The sound of someone breaking down the door.

All Thomas could see was smoke, and the heady scent of marijuana was almost overwhelming him. Jesus, it was warm, but it didn't smell like a house fire. He would know, after all, but that's why he left home. It had been months since then and he had no reason to start feeling guilty now. He knew it wasn't his fault, but all Thomas could see was smoke and he heard screaming — and Jesus, were there kids in there? — and the sound of someone breaking down the door.

His hands were hot. Too hot, like he'd been holding them over an open flame. Like his grip had slipped and he'd had to catch a pistol by its barrel too soon after firing it, running parallel to the sidewalk, just out of the streetlamps' reach. Like he was still brushing ashes out of his hair, out of his eyes, but it was bright like snow on the skyline and choking him like Pompeii. Inescapable, like the steady pound of his sneakers on packed earth and the sound of someone breaking down the door.

He knew it wasn't real, wasn't natural, because it's not like Thomas was a stranger to a little heat. His AC had been broken since before he'd even put a deposit down on the apartment, and he had been raised in Virginia, besides. New York summers weren't anything like what he'd been used to in the South. But Thomas was too hot, and it was all so familiar. He could almost swear he was back home, thirteen years old and playing basketball in a trailer park. A sweltering summer with humid heat, a cold glass of water pressed against his forehead, and he could hear his mama calling him to come back home and screaming kids and the sound of someone breaking down the door and —

The sound of someone breaking down the door?

Cops?

Thomas jerked himself out of bed, stumbling onto his feet and tripping over yesterday's discarded clothes that hadn't quite made it into a basket. The apartment was small enough that his head was still spinning by the time he made it to the door, hands snagging painfully on cornrows as he forgot, again, that he hadn't had his hair loose in nearly two weeks. The door was mercifully intact when he ripped it open mid-knock, recoiling to avoid the heavy hand responsible for his rude awakening.

The solid second of eye contact that ensued was excruciating in its silence, and Thomas was sure that his panicked expression wasn't exactly inviting. He rubbed his face in his hands and released a relieved curse as he slumped, "Jemmy."

James Madison seemed to straighten in his doorway, earning a bedraggled cringe for his efforts. He'd always been more than a head shorter than Thomas, even since they met in high school when he'd kicked the shit out of the kids who had been calling James a crack baby. And even since high school, his height hadn't mattered by a single iota. He'd always been the only one who could cow any number of Thomas' moods in an instant: the yen to his yang. It helped that James had been born with a glare that could match any disappointed mother's.

"Thomas," he seized this opportunity to level Thomas with a long and appraising look, "I don't suppose you realize it's, oh? One in the afternoon? A fine time for civilized people to be wide awake, wouldn't you say?" James analyzed his nails as he spoke, the absolute motherfucker. Thomas really had missed him when he'd left Virginia.

Thomas snorted, turning from the doorway as he made a beeline for the coffeemaker, "Jem-Jam, buddy, d'you need a ladder? 'Cause it's about time you got down off my back." He shot a cheeky grin over his shoulder in time to see James seat himself at the kitchen table with a distasteful glance at the severed top of a two-liter bottle. Well, no real excuses for what he'd been using that for. Thomas quickly busied himself with measuring out coffee grounds to avoid another round of Not Angry, Just Disappointed—The James Madison Edition.

"I asked you to stay in New York under the assumption you would work to better your circumstances, Thomas."

Thomas barely bit back the sigh clawing out of his throat. Unsuccessful avoidance, Major Thom. Engage emergency diversion tactics.

"Yeah? Well, you know what they say. You can take the kid out of the trap, dot dot dot," he sing-songed over his shoulder before flipping on the coffeemaker and turning to regard James seriously. Three minutes in Thomas' house and he looked eons older than he was, like the bulk of his friend's mistakes were a tangible mass saturating the air. Weighing him down, like Thomas always had. "You look like you are in desperate need of at least one pancake," he prescribed gravely. "No? Jem, you've always driven a hard bargain! Two pancakes, but that's my highest offer!"

Dead silence, and Thomas knew that James wanted nothing more than to press the issue.

