Archive of Our Own ^beta

some get dealt simple hands
some walk the common paths, all nice and worn
but all folks are damaged goods
it ain't a talk of "if," just one of "when" and "how"
so, collect your scars and wear 'em well
your blood's a good an ink as any

radical face;

--

'attraction';
a strategy in chess: the sacrifice of minor or major pieces to expose the enemy king.

--

01. then;

The boy with the scar leans against the metal bed frame, all elbows and livid bruises like splashes of ink.

"I got it from my father," he says.

Carl looks up from his book. He sits cross-legged on the bed, reading by the dim light of a single naked light bulb that dangles from the ceiling. Outside, raindrops are beating angrily against the windows in the darkness. There’a a hollow wind howling in the empty hallways: A haunted house.

"What do you mean?"

Carl carefully marks his page and puts his book down.

Carl has needed new glasses for months now and his head aches whenever he tries to focus on the pages. Still, if he has to choose between spending time in a boys’ home in Brooklyn with a headache and imagining himself on a Nantucket whaleship, it's not really a contest.

"The scar."

The boy with the scar raises his hand to indicate the side of his face. There’s a single deep cut that curves all the way over his cheekbone. The edges are clean, like from a really sharp knife, but there isn't one deep gash where the knife hit and a lighter cut where it slipped off - that happens when you get cut by accident. It would also go down in a straight line instead of an arc, Carl thinks. This kind of injury is methodical, purposeful.

Like somebody took their time with it.

Carl feels anger rising up in his chest on behalf of this strange kid he barely knows. He looks at the boy's face and reads his entire story there: He can tell from the way the boy with the scar holds himself that he knows how to turn his body to make a beating hurt less, which way to fall so you don't break any bones.

"Everybody wants to know about my scar," the boy with the scar says, grinning, like it's a prize he's won.

The boy with the scar is a newcomer, one of the boys who is brought in by child services, half-starved and beaten, or gets transferred from juvie with bleeding lines of ink cut into their skin in amateur tattoos. If they're lucky, they don’t lose any teeth in the first week and get to keep some of their stuff.

Carl has learned the hard way to keep his head down. Don't talk back, don't cause trouble, cast your eyes to the ground. He is no match for the physical strength of the older boys, so he has learned to be invisible.

He has a talent for acquiring banned things, or those that the home doesn't provide. He can get you cigarettes, magazines, candy bars from the shop down the road that he smuggles inside and trades for favors, books, extra food. (Mostly favors, though. Having somebody owe you one is, in his mind, much more valuable than anything else.)

He's useful, so the bullies usually leave him alone. If sometimes a particularly violent bully gets expelled for possession of weapons or drugs that he swears he's never seen before in his life, well, that's what they all say, isn't it? And even if they suspected manipulation, they certainly wouldn't think of a kid like him - a nice one. Gentle. Quiet.

Carl takes a closer look at the boy in front of him. There’s bravado, a challenge in his eyes and a set of freshly bruised knuckles to go with it. Ah. Either he got in trouble during his last week in juvie, or he decided that he wouldn’t hold his head down and avoid the worst - he looks like somebody punched him square in the jaw.

There's been rumors about this kid, too: That he spent time in juvie for killing his old man with a steak knife, for once. You wouldn't think he had it in him, just from seeing him, but then again you wouldn't think that a shy, bookish kid like Carl could be a threat to anybody, either. Carl finds that the adults in this place rarely appreciate irony.

"It's pretty visible," Carl says, shrugging. "I'm more interested in the kind of things that lie beneath the surface."

Carl remembers the kid's first day, when one of the older boys offered him a cigarette. The boy with the scar took it, lit up with ease, and then proceeded to nearly cough his lungs out. Carl appreciates courage, but with this boy he can't tell how much of it is bravery and how much of it comes down to ordinary stupidity.

"What are you reading?"

Carl picks up the book and turns it around so that he can read the title.

"What's it about?"

"You've never heard of Moby Dick?" Carl asks, curious despite himself.

The boy with the scar just shrugs and sits down next to him on the thin mattress. Carl scoots a little to the side, making room and putting space between them at the same time. Up close, he doesn’t look that self-assured anymore - in fact, he looks a lot like all of them: A bunch of scared, lonely, screwed-up kids.

The rain is rattling the window frames, cold air coming in through the cracks in every wall. The boy with the scar shivers in his T-shirt, his arms crossed in front of his chest.

"I'm Anthony," he says, and Carl thinks of Mark Antony, of the Roman Empire, of wars and soldiers and the blood on the steps of the portico.

They sit in silence for a moment, watching the water wash down in thick rivulets against the glass, the electrical light humming softly. There’s a kind of static electricity in the air, like there might be a thunderstorm.

"Did it hurt?" Carl finally asks.

He doesn't specify what he wants to know: Did it hurt when you got the scar? Did it hurt to kill your father? Did it hurt to lose your home?

"I've seen worse," Anthony says.

Well. Carl doesn't have to ask what that means.

"My name is Carl," he says, and even though he doesn't offer Anthony his hand to shake, he leans down and drags his suitcase out from under the bed.

There's not really much in there, mostly ratty clothes that are too big on him, a few dog-eared paperbacks and a wooden chess set- the kind of stuff that nobody would bother to steal.

There’s also a photo of his mother hidden behind the lining. She looks bashful, one hand raised to tuck her hair behind her ear, like she was caught by surprise when the picture was taken. There’s waryness in her face, but kindness, too: It’s in the set of her mouth, the expression in her eyes.

Carl never takes it out to look at it. He sees her face every night in his sleep, anyway.

Carl finds a mud-colored sweater he got in exchange for two packs of cigarettes.

