Andraeon woke to a darkness lit only by the dim silver light of the moon coming in through the window, laying its pale stripes across the wooden floor. For a moment he lay there, wondering what had woken him in the dead of night, then realized Jones’s side of the bed was cold and empty. Yawning, he pushed himself up and pulled on his shorts, then padded out of the bedroom, rubbing at his eyes. The rest of the cabin was empty but as he was turning back down the hall, he saw a sliver of moonlight coming in through the partially open front door. Opening it fully, he found Jones sitting outside on the front porch with an open bottle of beer beside him, in easy reach of his hand.
“Jones?” Andraeon slipped out and sat down on the wood beside him, leaning his shoulder gently against Jones’s. “You okay?”
“I’m fine.” Jones put an arm around him. “I couldn’t sleep.”
“Are you drinking?” Andraeon asked hesitantly, running his fingers across the jagged pink scars that encircled Jones’s wrist and extended up nearly to his shoulder.
“No. I really want to though.” Jones picked up the beer bottle and swished the liquid around. “It’s just here so I can prove to myself that I can resist.”
“I think it’s a bad idea.” Andraeon took the bottle from his hand and poured the beer out onto the dirt in front of the porch. “Why make it any harder on yourself?” He studied Jones’s profile in the moonlight but Jones’s face was shadowed and he only shrugged. “Are you worried about tomorrow?”
Jones took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Yes. I’m afraid I’ll get so close, only to have Emily snatched away from me again.”
“It won’t happen.” Andraeon turned Jones’s face towards him. “I’m not going to let it happen so stop thinking like that.”
Jones studied him, eyes wide and uncertain; in the darkness he looked so much younger, as though the night had stripped time away from him and turned him back into a child. Then the corner of his mouth curved up in a crooked grin. “Isn’t that usually my line?”
“Maybe. It’s true though. We’re going and we’re getting Emily and if anything tries to get in our way, I’ll destroy it.”
“And you can, can’t you,” Jones said softly, his smile fading.
“It’s a good thing, Jones. Isn’t it?” Andraeon searched his face, trying to understand what he’d said wrong. “I can help you, support you, instead of you worrying about me when you should be concentrating on getting your daughter out.”
“All you’re doing is making me worry more. Now I have to worry about you hurting yourself trying to do too much, or whether you’re going to hurt me instead.” Jones pulled away from him. “You got too strong too fast, and I don’t think you have nearly enough control. Not as much as you think you do.”
“I’m learning it. Shiki’s teaching me.” Andraeon struggled to keep his voice calm but the hurt bled through. “I’ve never meant to hurt you, you know that.”
“That’s not the point, Andraeon. You don’t think, you just do. You’re still untrained and it worries me, okay? I feel like I need to watch you constantly to make sure you don’t get into trouble.”
“You want me to stay here, don’t you?”
Jones was silent for a moment, looking out at the moon silvering the treetops, then he nodded. “Yes. I want you to stay here where it’s safe.”
“You said that last time,” Andraeon snapped, feeling anger settle over him like an old coat. “It really worked out great that time, didn’t it? You promised you wouldn’t do this to me again. ‘You can come with me for as long as you want to,’ that’s what you said.”
“I’m not leaving you forever, Drae. I just want you to stay here when I go with Shiki to get Emily back, so that I can concentrate just on that. So I can bring my daughter safely home.”
“And then what? You leave me behind every time you have to go do something, in case I distract you? I’m not your pet, to sit pretty and entertain you when you feel like it, then shoved in a kennel when you have more important things to do. If that’s all you’re going to do then you might as well have just left me in that cage because you’re no better than The Collector is.” Andraeon took a deep breath, trying to ease some of the rage tightening his chest and throat.
“Are you done?” Jones asked, his voice cold.
“No, I’m not done. I won’t be done until you stop treating me like a child and using the same tired excuse that it’s all done for my safety.”
“I can’t trust that you won’t lose control and hurt Emily, and I don’t want to take the risk.” Jones shoved himself to his feet in one quick, angry motion. “Happy?”
“No,” Andraeon said miserably, all the anger vanishing as quickly as it had come. “I only wanted to help.”