He remembered the sound of James' voice—absolutely stricken, as if he was the one on the run—through the crackling signal of a burner cell phone when Thomas had begged him for a ride to New York. When everything had broken bad in Virginia and he'd had to wait in a Waffle House across the West Virginia border for nine hours while James drove down the east coast in the middle of the night on a Wednesday. James hadn't given a damn that he'd had to call work off for their impromptu road trip. That Thomas hadn't even found a free second to talk to him in almost half a year before he'd called. That, even as he picked him up, Thomas had still stunk like fire and sweat and guilt. James had done it all without a second thought. All for Thomas.

All for Thomas to pay him back by living in the projects and leaving a hand-rigged gravity bong on the kitchen table. As if he was proud of it. As if this was all he ever was, ever would be.

"Thomas, I have it on good authority that you have a ten-pound bag of pancake mix in your cupboard. Three pancakes or bust." Thomas' head snapped up with enough speed to give him whiplash, but in just enough time to see a fleeting smirk become cannibalized by James' trademark deadpan.

He couldn't have wiped the grin from his face if his life depended on it. A wildly successful near miss for Major Thom! Somewhere—deep in his heart, probably—Thomas knew he owed it to James to come clean. Lay all his cards on the table, and if James could stand to look at him after the dust settled, allow him to take the reins and lead Thomas down the straight and narrow. It would a battle for the ages. For once and for all, they would find out if you could take the trap out of the kid.

"Not today, Satan," Thomas muttered, and his feet were already moving. He whipped open the cabinet below the sink to display the industrial zip lock bag in question, its friendly Just Add Water! label glimmering under fluorescent lighting, "You know what? You're damned right I have a ten-pound bag of pancake mix! It was even—"

"On sale? For four dollars?" James affected a look of shock, clutching at his chest, "Why, Thomas, that's less than—"

"Less than fifty cent per pound, Jem, don't you dare make light of this!" Thomas dropped it on the table with a satisfying thump, grumbling to himself as he hunted for a mixing bowl, tucking a wooden spoon between his teeth to free up his hands, "Make m'nimum m'fuckin' wage. S'pos' t'be un'mpr'ssed by a steal li' tha'? Ge' real."

He heard James grunt behind him as he stood, moving to grab the bowl from Thomas' hands and the spoon from his mouth. He pulled a face as he wiped the saliva off on the pant leg of his slacks, earning a smug sneer from Thomas, before pouring a bit out of the formidable bag, "You only make minimum wage by choice, Thom. I know you went to college back home, and I'd be willing to bet that some of those credits would transfer over. You're more than smart enough, so don't even try that as an excuse. One more year for an associate degree, and you could kiss fast food goodbye forever."

Only James Madison could make mixing pancake batter come off as passive aggressive, and Thomas no longer had anything to do with his hands. He scuffed his bare feet against the cheap tile for a moment before thinking better of it as his foot hit suspiciously sticky patch. He needed to mop soon.

"James." The encrypted message was 'cut the shit,' and Thomas hoped that it came across loud and clear.

James looked up, his face deceptively blank, "Thom." The encrypted message was 'no,' and Thomas didn't have a right to be Not Angry, Just Disappointed, but damn it all if he wasn't, anyway. James never could stand to let a sleeping dog lie.

Thomas shuffled as gingerly as he could beside James to take the bowl, which was probably over-mixed at this point—James had no respect for the art of pancake-making—and began to heat a skillet over his dingy little oven. James' friendship was the only lifeline he had at this point, and he knew it. It was his own personal portal to a universe where people like him could have a little slice of the American Dream with pancake batter on sale and no blood on his hands, at least for a little bit. It was tenuous, at best: built on half-truths and blind faith and suppressed memories.

Fragile.

And James wanted him to take his boulder of baggage and drop it on top of the both of them.

Better to keep it vague and let him down easy. Thomas pushed a loose cornrow back over his shoulder before he began to pour batter into the skillet, "James, look, I love you. I'd do anything for you. Always been that way, and you," Thomas tried hard not to let his voice break, "Jesus, I know what you'd do for me. Things I did back home? They're ugly, Jem, but I'd do 'em twice over if you asked me to. And a whole lot'a that is 'cause I know you'd never ask, y'know? Half the shit I wouldn't blink twice at would make you lose your lunch, big guy, and I love you for it."