“Look. If you get pneumonia, you’ll have to stay upstairs in the infirmary and meet nurse Lydia, and the first week is bad enough as it is,” Carl says.

“What’s so bad about her?”

“Three words: Cod liver oil,” Carl says with a theatrical shudder.

He holds out the sweater to Anthony, whose face does something complicated in response: There's disbelief, then suspicion, then a moment later a look of pure joy. He pulls the sweater over his head. The sleeves are too short and the seams are ripping apart on one side, but he actually looks happy, like he has been given more than a hand-me-down piece of clothing.

"Thank you," he says, sounding so grateful that Carl has to look away.

“It’s nothing.”

Anthony gestures to the book.

"Would you mind reading it out loud?" he asks.

Anthony scratches the back of his head in a gesture that makes him look even younger.

"I'm not much of a reader, you know, but I love stories. You don't have to start over or anything, just- I dunno. It's probably a stupid thing to ask, isn't it?"

Carl swallows thickly. He isn’t used to being asked for things - random stuff, sure, like booze and cigarettes, but not the kind of things that it hurts to ask for.

"With a book like that, you really ought to start from the beginning," he says, and turns to the first page.

Anthony settles in next to him, his shoulder brushing Carl's. This time, Carl doesn't move away. Anthony is close enough that Carl can see the shapes the blood has formed under his skin, like a map of foreign islands, like a violent constellation.

"Call me Ishmael," Carl reads.

--

02. now;

"Anthony," Elias says, his voice so low it's barely above a whisper.

It's spoken softly enough that it could be a caress under different circumstances, an admission instead of an order.

"Anthony," Elias says and Anthony pulls the trigger precise like clockwork, curls the wires of a bomb around his fingers, fights off a man with his bare hands.

This is how it works:

Anthony checks the perimeter, keeps his guns clean, the safety unlocked at the barest hint of trouble. He likes the way his hand rests at the small of Elias’ back, not insistent, never to push, only to reassure himself that he is safe, right there next to him, where nobody can get to him.

Elias smiles and talks and cocks his head to the side, and Anthony can almost hear the toothwheels clicking , shifting with every word he hears, every smallest change in conversation. The friendly smile on his face is only serving to hide the teeth behind it - he does it well, the kindness, the gentle understanding, and it is all the more horrifying when the expression abruptly slides off his face. It’s like that moment when a sharp, sharp knife cuts you, except you don’t feel the pain yet - that comes later. All you see is the blood welling up from your skin, warm and red and deadly.

“Would you please take care of this for me, Anthony,” Elias says, and Anthony does, every time.

He has learned all the best ways to wash blood off his hands, get rid of that particular smell of plastic explosives, how to take a hit and keep walking, blood hot and sticky on his side, the wound beating like a pulse.

It may seem like cruelty to the rest of the world, but it’s a home.

This is true about Anthony:

He doesn't need to know the details, the scheme. He doesn't care about his role in the game as long as he gets to play. Maybe that’s courage or foolishness or being borderline suicidal, maybe that’s devotion. All he knows is that he doesn’t mind a bullet in his side that was meant for his boss. Anthony doesn’t know what that makes him, and he doesn’t particularly care. Just because you can give it a name, doesn’t mean you’re any closer to understanding it, in his opinion.

This is true about Elias:

He will sit down with Anthony and open an excellent bottle of wine and splay out his secrets in front of him, maps and documents and strategy. Anthony never asks for it, never asks for Elias’ hands on him, searching for injuries, but Elias does it, anyway.

And maybe Anthony isn’t supposed to like it so much - the smell of disinfectant and the pristine white gauze and the way Elias cleans even the smallest injury carefully, methodically. Maybe he’s not supposed to close his eyes, commit every touch to memory, even the sting of alcohol in an open wound a welcome sensation.

The thing is:

Anthony would follow Elias anyhow, leap blindly from a ledge, trusting that he can defy gravity, that his boss will have a plan to keep him from crashing into the abyss.

The thing is:

There is nothing that Elias wouldn't tell him if he asked for it. There’s nothing that he wouldn’t give him, either, but that’s an admission he’s not ready to make, not even to himself. He has always been ruthless in finding his own weaknesses and pressing down, and this, everything about this is as close to indulging as he’ll ever get.

There’s risk in the way Anthony looks up at him, his eyelids fluttering with every brush of his fingertips against bare skin, but for the first time, Elias ignores his calculations in favor of his instincts, the urge to make it better.

He lays out gauze and cotton swabs and band-aids and patches up Anthony as best as he’s able, rewarding devotion with care.

(This is tenderness, too.)

--

03. then;

Carl turns the knife around, extending one of the blades. It's a Swiss army knife, the blades sharp and shiny. It would have been way too expensive if they hadn't all contributed, sold some of their stuff, made bargains.

It's Billy's last week at the home, five days until he turns eighteen and can get the hell out of this place. He's been going on about getting a pocketknife ever since they've known him - when he was, quite literally, Billy the Kid, a thirteen year old mop of red hair who liked to play with fire. Burned down his foster family's home at Thanksgiving, nothing left of the place but ashes.

Carl likes Billy - he is a simple guy, good-natured, always getting involved when one of the younger boys gets a beating. Protecting those who can't protect themselves.
It wasn't his fault that his foster family was a couple who'd housed four children in the garage so they could live off the money that brought in. If anything, Billy probably did those kids a favor - apparently, some of them were brought to better places after the fire. Billy made sure nobody was at home at the time, not even the family’s vile cat that scratched up his arms when he carried her out.

"Wow, that's a really nice knife," Bruce says when he comes into the room, kicking off his sneakers and crouching down next to him.