He looked up at Jones, who stood with one foot on the top of the porch and one foot on the steps leading down, his face hidden in shadows. It was impossible to read him in the dark but Andraeon sensed it could go either way; Jones could sit down again or he could walk away. If he walked Andraeon knew that it would be over, this fragile thing they had been trying to build together, no matter how civil they were to each other afterwards. If he walked.
“Drae,” Jones said finally, after what felt like an eternity; his voice was very quiet and Andraeon had to strain to hear him. “I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve any of that.”
“But it’s true, isn’t it? You don’t trust me.”
Jones looked towards the trees and Andraeon felt his heart sink as he waited for Jones to take that second step off the porch. Then Jones looked back and brought his foot up so he was standing fully on the porch’s wooden boards again. “I trust you, Drae. I don’t trust what you can do. I know it doesn’t seem like a big difference but it’s there. You just scare me sometimes.”
“I won’t use it. I’ll just be there as backup, with a... a knife or something. Or a gun, I can probably shoot. Just show me how.”
Jones laughed a little. “I’ll show you one day, but not now.”
“So you still don’t want me coming.”
“Don’t push, Drae.” Jones sighed, kneeling down beside him. “I’ll discuss it with Shiki. With him there... it might be okay.”
“I just want you to understand why I want to help.”
“Because you’re not an asshole?”
“Because this is so important to you. Because she’s your daughter, a piece of you. So that makes her important to me. Please just let me help.”
He waited for Jones to say something in response, swallowing against the sudden nervous dry sensation in his throat when Jones just studied him, features unreadable. Then he reached out and cupped Andraeon’s face in both hands, leaning in so their foreheads touched. Andraeon shivered a little, closing his eyes, and felt his muscles slowly begin to relax.
“Let’s go back to bed,” Jones said finally. He sat back then pushed himself to his feet, offering a hand to help Andraeon up and keeping hold of him as they headed back inside. Settling back into bed beside him, Andraeon realized just how exhausted he was, and barely had time to get comfortable before sleep batted him away.
Shiki woke them before dawn, dragging Andraeon out of deep, dark dreams that tattered away into cobwebs as he got up but still left him feeling uneasy. He pulled his clothes on and followed Jones out into the kitchen, where he warmed up the breakfast Shiki had brought over and tried not to be too obvious about listening to Shiki and Jones discuss if he should be allowed to come. When he set the plates down in front of them, Shiki gestured for him to take a seat as well and studied him carefully.
“I think you’ll be fine coming with us, and even an asset, but I understand why Jones is concerned. I don’t know exactly what we’ll be going into but I want to do it fast and get out before anyone even knows we’re there. Tell me honestly if you can handle that.”
Andraeon started to tell him that of course he could handle it, then stopped and really thought about it. “Jones is right that I’m still pretty much untrained,” he said slowly, picking his words with care, “but you’ve taught me some and if nothing else, I’m an extra pair of eyes. And I want to do it. It’s important.”
Shiki looked over at Jones, who was pushing his breakfast around on his plate with his fork. “Good enough?”
Jones glanced up then looked at Andraeon for a long moment. “Yeah. Good enough.” He pushed himself to his feet. “Let’s go.”
Andraeon obediently scrambled up, feeling a thrill of excitement mixed with fear in his belly. He took Jones’s hand and waited while Shiki checked something he’d written down on a piece of paper. Shiki nodded to them and opened a gate, leading the way through first. Squeezing Jones’s hand, Andraeon followed.
He knew it was a mistake as soon as he stepped through and found himself standing on the blacktop parking lot outside a familiar white building. He stared at it with wide eyes, feeling a sudden wave of dizziness, and didn’t move even when Jones started to follow Shiki towards the back door. Their joined hands pulled Jones back and he stopped to look at Andraeon, one eyebrow raised in question.
“I can’t—I don’t—no, I can’t.” Andraeon shook his head, breathing in fearful, hard gasps. “Don’t make me go back in there.”
Jones’s questioning look turned into alarm and he half-turned away to hiss Shiki’s name. Shiki looked back, confusion plain on his face, then came back towards them. “I don’t know what’s wrong with him,” Jones told him, voice rough with worry. “He says he won’t go back in.”