Thomas cleared his throat as he flipped a pancake, blinking hard against burning eyes, "But I don't think you get it, not really. I just don't think you could get it if you wanted to, which, hey, that's great! Means you ain't all fucked up. You're great and you—you're really doin' well for yourself up here in New York, huh? Made it out alive, like an honest-to-God rags to riches fairytale. You were always too good for li'l ass-backwards Virginia, Jemmy, and," he had to force the words, but maybe James needed to hear them, "And look, maybe once I was, too. Maybe—it was maybe when we graduated high school, huh? A full lifetime ago, when you got that scholarship to Princeton, and we promised we'd keep in touch. Said—we said we'd get our degrees and be roommates, livin' large like some rich Yankee bachelors up here, didn't we?" Thomas' throat burned. He could smell the fire, could hear the screaming, and there must have been smoke in his eyes making them blur. He pushed on, because he had to, "But, James, I ain't—I can't—I'm just not. M'not that kid anymore, and I—"

And then he was choking on words, on blood in his mouth, on smoke and tears and ashes thick like snowfall in his eyes that he couldn't blink away.

A hand on his shoulder—cool like ice water, and was that his mama calling for him?—herded him away from the oven. He moved as if he was in a dream, watching the on-goings of his life from an outside perspective.

"Thomas," James was close enough that Thomas could feel the low rumble of his voice, smooth and even against his side, and he leaned into it. It helped to clear his thoughts, if only a little, though not quite banishing the heady scent of fire from his mind. Even after he was successfully shepherded, the hand remained a steady presence grounding him as he swam against the current of memories long passed. "You're burning the pancake."

The words washed over him like a bucket of cold water, and Thomas could breathe again.

Smoke really was in the air, as opposed to his mind alone. He figured that was relieving and alarming in equal parts as his brain finally caught up with the proceedings. Glancing into the skillet over James' shoulder, and yes, he could see the charred remnants of his pancake glower up at him accusingly. He swiped a hand over his eyes, still stinging from their exposure to his accidental flambé, and it came back wet but not ashen.

Case closed. Sharing deep trauma was, indeed, for the birds. "I was searing it, Jem." Thomas was embarrassed to hear his voice crack and made a show of clearing his throat, "But, hey, if you can't appreciate a little culture then I guess that one's all mine."

Thomas felt a small squeeze on his shoulder, realizing belatedly that James had never moved his hand. In fact, he was all but using his shorter friend as a crutch for all that he was supporting him. No use fighting it now he supposed, burying his head in James' close-cropped curls with a groan.

"Let's start this over," James proposed, shifting below him to lean against the countertop.

Thomas let out a long-suffering sigh, briefly wondering how much willpower a person would need to spontaneously combust, before hopefully suggesting, "The pancakes?"

A gentle chuckle from below him, and at least his efforts weren't entirely worthless, "No, not the pancakes. Look, I knew you wouldn't want to go back to college, Thom. I was only—" James grunted before shifting again, sounding sheepish as he continued, "I was hoping to inspire a quid pro quo, of sorts. You aren't comfortable with pursuing higher education—and I understand that, honestly. I should never have suggested that the public service industry was lesser to any other form of employment, for that matter, but that's not what I'm trying to—" He paused to take a deep breath as his words became frenzied, enunciating carefully when he pressed forward, "I know I shouldn't have pushed you like that, and I apologize. But the fact remains that I worry about you, Thom, and I want to help if you're willing to listen."

Thomas felt caught under a spotlight, still reeling from the fact that somehow James thought he owed him any kind of apology after his little breakfast-making breakdown. He shook himself before speaking softly, wary of disturbing whatever delicate peace James was trying to construct, "James, you know I can't move in with you. You've done too much for me already, and I can't risk putting you in danger. If anything happened to you because of me, I—'

"—And I'm not asking you for that, Thom, please. I'm only asking that you keep an open mind to what I'm about to suggest."

This caught his attention. Thomas took his time righting himself, peering down at James suspiciously before fishing two mugs out of his cabinet. If it wasn't an invitation to move, then it was something new. New things were risky at best, in his experience, and deadly at worst.

Full disclosure, Thomas knew he'd do anything in his power to ease James' mind. Hell, if he ever pushed the issue, Thomas probably would find himself packing his things and on his merry way to joining the Madison Household—White Picket Fence Included! The entire discussion was moot. If it was important enough for James to stage a mini-intervention, he already considered it done.

