Will shut the bedroom door with a sigh. The noise from downstairs faded into the background and the stench of cigarette smoke and beer no longer overwhelmed his senses. He crossed unsteadily to the bed, a neatly made double and hesitated for a moment before pulling off his sweater and laying it over the clean cream covers before he sat. He still had a shred of decency despite his less than sober condition.
His Pa was gonna kill him for sure this time. Diego had only gone and burnt a finger sized hole in his jeans when the tip of his badly rolled joint had caved. After one too many cups Will was wasted and hadn't even noticed till a white hot pain lanced through his thigh. Then there'd been much cussing and yelling and a cup of flat beer poured over his leg. Now it just looked like he'd pissed himself, smelled like it too, and Will was done, pushing his way up the stairs to the rooms above. He was kinda proud of the fact he could still pick a lock drunk and half stoned, but right now all he wanted was some time alone, and a quiet bathroom to puke in if needed and No. More. Beer.
Not ever.
He flopped back onto the mattress with a groan.
Only to shoot back up seconds later at a crash and a volley of expletives from the room next door. At least he assumed that's what they were, they sounded pretty brutal anyway.
"Gottverdammt! Felix, du verdreht Arschficker!" a sharp male voice spat out.
What the hell?
"Lutsch mein' Schwanz Wolfgang!," a second, higher voice snapped back at him, also male, probably this Felix dude.
Whatever they were saying, it didn't sound good.
Will sat frozen in place. Should he stay and just hope they didn't find him here, or should he go, slip out as quietly as possible, prise Diego apart from whichever face he was currently sucking on and get the hell out of there before he got his ass handed to him. Because whatever those guys were doing, Will knew for sure they shouldn't have been doing it in the whiter than marshmallow fluff Linda Cutter's parents bedroom. Besides, that Wolfgang dude sounded pissed, either that or German was just a really angry language, probably both.
Two steps away from the bed and the door to his right flew open, banging off the wall and leaving a deep oblong gouge in the flawless plaster-work. A body tumbled out onto the carpet, his curses muffled by a second boy diving onto his back as he scrambled away, or rather tried to. The boy on top was his age, short blond hair and the shadow of a two day stubble on his face, he grabbed a fistful of black fleece sweater in one hand and a handful of greasy brown curls in the other. The kid beneath him squealed, in English this time with a strong German accent.
"That fucking hurts you asshole, let go!"
'Wolfgang', Will presumed, pouted and grimaced, pinning Felix in place, leaning his weight down fully and forcing his friends face into the thick blue pile of the carpet making him splutter.
"Idiot! One job I give you, just one - find out if it's a combi. Now I can't do shit."
With the barrier of the bed between Will and them, neither had noticed him yet, or so he hoped. He slowly inched his way backwards to the door onto the landing, wincing when a floorboard creaked beneath his feet.
The blond head snapped round, pale blue eyes glinting in the dark. He huffed, tightening his grip in the other boys hair while he took in every inch of Will's wide-eyed frozen face.
Shit. Will held his breath, though fuck knows why since he was busted. It made his head pound even more and a cold clammy sweat broke out across his upper lip, a rush of saliva flooded his mouth and his stomach lurched alarmingly.
"Bathrooms that way" the boy said with a jerk of his head to the left, in a startling display of prescience, "Better hurry up before you make a mess," he smirked, completely unmoved by Will's presence.
Not trusting himself to form a coherent sentence, or even to mumble a thank you, Will stumbled past into the ensuite, snapping the door shut behind him. He leant with his back against the wood panting slightly.
His instincts kicked in and it all became sickeningly clear.
Dark clothes, intimate knowledge of the layout of a house that wasn't theirs, fighting in a walk-in closet about jobs and combi's and not being able to do stuff, the only sober guys at a high school seniors house party.
And gloves, they'd both been wearing gloves and it was twenty-six degrees out. Will was half terrified, half fascinated. Two kids his age, tooled up like pro's cracking safe's in suburban bedrooms for kicks, cause surely no one would be dumb enough to keep anything of real value in some crappy metal box at home.
Will sighed. Of course they would. People were exactly that stupid, his Pa bitched and moaned about it every single night over dinner. Hell, only this morning he'd chewed Will's ear right off about a spate of jewellery thefts in the area this month and the people dumb enough to think a pin and tumbler from Costco was enough to deter the fucking asshole with a decent set of lock picks.
Or two assholes, right on the other side of this door and in the middle of a pretty heated argument.
What the hell was he supposed to do?
Well for a start, not hide in the bathroom like a goddamn coward.
Will took a deep breath and groped for the handle at his back, listening intently to the scuffle going on beyond the door. The wave of sickness had passed now, giving way to a pounding of adrenaline in his veins as he pictured those ice cold eyes again and imagined them fixed upon his own blue-grey. His pulse thudded faster at the thought of it and his stomach clenched again, but this time with something decidedly different at it's root.
Fear? Anticipation? Excitement?
He spun on his heel, tugging the door inwards and burst out into the unlit room before he had a chance to really question his actions. The deep blue carpet, almost black in the absence of light lay perfect and unmarked, free of the struggling, cursing teenage boys which seconds before he'd heard only too clearly. Confused he stepped out fully. Where the hell were they? He dropped to his knees, feeling like a fool and bent his head down until his hair brushed the carpet, sweeping underneath the bed-frame to the heavy chest of drawers on the other side. Nothing, not a single sign.
In a moment of clarity he crossed to the walk-in, not even trying to be careful now. The inside was pristine, neat rows of shirts and jackets, trousers folded carefully on one side, blouses skirts and casuals on the other. Shoes lined up in regimented rows along the bottom shelf and perfectly stacked boxes with clearly printed labels lined up in the over-head. Family photo's '79 to 2000; School reports: Danny and Mike; Eleanor. And there in the middle the dull metallic sheen of an electronic safe, the digital display on the front blinking at him benignly.
He felt almost...disappointed, as if it had all been a dream. Until a dark patch of something caught his eye and he bent down, his hand making contact with a piece of soft black material. He turned it over in his hands, hunkered down on the floor in a patch of moonlight which had chosen that moment to lance through the window. A hat, like the type you see bad guys wear on tv, with a few short blond strands of hair clinging between the fibres.
He was real then, angry German boy, the midnight cat-burglar with the cool eyes and the knowing smile.
Will grinned and shook his head, then stuffed the hat in his pocket and slipped back out into the sticky, smoky heat and the thumping wall of sound.