Anthony is trailing behind him, carrying a tray with food for Carl, who was at the shop and missed lunch. It’s pretty miserable, as usual: Oatmeal, crackers and a carton of milk, but it’s still food.

Carl smiles at him over the rim of his glasses, and Anthony ducks his head, looking pleased.

“Bruce, maybe if you raise your voice a little more, the rest of the hallway can hear you, too? Especially the part about,“ he lowers his voice, “the illegal weapon I’m holding in my hands right now?”

Bruce pulls a face and mouths sorry at him, but Carl just shrugs it off. There's usually none of the supervisors in the corridors at this time of day, and they already did their weekly check of the rooms, so they should be fine.

"Billy will love this," Anthony says, grinning. "Won't stop talking about it for a week."

"Well, he'll have to find someone else's ear to chew off about that," Bruce says and they lapse into silence for a moment, all of them reminded of the occasion for the gift.

"Pretty great that you got that for him," Anthony says to Carl, who is opening the carton of crackers and handing one to Bruce and Anthony each.

Carl shrugs. "It's not a big deal."

Anthony laughs.

"For a kid like Billy? It's a real big deal."

Anthony has that look in his eyes that always makes Carl want to take him away from this place, to get him somewhere better, somewhere safe. He looks like he trusts nobody else's judgment more than Carl's. It's like Anthony is a planet that has always been in his orbit, steady and real.

He gets interrupted when Louigi, a kid whose face is mostly freckles, throws open their door to yell: "Random spot check!" before running away, and then the three of them are on their feet, grabbing anything that could get them into trouble and stuffing it into the nearest hidden compartment.

There’s a double-sided back wall in the closet, space behind the lining of a coat, a box behind the plastic cover of the airing vent - any place, really, that the supervisors will be too dumb to even think about.

They have trained for this like for a regular fire drill, and it's only after Carl slams the closet doors shut that he realizes with a sickening rush to his stomach that he's still holding the army knife tucked into the palm of his hand. The doorknob is turned from the outside, and before Carl can do anything else, Anthony takes the knife from him and kicks it under his own bed.

Carl stares at him, horrified, except Steve, one of the nastier supervisors, is already in the middle of the room, twirling his keychain and whistling through his teeth.

"Afternoon, boys," he says. "Let's see what you've got here."

"It's okay," Anthony whispers, squeezing Carl’s hand briefly. "It's okay."

When they take Anthony away to the room, Bruce has to hold Carl back by the shoulders so he doesn't get himself punished as well. It takes a moment for him to realize that Anthony is completely silent, letting himself be led away with a hand on his collar, and that the sound that echoes along the hall is in fact his own voice, shouting for his friend.

--

04; now;

It’s all about power, except for when it’s not. Elias sits in a dark basement and moves pawns and knights around on a chessboard against an invisible opponent.

Elias always turns the chessboard so that the white figures are facing him, the black king his own. He has learned that a realistic approach to reality will lead to a more favorable outcome, and he knows very well what he is. There is strength in being alone.

There’s no point in lying to himself about who he is and what he does - ignoring the implications of one’s actions is a blind spot at best and a weakness at worst.

Elias makes his moves, watches his steps, the calculations spinning in his head.
He has made his plans, decided on his strategy, but there are other things that command his attention, none of them having to with the Russians, with the Dons, with HR.

It’s about the way Anthony will smile at him over the rim of his wineglass, his palm warm and firm on his back, his shoulder. He is not a boy anymore, it doesn’t show on him the way it used to - he made sure to master his own expressions, to learn his tells. Indulgence is dangerous, it’s distracting, and any distraction can cost him a hard-won advantage. He didn’t make it this far to be unraveled by his own foolish desires.

He hears footsteps and the click of the door. Anthony is approaching him, making an effort to be as obvious about it as possible to give Elias time to gather his thoughts, to pull himself back into the present. Anthony has always been careful not to intrude, holding himself at the edges of Elias’ peripheral vision, watchful. It’s an underrated quality in a companion.

“Boss?”

He brought a bottle of wine and two glasses. Elias nods.

“Who’s winning?” Anthony asks, an amused sparkle in his eye.

Indulgence is dangerous, it’s distracting, Elias repeats to himself, but he still watches the way the muscles in Anthony’s throat work when he swallows, the way he delicately holds the stem of the wineglass in his hand: Hands that have fired bullets and twisted knives and handled explosives.

Elias moves his attention back to the chessboard, back to his next move. There is power in making a decision that is solely your own, that is simply the product of your own mind. You gotta be your own man, he hears in his head, one of those ghost-voices that sometimes talk to him in hushed whispers.

“We are all descended from kings,” Elias mumbles, moving a piece, his eyes still on the chessboard.

“Shakespeare?” Anthony asks.

Elias smiles at that, accepts a glass of wine.

“Gloria used to say that to me. She believed that one must make his own way in the world,” Elias offers.

The wine is lovely, dark and rich and heavy on his tongue.

“Smart woman,” Anthony says.

He leans back in his chair, stretching his shoulders, the hem of his shirt riding up over his belly. Elias draws his gaze away, back to the game in front of him.

“Something you’ve been thinking about, boss?”

Elias moves another piece, then he takes the white knight to place him sideways on the board: Another victory.

“Nothing of importance,” Elias says.

It’s all about power, except for when it’s not.

--

05 then;

When Anthony comes back, he has no visible injuries. This would be a good thing, except it probably only means that they knew how to hurt him in ways that wouldn't show.
Carl takes him back to their room, leading him by the arm, gripping his wrist hard enough to leave behind finger-shaped red marks like a bracelet.

“Are you alright?” Carl asks.

Anthony shrugs, but his attempt at a smile looks like a halfhearted imitation at best.

