11. The Core Principles of Magnetism #3
When Alistair stops, he’s so close that Briar can smell his aftershave, spiced wood and something thickly floral and cloying.
With great and almost tender care, he reaches out and flicks one of the thick straps of Briar’s tank top aside, revealing right shoulder and clavicle.
Then he takes his cigar and presses it, so casually Briar can’t comprehend that it’s actually happening, into Briar’s naked skin.
It hurts like hell. Just heat at first, and then a wide, arresting sting that brings tears springing to Briar’s eyes, worsening so rapidly it feels like the cigar has melted the flesh and is boring a hole through bone.
The expression on Alistair’s face is one of detached, childlike curiosity before Briar’s eyes squeeze shut, the agony building to a pounding on every nerve.
They say ‘Fuck’ aloud in a hiss of breath they can barely spare, and then there’s a shrill creaking sound that Briar almost thinks is coming from inside their body as it reaches breaking point.
The next moment, there’s a high-pitched explosion - a ringing screech as loud and abrupt as a gunshot, and then a strange feeling like the spray of rain.
Briar opens their eyes.
The window has shattered, obliterated so thoroughly that there’s not a scrap of glass left in the frame.
There’s a moment of stunned silence, Briar’s heart racing, their face now oddly raw and wind-bitten, and then the pain really kicks in again, hot and white, not just the throbbing from the cigar burn, but a scrape down the right side of their face.
‘What the fuck,’ Alistair says, twisting around and then freezing. He took the brunt of it, accidentally shielding Briar from harm. ‘God. Bastian, don’t just fucking sit there, I’ve got glass in my fucking back. Shit, it hurts.’
Briar touches a hand to their face and then wishes they hadn’t. The pain worsens, a sickly shiver down their spine - their skin is wrong somehow, something there that shouldn’t be. Their neck feels warm too, and Briar wonders at the significance before realising it must be blood.
Someone opens the bedroom door, says ‘Holy fucking shit’, pauses.
‘Call the nurse, Kristian,’ Seb says, his voice eerily calm. ‘Take Buck downstairs, get his coat in case they send paramedics.’
‘But—’
‘Now.’
‘Jesus, okay.’ Kristian must be The Prince, because that’s who comes into view; he tries to offer an arm to Alistair, who ignores him.
‘Bastian,’ he says, and when Seb doesn’t move, he just swears, and then two of them crunch away across the room, Alistair wincing as he goes, leaving a dark, spattered trail of blood on the cream sheepskin rug behind him.
Briar tries to stand up, swaying, but suddenly Seb is there, his hands cold and hard on their shoulders, keeping them in place.
Briar stills. Strange to be touched again after so long by somebody who used to feel like an extension of your skin; weird for it to happen like this, stilted and clinical, and when Briar is so angry at Seb they feel capable of all manner of violence.
It’s just their body that won’t cooperate, slow and shaking from the shock.
He’d just sat there and watched. Most powerful scholar in generations, and he wouldn’t even lift a finger to stop his boyfriend from enacting small, sick tortures on someone he’d once loved.
‘Don’t move,’ Seb says imperiously. He comes to stand in front of Briar, one hand still anchored to Briar’s shoulder as he does, and then he’s right there, inches from Briar’s face.
He’s got a cut on his forehead, long and thin, one heavy drop of blood beading and threatening to fall.
That much is familiar: blood, and fingerprint bruises.
Briar had thought that his face was all sharp edges, but it’s not really.
There’s an unexpected grown-up squareness to his jaw, softened by the sulky curve of his mouth, the sweep of his brows.
If you cut all his hair off and made him sit up straight, he might look like a man.
He lifts a hand to Briar’s face and Briar flinches, about to tell him to stay the fuck away, to get out, to wait for the nurse - but they’re so tired suddenly that they can’t form the words.
Seb deftly plucks out one piece of glass and then a second in such quick succession that it only really hurts once; Briar lets out a little exhalation of pain, then bites down hard on their lip, overcome by a wave of nausea.
Seb pulls his white silk bow-tie from his neck with a bizarre elegance and wads it in his hand, then presses it to Briar’s face.
Briar raises a hand automatically to apply pressure, and when their fingers briefly brush against Seb’s, he startles, a jolt down his whole arm.
Seb is about to say something when Briar sucks in a breath and finally says, ‘Don’t fucking touch me.’
They pack seven years of grief into it, and all the fury of the past five minutes, too. Seb removes his hand. The blood on his forehead spills over, and paints a scarlet line down his face, brow to cheek to chin.
‘Briar?’ Tate rushes into the room, Hadley behind, and takes in glass, blood, Seb. ‘Wolfe,’ he says, his voice sharper than Briar’s ever heard it, gaze fixed on Briar. ‘Get away from them. I mean it.’
Bastian doesn’t argue. He looks from Tate to Briar and then is gone in less than a second, turning sideways to avoid touching Hadley as he exits.
‘Gross, Jones, you’re bleeding,’ Hadley says, like she’s telling Briar off for tracking mud on the carpet. Briar removes the wadded tie from their forehead to see how much scarlet has soaked the white cotton. Quite a lot.
‘Shit. Just missed your eye,’ says Tate, bending to look. His hands are shaking. ‘I think you’ve still got some bits in there, though. Are you okay? Can you stand? You’re not bleeding anywhere else, are you?’
‘I don’t . . .’ Briar shrugs helplessly. They feel so drained, empty, like they’re coming to the end of a bad bout of flu.
Tate is looking at the window. ‘You should be dead.’ He drags the toe of his shoe through the drifts of glass, grinding them to sand. ‘I guess you’re just lucky it went to such small pieces. Buck said the window just . . . shattered. Out of nowhere. Is that true?’
Briar is feeling muddled now. ‘I don’t know.’
‘He’s downstairs acting like he’s dying,’ Hadley says. She’s slid down to sit on the floor, paying no heed to scattered glass. ‘If only.’
‘I don’t . . . understand . . . what happened,’ Briar says, wondering if it’s blood loss or the general mindfuck of everything that’s occurred tonight that’s rendered them so useless, their head spinning.
Seb, on the bed. Alistair above, watching Briar with the focus of an apex predator.
The soft rug beneath their knees. Pain. Seb, Seb, Seb.
‘You wandered off when I told you to stay still, that’s what happened,’ says Tate. ‘Come on. Let’s get you up, and we’ll go to the infirmary. The nurse is hot, and I have to say, it really helps.’