fact, a VCR built into the television. He glanced back at Colt as though begetting permission, and Colt gave a stiff nod.
As Sera began opening dresser drawers, Colt drifted up beside him, hugging himself, too stunned to know what to do with his hands. Afraid to touch anything, almost. It felt wrong.
The second drawer from the top held what they were looking for—stuffed with VHS tapes. They each pulled out a handful, reading over the labels, scrawled in Glenn's handwriting.
Colt birthdays 1-3
Boys beach / Colt 1st day of school
Wedding
Tiff's acceptance speech
Colt school play / Boys Halloween
Z's 1st Christmas
"Home movies," Colt mumbled. "I forgot about this. Dad used to always have a video camera on hand. Always had to be the old-school ones; he never trusted digital cameras."
Sera stared at one of the tapes in his hand. "Yeah, but who's Zack?"
Colt frowned. The name sounded vaguely familiar, but so distant it could almost be overlooked. "I don't know. Cousin, maybe? Family friend? Doesn't ring a bell."
"I'm not sure Glenn would've recorded entire tapes dedicated to a family friend." Sera turned the tape around to show him the label.
Zack
That was it. Just...Zack.
"Should we... Should you watch them?"
Something unsettled turned inside of Colt and made him want to look away. "No electricity," he pointed out. "Who knows if the TV even still works."
"Wouldn't be hard to find out," Sera replied. "We can take it down to the trailer."
Colt stared at the tapes in his hands until the writing on them began to blur. Not from tears this time, but the sheer wash of anxiety that enveloped him at the idea of viewing any of these. Dad had never shared them with Colt. Why? What was on there he'd been so desperate to hide?
There came a gentle, cautious touch to the small of his back. Sera said nothing, but watched him with eyes so soft it made Colt's chest tighten all the more.
Colt didn't want to watch the tapes. He wanted to burn them.
He also knew if he did that, he'd spend the rest of his life with questions hanging over his head.
Mutely, he nodded.
They said nothing as they collected the television and tapes—Sera pulled the whole drawer out for that—and left the room behind.
Sera's trailer ran off a generator, and not a big one, so he didn't keep too much plugged in when it wasn't being used. Anything he wanted to watch, he did from his phone. He didn't own a TV. Wouldn't have had a place to put one if he did. Even the thirteen-inch Magnavox looked big when placed on the kitchen table where they shared their meals.
Sera plugged it in. Colt pushed the button on the front. By some miracle, the screen filled with snowy static. "Well, that works. Did you have a specific one you wanted to start with?"
How was he supposed to pick? Did it matter? When all he could do was stare at the tape-filled drawer, Sera picked one out at random, pushed it halfway in, and stepped back as though he intended to leave.
Colt's head snapped up. "Where are you going?"
Sera hesitated. "I didn't want to assume... I thought you might want to do this alone."
Two months ago, he'd have agreed. It was his family, his business. But now? Sera was family. Regardless of their relationship with one another, he was bound to Sera through their connection to Glenn Grieves. Now he couldn't fathom sending Sera away if he wanted to be part of this.
If he wanted to be.
"Do you want to stay?" Colt asked.
Sera watched him. Even now, there existed a strange expression on his face Colt couldn't place. Troubled, maybe even a little fearful. Anxious. Which was odd to think of; Colt was usually the bundle of nerves wound tight to snapping. Then look on Sera's face when Colt had raised his voice back inside flashed through his head. And it dawned on him how Sera had grown up, how he'd likely spent years being yelled at and talked down to. In front of the mural, he'd shrunk away from Colt so quickly.
Colt's heart about shattered.
The tapes forgotten, Colt stood, reached for Sera, who shied back at first but then bowed his head as those arms came around him. Colt held tightly to him, guilt eating away at his insides.
"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." He murmured the words against Sera's ear, fingers sliding into his hair, desperate to earn back that sly, cheeky Sera smile, desperate to protect him from the world. Right, and who's protecting him from me? The self-admonishment made his eyes fill with tears.