“Fine, I’m--, I’m good,” he says.

Carl steps forward and then stops himself, letting Anthony set the distance between them.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” he says. Words are his friends, his weapons. “It was my own foolish idea to bring a knife into the house, I should have been the one to get punished for it.”

Anthony just looks at him like Carl is the one who doesn’t understand.

“It’s nothing,” Anthony says.

He’s tugging nervously at his shirt, one that he has grown out of for ages, the fabric worn thin. Carl can see a strip of skin exposed where the fabric doesn’t quite cover Anthony’s hip, his skin a single dark bruise of black and purple.

“Anthony,” he says, and his voice sounds hoarse.

His throat is aching. His chest is aching.

“I didn’t want you to get hurt,” Anthony says, and it’s so brutally honest that Carl feels like somebody punched him right in the gut.

This close, Carl can tell that Anthony is shaking almost imperceptibly, his hands clenched painfully into fists at his sides, like he’s trying to get himself under control.

Carl knows this one, too: Don’t show any weakness, don’t let them see that you’re in pain. Except in this case, he doubts that Anthony is pulling himself together for the sake of appearances - he is afraid that showing how much he is hurting will make his friend think less of him.

“I’m sorry,” Carl says.

Anthony frowns at him.

“You’ve never said that before,” he says, small and careful, and Carl wants to find the adults responsible and make them miserable for making Anthony sound that way, scared and shaky and damaged.

“What’s done is done,” Carl says. “There’s no point in apologizing for that. But that’s not what I mean when - I am sorry, Anthony. I’m sorry that it wasn’t me.”

“That was the whole point,” Anthony says, and now he doesn’t sound hurt as much as frustrated, like Carl isn’t listening.

Carl thinks about the way he just followed Steve down the hall, pliant and agreeable, not even looking back, accepting an unjust punishment without flinching. Maybe Carl barely has a memory of how it felt when he was loved by somebody, but that doesn’t mean that he can’t recognize it when it’s staring him right in the face.

For the first time, Carl doesn’t have any words at all, so he just bites back his own fear and pulls Anthony close. Anthony’s hands come up to his back, gripping the fabric of his sweater, his face buried against Carl’s shoulder.

Carl can tell by the wetness against his throat and the collar of his shirt that Anthony is crying. He strokes circles into Anthony’s back with the palm of his hands, clockwise and counter-clockwise, nonsense patterns and numbers. The entire time, Anthony doesn’t make a single sound.

--

06. now;

"Tell me no," Elias says, and his hands are unsteady where they are gripping Anthony's arms through his leather jacket.

They are standing in the hallway, barely out of their coats, and it was close, too damn close this time.

Elias still has high-definition footage of Anthony throwing himself in the line of fire for him running in his head like a movie, and it isn’t just that:

It isn’t just the fact that every move could be their last one. They knew that going in, it comes with the territory.

What makes Elias shake with barely suppressed, white-hot rage is the way Anthony did it without hesitating, almost happily. Like Anthony’s life wasn’t worth a thing compared to his own.

Elias barely made it home before he pushed Anthony with his back against the closed door and kissed him, gripping his shoulders hard and sure.

The thing is:

It wasn’t supposed to go like this, he wasn’t supposed to feel that way. He wasn’t supposed to need anybody so much.

“Boss,” Anthony says, low and intimate, and there is still broken glass in his hair and the smell of gunpowder all over him. “I’m protecting you, boss. That’s what I do.”

Elias makes a frustrated noise at that, because he knows, he knows he knows he knows, he just can’t let it be true, not when -

Anthony is still looking at him, raw and open and honest. They haven't been this close since they were young, still two boys who thought they could be men. But that was before Carl became Elias, before Anthony started calling him 'boss', before they clawed their way out of their own darkness.

“There are things that I want that I cannot have,” Elias manages, his throat burning with it. “So you need to -“

He swallows. You need to be stronger than me. Their faces are so close together that they breathe the same air.

“You need to tell me no,” he says, as close to pleading as he’ll get.

"Why would I ever do that?" Anthony asks, sounding genuinely confused.

Elias feels something sharp and painful constrict in his chest, like pressing a knife to an old wound.

"If we continue on this path, we will both end up dead, my friend," Elias says.

Anthony hooks his foot behind Elias’ ankle and flips them, the bastard, so that it’s Elias’ turn to be with his back against the wall. Anthony pushes forward with his hip, keeping him still, and Elias draws in a sharp breath.

Anthony’s grin is all teeth.

Still, Elias’ hands on his arms are clenching and unclenching, like he is trying to talk himself out of this, like he's afraid to take what he wants. Like Anthony hasn't always been his.

"Think we better enjoy it while we can, then," Anthony says, bravado over fear.

In the next instant, Elias' mouth is on his, fierce and possessive. Anthony waits for a grip hard enough to bruise, but Elias' hands are gentle, cradling his shoulders and arms so tenderly that it nearly chokes him with gratitude. It makes Anthony feel like a drowning man who is finally allowed to come up for air, lungs burning sweetly with the first breath.

--

07; then

“A car,” Anthony says, piling up more towels on the rack in the corner.

“Like, a real nice one, with leather seats. A convertible, maybe.”

“You don’t even know how to drive,” Carl says, frowning at a hole in a thin pillowcase.

They are stuck on laundry room-duty for the week, which means spending ages confined to a stuffy, too hot chamber with loads of linen and towels, occasionally carrying baskets up and down four flights of stairs.

Bruce should be helping them, but he is conveniently sick with the flu. Outside, they can hear the rest of the boys shouting and running around on the patch of grass.

“Why do we even have those?” Anthony asks, folding a blanket into shape. “They’re about as thick as toilet paper.”