He still took his time pouring coffee for the two of them, though, because it was more fun to watch James squirm for a minute or two. He took long sip, savoring the bitter scald that trailed down his throat, "A'ight. Hit me with this big proposal, Jem."

"Come work with me." James must have seen Thomas' life flash before his eyes in that moment, because he hastily followed up, "I mean, it's nothing major! Next month Mr. Washington, my boss, is going to be conducting open interviews for a personal secretary. You don't need any major qualifications, and I know that it's nothing you couldn't handle, Thomas. You're a charmer! I've already told him that you might even be able to help advise him, maybe? I mean, you've got great business sense—don't look at me like that, Thomas, I know you used to turn a tidy profit back in Virginia—and there might even be room for upward mobility within the company if you stick around." He was nearly out of breath by the time he finished, face reddening from the exertion, and Thomas was reminded of James' frailty in painful clarity.

The sight was enough to tug at Thomas' heartstrings before the gravity of the situation settled like a rockslide around him. There were so many reasons why that was the worst idea Thomas had ever heard. Take James—with his Real-Life Success Story—and Thomas—with his Fresh Out The Trash Couture—and you'd wonder why they were friends at all.

But co-workers? That was fanatical talk. The product of an unsound mind. Thomas couldn't let that stand.

Hell, he was reminded of his own frailty as he struggled to keep himself from hyperventilating in his reply, "Jemmy. Jem-Jam. The gem of my life, James Madison, you remember you work at, like, an office? Honest to God, a real office? The whole shebang! What, with the monkey suit, 'how's the wife and kids,' nine-to-five type office work?" And no, sir, Thomas hadn't planned to be screaming at his only friend in the world at two in the afternoon on a Saturday. He only wanted pancakes, and yet he couldn't stop his voice from rising of its own accord, "The fuck do y'all even sell in your generic-ass office, huh, James? I sure couldn't fuckin' tell you. You know why? 'Cause I ain't never been near any motherfucking business offices in all New York! You up in some Wall Street-ass shit! Does that look like my district, James? No, really, I'm dying to know."

A deep breath, and Thomas had every intention to calm down, but his next words came out in a deadly hiss, "And 'business sense'? Huh? C'mon, James, give me the dirty details. Did you really tell your Yankee-ass, white-collar-ass-lookin'-motherfucker of a boss that you had your own little kingpin at home? What, you mention I was looking for a new enterprise? 'Oh, sir, he's just a little bit tired of slinging coke, maybe he could branch out into stocks?'" Thomas' falsetto was mocking and harsh, biting like shattered glass. It grated against his ears, catching at his attention.

He sounded like everything he hated about himself.

It a realization somber enough to drag him from his tirade, deflating like the Hindenburg. It was enough for him to take a hard look at James, who seemed to have checked out entirely to seek higher guidance from his coffee mug. Who had given and given, just to have it thrown back in his face every time.

Aw, fuck.

"Aw, fuck," Thomas scrubbed at his face, "Jemmy, I'm sorry. You didn't deserve that. Like, at all. That's literally the nicest thing anyone has ever offered me, ever." He took an anxious sip out of his cup, stalling for time, "Knowing you, you've really been pulling strings for me on the home front, huh? And I just—I'm literally the biggest asshole, God, I'm so sorry. And, I mean, I think I just made a pretty strong case as to why I don't deserve any of this from you—" James' eyes burned as they rested on him, unblinking, so he hastily added, "—but! Listen, if the offer is still on the table, I'll give it all I've got. I promise, whatever it takes, Jem. I'll save up for a suit, polish up my etiquette, even find out whatever the hell it is y'all sell."

James cracked a small smile at that, which Thomas considered to be a wild success, "We're a publishing company, Thomas."

Okay, but he really couldn't help himself, "Publishing? In this economy? Jem, you know print is the fastest dying—ouch, okay, you really don't need to hit me—" Thomas ducked away from another playful blow, an elbow snagging on his coffee cup at an angle precise enough to send lukewarm coffee flying into his face. Any tension left between them dissolved as James broke out into a snorting chuckle, and for the first time in a while, Thomas felt like things might work out.