Sera sagged against him. He didn't ask what Colt was sorry for, which only made Colt feel worse. Sera's face buried itself into the crook of his neck, a position that couldn't have been comfortable given their height difference. Gradually, his arms found their way around Colt's middle and squeezed, hugging him back just as tightly.
When Colt did pull back, it was only to be able to look into Sera's eyes and cup his face. Uncertainty still lay within those green depths. "This isn't important right now. You're—"
"Fuck that, this is important."
"...You have every right to be angry with me, Colt."
"I wasn't, though. I wasn't mad at you, but I took it out on you."
Sera's head tried to dip, but Colt nudged it back up.
"Yeah, okay, it blows you kept it from me. But I'm upset over that because it put a serious damper on a really good makeout session." That got a short laugh from Sera, relit some of the warmth in his gaze. "I was... I was mad at everyone else. Dad. Mom. Uncle Robb. All these years, they felt I didn't deserve to know. This house was a hellhole, but at least I knew it. Now there's all these secrets being dredged from the bottom of a lake, and it's making me wonder what else might've been a lie. The point is, I don't ever want to do anything that makes you look at me that way again."
Allowing himself to finally meet Colt's eyes properly, Se didn't speak, and if he hadn't still been holding so tightly onto him, Colt would've been worried he'd broken something that couldn't be fixed.
"Please," Colt begged. "Say something."
Sera didn't, though. He didn't say a word.
Instead he closed the distance between them, and kissed Colt like it was the last day on earth.
God, how many times since the trip to Whitehall had he reflected on that night? Enough that he sometimes found himself spacing off while sitting right across from Sera, just watching the shape of his mouth move as he spoke. Enough that even just last night, he'd gotten himself off to the memory of it, to envisioning how things might've gone if Sera hadn't pulled away.
Colt sank into the kiss like a warm bath, let it melt away everything else—his family, the house, the hoard, his dingy motel room, even the tapes taunting them from the table, begging to be watched. All that mattered right then was Sera. Them, together.
It wasn't far to the bed in its alcove, but they'd both managed to shed their shoes and shirts along the way. Eager fingers tugged and fumbled with each other's pants, made more difficult because neither of them were willing to pull away from the kiss long enough to look at what their hands were doing.
All that mattered to Colt was that he quickly had Sera stretched out beneath him. His hair fanned out across the pillows and bedding, all long limbs and sharp angles and absolutely fucking beautiful. Straddling his hips, Colt bowed down, pressed kisses across Sera's face and jaw and throat. His hands wandered, eager to touch, to map out every soft plane of skin and the taught muscle beneath. Not easy to do, when Sera's hands were also on him, palms smoothing up Colt's thighs to his hips. Gripping. Pressing up against him.
This was what Colt had wanted. Needed , even. It wasn't the sex. It wasn't the sounds Sera made when his cock slid into Colt's mouth, nor the dull, aching pleasure Colt felt when Sera's fingers were inside of him, and all the low, wanting sounds it drew from Colt's lips.
No, it was the relief of having everything else be washed away so the two of them could simply exist . Just Sera and Colt. Two men who likely never would've crossed paths were it not for 42 Lullaby Lane. Somehow, Sera understood him in ways Colt hadn't realized he'd needed understanding. At every turn, Sera had never once made him feel unimportant, or that his wants, his needs, had to come second to everyone else's. Even in his own grief, he'd stood resolute at Colt's side, practically at his beck and call.
Sera kissed him deep and hot, scorching back the briars that'd steadily encroached on Colt from all sides until he felt the sting of them every moment of every day. Sera held him, shielded him like a tower. Sera pressed him into the mattress. Sera fucked him until Colt couldn't think around the feel of his cock, the heat of that mouth, the way Sera's low voice rumbling against his ear, "Good boy, " was the thing that tipped him over the edge and made him come.
Nothing else mattered. Sera was fire, cleansing, rejuvinating.
Colt would gladly let it burn him to cinders.