“And about as warm at night,” Carl says, pushing his glasses higher up the bridge of his nose.

He’s checking off items on the list they are supposed to complete, thoughtfully chewing on his pencil.

“Hey, what do you want?” Anthony asks, climbing down the stepladder.

“Hmm?”

Carl is still reading the list carefully, figuring out possible shortcuts. As soon as they’re done, they’re free to go outside. The supervisors think that doing chores will help ‘enhance their sense of responsibility’, which everybody knows is bullshit:
They just don’t want to do the damn laundry themselves.

As stupid as it is, Carl is eager to get it done so they can go out and sit outside in the sun together - him leaning against Anthony’s shoulder, a book on his lap, Anthony dozing in the shade of a tree. Sometimes the easiest way out is through, even though it irks him that he hasn’t found a way to think himself out of something as mind-numbing as laundry duty yet. But it’s nice, too - having Anthony to himself for the whole day, talking and teasing each other in the strange isolation of their walk-in closet, like living in a cocoon.

“When we get out of here, what do you want to get?”

Anthony is standing right in front of him now, giving him that curious smile of his. There are little white feathers on his shirt from the stuffing of the pillows.

Carl chuckles.

“Well, you already have the car, so - I guess the most important part is taken care of. We might need some money - to buy food? Maybe an apartment?”

“Or we could just live in the car,” Anthony offers, grinning.

“You cannot live in a car,” Carl says decisively, but there’s no heat behind it. For someone like Anthony, living in a car must be a dream - being on your own, driving wherever you want, nobody to confine you.

“Sure you can.”

Anthony lets himself sink down on the pile of clean laundry that’s waiting in a basket, motioning for Carl to sit down next to him. Carl sighs, put-upon, but gets comfortable next to Anthony anyway. He can see the way the muscles shift under Anthony’s shirt, and he quickly busies himself with a loose button on a blanket before his hands can start to sweat or a blush creeps onto his neck.

“I wanna travel the world. And, like, eat all the good stuff they cook everywhere, you know? Like, real pizza in Italy, and, I don’t know, a baguette in France?”

“You want to drive all the way to France to eat a baguette?” Carl asks, chuckling.

“I’m sure there’s other stuff to do in France as well,” Anthony says. “You’ll have to figure that out first, read a book on it, and then you can tell me everything. We can take turns driving, too.”

Carl smiles at that, pleased at the way he always shows up in all of Anthony’s future plans. Like it isn’t even a question that they will be there together, still.

The sun is shining through the window, making the dust dance in the air like lazy snow.

Carl watches his friend grow up more and more every day. Anthony looks handsome, a tall boy with dark hair and a mischievous smile, and Carl has been trying to ignore the way that makes him feel - like there is a swarm of bees trapped in his stomach, like being dizzy all the time.

“No, seriously, what do you wanna do when you get out?”

“I want to kill my father,” Carl says.

Anthony doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t try to touch Carl either, which is a good thing. It’s not that Carl doesn’t like people touching him, ever. Actually, the fact that he enjoys it a little too much when Anthony hugs him, stupidly happy about one of their pranks or something Carl brought along from the store, is kind of his problem.
But when he thinks about this - that day, the time after, it’s like he’s freezing inside, like being locked in a glass cage, and when somebody reaches in it just makes him flinch.
He doesn’t want to do that to Anthony - flinch away from him.

It’s like everything about that time is put away in this one box in his head, and every time he opens it, the darkness comes spilling out, drawing him back in. He wants to keep Anthony as far away from the darkness as possible, but he also doesn’t want to be alone in it.

“I still dream of her every night,” Carl says.

He doesn’t have to clarify that he’s talking about his mother, not when Anthony is woken up every other night by him screaming for her, drenched in sweat.

He never had to explain, not even on that first night, when Anthony wordlessly climbed into his bed and lay next to him, their hands barely touching between their bodies.
At first, Carl had turned his face to the side, trying to hide the tears on his face, the way his eyes got all red and puffy, and then Anthony said:

“When I was in juvie, I cried every night for about six months, so,” like that settled it.

Carl turned his face back, mostly to argue, but Anthony just smiled at him, that lopsided Anthony-smile.

“It’s okay,” Anthony said, brushing the back of Carl’s hand with his thumb.

“It’s okay.”

“We should probably get back to work,” Carl finally says, pulling himself back into the present. Anthony nods.

He takes it in stride, Carl’s sudden changes in mood, the way he will give nothing away and suddenly talk about something really important. It’s the kind of acceptance Carl never thought he could have in his life, except for how he does, and Carl wants - he wants -

He doesn’t realize what he’s doing until he’s gone halfway through with it, which is new: Carl has grabbed Anthony by the fabric of his shirt and pulled him back into the mess of laundry, surging up to kiss him.

There is the smallest moment of surprise, a tension in Anthony’s shoulders that suddenly vanishes, and then he just melts into the kiss. They both sink back into the soft fabric, Anthony ending up halfway on top of him. Carl threads his fingers through Anthony’s hair, running his nails lightly over his scalp and making him sigh, content. Anthony’s lips are soft on his, his mouth closed. His hands are ghosting over Carl’s shoulders, his chest, like he can’t decide where to start, like he wants everything all at once.
Suddenly, Anthony pulls back. For or a moment, there are a dozen scenarios running in Carl’s mind about what he probably did wrong, except Anthony turns his head to the side and sneezes loudly.

“Stupid feathers,” he says, and scrunches up his nose in a way that makes Carl kiss him again.

This is a moment you should remember, Carl thinks. This is when you’re happy. You should never forget that.

(He never does.)

