"Sir?"
Yeah?
"Sir?"
It's just Gage. He just wants to know why my door is locked.
Gage, he sneaks into the room, looking timid. He stands with his gaze on the floor and his hands behind his back. Guilty schoolboy. Hitler Youth.
I just don't have the heart to tell him, poor thing.
Tyler knows the trick to the lock. Tyler's been sneaking into my room more and more lately.
Tyler still ignores me in the rest of the house, but it this room, I can almost guarantee I'm the only thing on his mind.
The fact that I lock the door just to hear him picking it, well, how am I supposed to tell that to Gage?
Gage, who loves me?
Gage, my little golden boy?
Well I just can't shatter the boy's feelings like that.
But being with Tyler is like having a hole filled that you didn't know existed. It's amazing. Having that other half in here, paying attention to me, really me. All of me. Every inch.
You can't tell an eighteen year old boy that his lover is still sleeping with his best friend.
So in this room, I try to pay as much attention to Gage as Tyler pays to me.
Retribution. Punishment for my sins, oh yes.
The way I figure, every time I kiss him, it's an Our Father. Every time he moans, that's a Hail Mary.
I'm such a martyr.
* * *
"Jack."
Hmmm?
It's just Tyler. Tyler on my bed, next to me, and his face is nothing but the warmth of his breath in the dark.
That sweat-and-blood smell, I get the feeling that's me.
"Why are you sleeping with one of my Monkeys?"
Oh.
Shit.
He knows.
Oh.
We have just lost cabin pressure.
"Um…"
We're all going to die.