“You’ve been here before, Drae?” Shiki stroked Andraeon’s hair back. “When?”
“I lived here. They took my blood and used it for some experiment. Military.”
Shiki glanced over his shoulder, expression thoughtful, then looked back. “I’m sorry, I need to do this. We don’t have time to take you back and we don’t have time to work through your fear. Hold still.”
He laid a warm hand on Andraeon’s neck, just below his jaw. Almost immediately Andraeon felt the fear begin to fade until it was only a distant emotion; there but not affecting him, as though it were locked behind a glass wall. He took a deep breath, feeling as though time had slowed down, and when he let it out again the building meant nothing to him. His death-grip on Jones’s hand relaxed and he even started to wonder just what had made him so panicky and afraid; it was only a building, after all, as impersonal as any building he might pass in the street.
“Good,” Shiki said softly. “Hold onto that feeling. Follow me.” He started towards the back door again and Andraeon followed willingly, tugging Jones along with him.
Shiki did something to the codebox beside the door and the door swung open silently, allowing them inside to an empty hallway lit only by emergency lights. This early in the morning, when the sun was only just peeking up above the horizon, no one was there except the skeleton crew of guards. Andraeon knew—though the knowledge was dim and distant—that their biggest danger was being seen by the guards watching the security cameras, or accidentally setting off the alarms.
“I’m blocking the alarms,” Shiki said, almost as though he’d read Andraeon’s mind. “They’re not registering us as people, and neither are the cameras. That doesn’t mean the guards won’t realize we’re here, so keep an eye out. And Jones?” Shiki glanced back over his shoulder. “We don’t shoot first, ask questions later. Like I said, I want to get Emily out before anyone even knows we’re here, and I don’t want anyone dead if we can help it.”
“Noted,” Jones said, looking around warily. “Which way?”
“Down here.” Shiki turned down one of the endless hallways and despite the glass wall separating him from fear, Andraeon still felt uneasiness at the sheer familiarity of their surroundings. For just an instant he wasn’t walking beside Jones; he was walking beside the stranger with the mismatched eyes (and he realized suddenly that part of his wariness around Shasta was because of their similar eye colours) and heading back to his own white cell. When Shiki stopped in front of a plain door at the end of the hall, he started to feel a little dizzy again, no longer entirely sure of where he was—or when he was.
Shiki fiddled with the ever-present codebox, frowning a little when the door didn’t immediately open. He placed a hand on either side of it and concentrated, and a moment later the door clicked open. Jones moved past him, releasing Andraeon’s hand, and went into the room before Shiki could tell him to wait. Without hesitation Andraeon followed him, brushing past Shiki.
It made his heart hurt to see the little girl curled up asleep on a white bed too big for her skinny frame. She didn’t wake even when Jones knelt by the bed and gently touched her shoulder, and only stirred enough to wrap her arms around his neck and turn her pale, narrow face in towards his shirt when he scooped her up. He cradled her to his chest and headed for the door, his face so still Andraeon wasn’t sure if he was afraid for him, or of him.
Jones stepped across the threshold of the room and Andraeon found himself on his knees with no idea of how he got there. An alarm blared inside his head, so loud he felt as though the room were vibrating around him. He saw Shiki down on his knees as well, both hands pressed against his ears and his face twisted in pain, but Jones kept walking as though he heard nothing. Andraeon tried to call out to him but his voice was locked away inside him, and the alarm was so loud he could barely think.
Something made Jones stop and look back; his eyes widened as he saw them on their knees. He hesitated, looking down at the sleeping girl in his arms, then started back. Before he’d taken more than a few steps, he stopped again, looking around warily and tilting his head as though listening. Beneath the alarm shrieking in his head, Andraeon caught the sound of a faint whisper, a cajoling and convincing voice that urged Jones to take his daughter and leave.
Andraeon saw Jones waver and struggled to call out to him and drown out the voice commanding him to leave. The alarm pounded in his head, pounded so hard he felt like his head would explode. The effort of trying to get through it to call out to Jones made his nose start to bleed, but his voice remained trapped in his throat. Eyes wide and blank, Jones turned his back on them and walked away.
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