--

08; now

"What do you want?" Elias asks, impatiently tugging Anthony's shirt all the way off so he can put his lips on his throat, kiss a line along his collarbone. They're tangled up in each other on top of the covers, half out of their clothes, panting for breath.

"Anything," Anthony says, tugging at Elias' shoulders to pull him even closer, to press their mouths together.

It's clumsy, with their belt buckles and zippers pressed between them, their teeth clicking together before they find the right angle. It's perfect.

"Just. Anything. Anything you want.”

Anthony is painfully hard in his slacks, his hips pushing up to gain any kind of friction. Even this feels amazing, bucking up into the solid warmth of Elias’ body, his hands roaming over every bit of exposed skin.

Elias nuzzles into his neck, his teeth grazing the tender skin over his jugular, and Anthony forgets to breathe for a second. Elias, with admirable attention to detail as ever, moves on to bite Anthony’s shoulder, and Anthony is suddenly worried that this will be over embarrassingly quick if Elias keeps it going like that.

Anthony uses his leverage to flip them over, using Elias’ distraction to shove a hand into his pants and palm him through his underwear.

Elias makes a low, needy sound in his throat, pushing into his grip. Anthony is nearly giddy at having been the one to drag that sound out of him, of shattering his perfect composure.

"Do you want me to go down on you?” Anthony asks, all breathless and eager. “Tell me, just - You can do whatever you want to me - You wanna fuck me?"

He doesn't care if he sounds desperate because he is, he can feel the tremor in his hands, the way his heart is throwing itself against his ribcage.

Elias blinks at him for a moment, probably at a loss how to form words, his eyelids fluttering with every movement of Anthony’s hand, his lips parted. Still, his brain must have some extra capacity left, because he manages to move sideways so that his thigh is pressed between Anthony's legs, and it's Anthony's turn to groan incoherently.

"Clothes. Off," Elias says against his lips. Anthony grins smugly at the lack of actual sentence in that command, but lets it slide, he’s not in any state for eloquent discussion either.

They part reluctantly so they can lose the rest of their clothes. Before the last piece of fabric hits the floor, Anthony is already pulling him back down, Elias weight back on top of him, pinning him. He cherishes the delicious slide of skin on skin, so turned on that he can't form a thought beyond 'now' and 'more'.

"On your stomach," Elias orders.

His voice is steady even though he is gratifyingly short of breath. Anthony complies and lets Elias guide his hands over his head to grip the headboard. Elias trails his fingers down Anthony's back, stroking all the way along his shoulders, his nails curling against the sensitive skin on his neck.

"You're gorgeous like this," he says into the skin between Anthony's shoulder blades, chasing a shiver all the way down his spine.

Elias roams around in the drawer and produces lube and condoms, and finds a pillow to slide under Anthony’s pelvis. He takes his sweet time preparing him, which is both considerate and frustrating as hell.

Anthony pushes his hips back impatiently, the skin on his stomach already slick with precome. He's pretty sure he's going to go blind if he doesn't come - that is, if the slow, methodical way he’s being stretched open doesn't drive him insane first.

"Please," Anthony says, hands letting go of the headboard and curling into the sheets instead, sweat pooling on his lower back.

He has bitten down on his own lip so hard he can taste the metallic tang of blood.

That apparently gets Elias' attention, because he withdraws his fingers and disappears out of Anthony's peripheral vision. There's the sound of a condom wrapper being torn open, and the next thing Anthony feels are Elias' palms on the small of his back. His thumbs are digging into the muscles there, wordlessly telling him to ease up.

"You're doing so well, Anthony," Elias says, and finally pushes into him past the tight ring of muscle.

It's not painful as much as not enough, so Anthony gets his arms under him to push himself up and back against Elias, wordlessly begging for more.

"Easy, we'll get there," Elias says, a gentle reprimand.

Anthony takes a moment to appreciate his restraint, even when all he wants is for Elias to give it up and fuck him already, he doesn't mind if it hurts.

This is something, his mind supplies, that he should file away for later: Elias' stubborn insistence on sparing him even the smallest amount of pain, even at the expense of his own pleasure.

Elias goes agonizingly slow, cataloguing every one of Anthony's reactions as if evaluating a chess board. Anthony shivers and curses, sweat stinging in his eyes.

Elias puts his hand over where Anthony’s right fist is clutching the sheets, and he lets it go to entangle their fingers instead, holding on.

“You’re so good Anthony, you’re doing so well,” Elias says, and fuck, Anthony could lose it just listening to that voice.

Elias shifts the angle, hitting Anthony’s prostrate just right.

"Please, boss," he groans, desperate for it, and maybe it’s that please that does it, because Elias reaches down, curls a hand around his cock to stroke him in time with each thrust, like he is unable to deny him what he asks for.

Anthony shudders all over, his hips pushing forward into Elias' grip, his knuckles white where he is grabbing fistfuls of fabric.

"It's okay, Anthony," Elias says, still in that gentle voice, "come for me," and that does it, he's coming white-hot and messy, the taste of blood still in his mouth.

--

09: then

“I want to go with you,” Anthony says, and his voice sounds terrible and strange to his own ears, barely like his own.

The celebration for Carl is still going on downstairs. There’s lemonade, a rare treat, and something resembling a cake that the boys have put together.

Carl takes his parting gift and puts it into his opened suitcase. It’s a paperback copy of ‘A Tale of Two Cities.’

“You don’t even know where I’m going,” Carl says.

Anthony shrugs.

“I don’t need to know,” Anthony says. “I don’t care. Look, it’s a foster home, right? If you tell me where this Gloria lives, I can find a place nearby, maybe get a job?”

Carl can’t look up, can’t look anywhere but the floor, the wall, the bed that he’ll never sleep in again. He wants to take Anthony with him, he wants to, but Anthony still has a shot at a good life - he can finish up his time at the home and then go and be something.

“If you run away, they’ll send the cops after you. They’ll find you, Anthony. And what kind of job do you think you can do? As far as they are concerned, you’re a still a kid with no legal guardian and no money. You didn’t go to school, you can’t-“

Carl shakes his head in frustration.

“Look, it’s not going to be long and then you can get out of this place. You can do whatever you want.”

Anthony swallows, the muscles in his throat working.

“Do you promise me that you’ll still be there? That you won’t go anywhere without me?”

Carl feels tears stinging in his eyes. He blinks rapidly, trying to clear his vision.

“Where would I even go without you?” he asks, except it doesn’t come out sarcastic at all, it sounds like he honestly can’t imagine.

Anthony manages a smile.

“So, how was she like when you met her? Gloria?”

Carl wipes his eyes.

“She was nice, I guess. She wore a lot of makeup. She’s working at a salon as a manicurist, she, uh - does other women’s nails and whatever else it is you can get done at a salon.”

Carl has taken the book back out from the suitcase, toying with it. At once, Anthony kneels down beside him, his palm covering Carl’s hand where it is holding the book.

“I know you think that you have to protect me, but I can take care of myself,” Anthony says.

He has started running in his spare time, doing climb-ups on the playground swing set behind the house. Anthony’s shoulders are broad and strong now, and there is something else that’s different about him, too:
He looks like the only thing he’s afraid of is Carl telling him no.

Carl gives him a smile, a real one, not the look I’m happy - one he gives the adults.

“You know how that first paragraph goes?” Carl asks, nodding at the book.

Anthony shakes his head.

Carl swallows, his mouth dry, and concentrates on the page.

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”

He looks up at Anthony.

“That’s you and me right there, don’t you think?” he asks, before continuing.

“We had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way.”

Anthony sits down next to him on the bed, like that very first time they met.

“You still have some time left until they come to pick you up, right? Would you - would you read to me?”

“Really? My last day in here and you want to hear me read to you?”

“Yeah. C’mon, boss,” he says, teasing, but there’s a desperate edge to it, too.

Carl nods.

“Sure, if that’s what you want.”

Anthony beams at him.

Carl puts his fingers to the page, searching his line.

“You deserve something good, Anthony,” he says, very quietly, but he is sure that Anthony understands every word.

Anthony holds out his hand, like he’s waiting for Carl to shake it.

“I have something good. I have you.”

Carl looks at him. He looks at all the roads and maps in his head, all the ways a game of chess can turn out, all the possibilities.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

Anthony has his hand still stretched out, waiting patiently, and Carl takes it.

--

10; now

“I want them to let you go first,” Elias says.

He can feel the way everything is slipping through his fingers, every carefully laid out plan useless in that one scenario he didn’t consider, the one he didn’t allow himself to think about.

“I don’t think that’s gonna happen,” Anthony says, but what Elias hears is:

It’s okay. It’s okay.

Elias bites back all the kinds of words that he isn’t allowed to say.

Please. Don’t make me do this. Don’t leave me. I love you.

Dominic grins above him. Elias doesn’t mind the way his knees ache on the floor, the unsettling feeling of having his hands bound behind his back - without protection, out in the open. Defenseless.

The truth is:

If Dominic offered right now to shoot him instead, release safety latch of the gun and hold it to his head, Elias would smile and nod and tell Anthony that it will be fine, he has done so well, he did everything right. It’s not a chess move, it’s not strategy and not The Art of War, it’s that feeling he had when he stood opposite that brave, stubborn boy who had just been hurt beyond measure to protect him.

The truth is:

There’s no way out but through, and he knows that all he can do is break himself worse than he ever thought he could be broken. He has to let Anthony go.
Elias closes his eyes. He knows what he is.

“Please, boss. I just want it to be done.”

It’s that please that nearly knocks the air out of him, but Elias has always been good at pushing the darkness back into its box, and he owes it to Anthony that the last thing he hears isn’t desperation, but kindness.

It’s not right, having Anthony die in this place that was so full of pain and misery, but then again, Elias knows that this is not what Anthony thinks about, anyway. He probably thinks about how the sunlight was golden that one afternoon, the smell of starch and warm fabric, and feathers sinking to the ground like snow.

“Okay, Anthony. That’s enough. You’ve gone far enough.”

(This is tenderness, too.)

--

Anthony can’t see through his left eye, and there’s blood pooling in his mouth, dribbling down his chin. The pain is sharp and real and it’s keeping him there, anchored in the moment. He knows this place and all its corners and nooks, all the hidden places. There are things etched into the wall that he has written, messages and words that he can’t remember.

He hears Elias’ voice over the phone and he wants to break something, torch the place, because he should never sound like this - defeated, desperate, with his voice so gentle it brings tears to Anthony’s eyes.

“Tell them to stop.”

This is not how it’s supposed to end.

“Hold up!” one of his guards calls, and Anthony takes a deep breath, because any second - any second now -

It’s not that he minds dying. He has made peace with this moment a long time ago.
In the end, it will always be worth it.

11; then

“So, what’s the plan, boss?”

Anthony leans against the wall in the same posture he had when Elias saw him for the first time, except now, he is wearing a leather jacket, a cocky grin and a caliber .45 Sig Sauer in a shoulder holster.

“The short version is: We win, they lose,” Elias says, a smile like a razorblade, hand squeezing Anthony’s shoulder briefly.

Anthony tries his best not to lean into that touch, not to appreciate it too much. The last time they kissed was at the boys’ home, on the day Carl left to move in with his foster mom. They stood in the darkness of the staircase, both of them holding onto each other as if for dear life. But the man next to him isn’t that boy.
It’s Elias, his new boss.

Anthony has started to think of him that way in his head, too. Carl was his roommate, the too-clever boy with the gentle eyes who could get you anything you wanted. The one who feel asleep next to him, still sobbing from a nightmare, his voice hoarse from screaming.
Elias is someone else entirely: A leader, a tactician, a criminal genius who one day will own an empire, ruling a kingdom.

You always have to sacrifice something, leave a part of yourself behind. That’s just the way the world works. That’s the whole point of that story, right? The one about Captain Ahab. Sometimes, you just gotta do what’s right for you, what you believe in, even if everybody thinks you’re insane. Even if you probably are.
Anthony, for his part, would rather be out there on the sea, getting into a terrible storm with the water blasting into his face and seeing that white whale, even if it means being dragged underwater. Even if that means drowning.
It’s so much better than staying at the shore, safe and bored and always wondering what your life could have been. Sometimes the thing you want most is the thing that kills you.
Doesn’t mean that it isn’t worth it, you know?

“Let’s get started, then,” Anthony says, his hand on the small of Elias’ back as they walk out of the door side by side, stepping out into the light.

Epilogue;

There is sunlight streaming through the blinds. It’s quiet, except for Elias’ footsteps on the wooden floor. Anthony finds that he must have slept through the morning again, but it’s hard to care with the feeling of the cool sheets on his skin, stretched out on his bed in the sunlight.

Elias carries a tray with a steaming bowl of soup and a bottle of water that he sets down on the bedside table.

"How are you feeling, Anthony?"

"I feel like somebody punched my lights out. More than once, too," Anthony says, wiggling his eyebrows.

One half of his face is pretty banged up, but he doesn't have a concussion, which is a plus, and the broken ribs only hurt when he's breathing, so.

Elias gives him an expression somewhere between exasperated and amused.

“That’s not a simile as much as a fact,” Elias admonishes him mildly.

"You made chicken soup from scratch?" Anthony asks, grinning. "That what you’ve been doing all morning?”

"Let's call it a creative break," Elias says, unperturbed, giving him a handful of pain meds and the water bottle. "Also, I will need your participation in planning, and you're in no state to help me."

Anthony swallows the pills and hands back the bottle.

“I will also have you know that a good broth takes time,” Elias adds, the corner of his mouth barely turning up.

"I think chicken soup is for when you have a cold," Anthony says, because he can't help it.

Anthony sits up, pulling back the covers to sit at the edge of the bed. He is wearing his undershirt and boxers, comfortably warm in the sun-drenched room. On his left side, the shirt has ridden up, exposing the tattoo that travels down from his ribcage, cursive handwriting like vines etched into his skin.

Elias looks at him with that intent gaze that he has, then he reaches out to follow the words with his fingertips.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

Anthony shivers at the touch, but distracts himself by balancing the tray on his knees.
The doctor’s orders about physical exertion of any kind were pretty clear, and in his experience, there’s no chance that he can convince Elias to ignore them. He even took notes, for god’s sake.

Today he seems preoccupied, though, his gaze lingering somewhere in the distance.

“What is it, boss?” Anthony asks.

"I have been thinking a lot about - the incident with Dominic,” Elias says.

That’s the only way he’ll ever talk about it - the incident, like he can manage to bottle up his own feelings if he only uses enough clever words.
It makes Anthony wish that they were still fifteen, that Elias would allow himself to be consoled the same way that Carl did: Huddling up against him in the darkness, his breath against Anthony’s neck, Anthony’s thumb moving in small circles on the back of his hand until his breathing evened out and he fell asleep.

“I was convinced that I was giving them the numbers that would kill you," Elias says.

He scrubs a hand over his face, rubbing his eyes behind his glasses. He looks worn, like he hasn’t slept at all, stubble growing on his chin. Even his shirt is wrinkled, which should have alerted Anthony sooner to the fact that something must be wrong. In his defense, painkillers apparently slow down his reaction time significantly.

You look like you got punched in the face instead of me, Anthony wants to say, but knows that he should keep his mouth shut. Elias will make his point, in his own time.

"I had no way of knowing if the men I had sent to retrieve you would be there in time - or if they even still were my men, for that matter."

He’s staring out of the window now, possibly going back to that place in his mind. Elias isn’t prone to wistfulness - what’s done is done. Except, obviously, in this particular case it isn’t.

"When I made the decision to give them the code, I did so to honor your wishes. I was, however, still hoping that the plan would fail. If the man Dominic sent to punch in the code hadn’t stopped in time…”

He closes his eyes, briefly, like that outcome is too terrible to imagine.

“It was an incredible stroke of luck that you escaped," Elias says, almost to himself.

"I'm a lucky guy," Anthony says.

Elias meets his gaze, startled out of his contemplation.

"Anthony, you are vital to my plans. And I dislike it very much when I cannot follow through on my plans, as you know."

"I know, boss," Anthony says.

He does. He knows this, and everything else that Elias never needs to put into words.

"You should get back to work. The city isn't going to take back itself,” Anthony says, gently, offering him an exit strategy.

Elias simply shrugs at that, certainly seeing his thinly-veiled attempt at being gracious. He produces a thick, dog-eared paperback, looking for his place.

"I think the world will do just fine without us for a day or two," he says.

Anthony beams, and that is the moment when a smile shows on Elias’ face, too - not the kind that is supposed to deceive or intimidate, but just an expression of fondness. Happiness, maybe, but that’s hard to tell.

"Eat your soup."

Anthony does as he's told, and Elias finds the first page and starts reading.

"Call me Ishmael."