[PROTOTYPE: Sanctum]

Part III, Chapter X

Downfall, fall! - Trust Company (Downfall)

oOo

Mark was dead.

Two bullets; one to the head, one to the stomach.

Toby could see the body of his baby brother surrounded by a few others from the rooftop Alex had left him on. He didn't know where the other man had went, didn't much care at this point, all he could think was, I came back to say sorry, it wasn't supposed to happen this way.

He didn't cry, didn't do anything, really. He just stared. It didn't look like Mark. Mark had always had so much colour, Toby couldn't remember a day in his life when the boy had been without a tan. But now, even from the long distance that separated them, Toby could see pale sickly skin stretched over depleted muscle and bone.

He dropped to his knees and let his hands hang limply at his sides; he felt so numb.

oOo

Alex found him like that sometime later, still slumped over and staring, though he was looking up out toward the city instead of down into the courtyard of the base. Someone had come and taken Mark's body and the others away in black body bags and cleaned up the blood.

Toby didn't look back at him.

"You think it hurt?" he whispered. "He never could handle pain. Would rather shoot off his left arm than admit it, but he really didn't like pain."

Alex shifted, flicking his eyes down to where the base was still in an upheaval. The infection was spreading too fast, becoming too unstable. People were starting to go crazy and balking against anything and nothing.

"You know what's funny?" Toby chuckled, though the sound was far from humorous. Alex winced. "He's always hated me, did you know that? I don't think he knew I knew, but I did. I've always known. I'd catch him looking at me, sometimes, and he looked so angry. I still don't understand why he did, maybe he didn't either. Just one of those 'sibling rivalry' things, I guess." He tipped his head back and gazed up at Alex with a bitter smile. His eyes were wet.

"Want to hear something even funnier?" Toby's smile grew into a full-blown grin, painful and wretched to the bone; pain screamed from it like a Hunter's roar. "I hated him, too."

Alex watched Toby break-watched a man turn into a little boy. He shed no tears, yet his eyes reflected suffering of such intensity that it was somehow more frightening than tears could ever be.

oOo

He found out days later that Mark had been killed by accident. The damn kid had just been running away like Toby had told him, and had ran right into a crossfire. A handful of Marines had apparently been chomping at the bit a little too enthusiastically after finding out the government had decided to turn Manhattan to glass.

They had planted c4 and little pipe bombs all through the base, blowing it sky high. Alex told him that they were screaming about saving their families before they were shot. Cavin had been at the head of the throng. He'd been the first to scream, the first to pull his gun on the officers, the first taunt them in his own tongue, and the first to fall.

Toby couldn't help but smile. Maybe he was better off now; him and Scott both. Mark, too.

oOo

Time passed without any real meaning. Manhattan was a skeleton of what it used to be, fumbling around and slowly dying, no matter what efforts were made to kill off the virus. Toby watched it, wondering if he would ever leave, wondering what it had all been for in the end, and just thinking that maybe this is what it looked like to see the world end.

He didn't see much of Alex. The man spent most of his time on the streets, trying-in vain-to piece things back together. Toby figured this was his way of coping with the fact that Dana may never wake up. Maybe he thought that if he could restore the dead city, it would somehow restore her, too.

Toby didn't stop him.

When they did see each other, they met in a collision of hands and tongue and their coming together was rough and fast. It sated the primal hunger, if only for the moment, and then they both went on their way, more subdued and faded than before.

It was nothing more than physical comfort (somehow nastier and more gruesome than the brief fling with Adrian). A way to slap a band aid on their open, festering wounds and declare themselves okay again for a little while. Maybe they were using each other, but did it count if neither spoke up and declared an end?

Toby stopped counting the days and stopped feeling that maybe it would change one day. He couldn't see it happening. They were both empty voids, and that was just how it was going to be.

He was wrong.

oOo

Things changed when Alex came back to him and didn't immediately start what they had been doing since the beginning of the end. He just watched Toby from beneath his hood as Toby sat on the couch and watched him right back.

The silence was thick and heavy and Toby eventually broke it, asking what was his problem and what was he even waiting for? Alex didn't respond, only stood and left without a word.

Toby lay on the couch that night, sleeping in fits and starts and wondering what game Alex was playing at.

The next week, Alex came again and, again, he didn't touch Toby. Toby stared at his hands until he heard the door click closed. He didn't sleep at all that night.

It carried on that way for a little while longer, and Toby allowed it, thinking that maybe Alex had finally had enough of him. Should just leave, he told himself. Nothing left here anyway.

He never did. Something always held him back. So he stayed and waited for something he didn't even know he was waiting for.

oOo

"Do you know why the caged bird sings?"

"..." Alex turned to look at him over his shoulder, face impassive.

"Never heard of it before?" Toby asked. "It's a poem, by some Angelou person."

"No."

Toby sighed and raised his eyes to meet Alex. "Yeah, I didn't think so."

That night, when Alex left him alone without so much as a whisper of contact, the door was left wide open.

oOo

Toby sat on the window ledge, his legs kicking out into open air and face tilted up toward the sun. It was freezing outside, but there was actual sunlight for what seemed like the first time in decades, so he didn't mind the cold so much.

White snow covered practically everything in sight, wiping out the red like it never existed in the first place, and the more he looked at it, the more he couldn't help but laugh. It was just so goddamn ironic, all of it.

And he knew, without even knowing how he knew, but it was just fucking perfect, wasn't it? that Alex would be there soon even though he had just left last night with the silent offering of escape.

He would come back to see if Toby had left.

Sure enough, the creak of the door opening and the sound of light, albeit cautious, footsteps echoed through the silent apartment and Toby closed his eyes, lowering his head from the sunlight and just listening.

Toby imagined he could hear the silent noise of shock Alex made when he saw him sitting there like he belonged; like he wasn't supposed to be long gone by then.

"'The caged bird sings with a fearful trill, of the things unknown but longed for still'," Toby quoted and cracked a small smile. He turned and watched Alex as he stood in the open archway of the living room, looking indecisive for the first time since Toby had known him.

"I'm not leaving, Alex," Toby muttered, and twisted around to get up. "I get that you don't want me around anymore, that you're probably sick of me-I really can understand that, you're not the first," he said dryly, smirking. "But," he sighed heavily and pulled a hand through his hair. "But this is all I have. I can't just leave. Maybe I could have, before...in fact, I know I probably would have, but now..."

Toby frowned and chewed the inside of his cheek quietly for a moment before nodding to himself and striding forward. Alex didn't move an inch when he stopped in front of him, and Toby took it as a good sign.

He reached up and pushed Alex's hood back and pushed his fingers through soft hair, scraping over his scalp and gently fisting his hand at his nape. When they kissed, nothing more than a pressing of lips, Toby literally had to floor himself when Alex didn't pull away from him, but leaned in and started working their lips in a painfully familiar dance.

He felt hands settle low on his hips and he eagerly stepped closer, knowing that he was whimpering but unable to stop because it had been too long, and fuck, was he desperate for this.

"I can't walk away from this," he murmured against Alex's lips, fingers pushing at clothes and smoothing over skin and dragging Alex closer and closer but it was like no matter what he did he wasn't close enough. "Alex..." he begged, trembling like an unstable bomb ticking, ticking, ready to explode.

And suddenly Alex was gone, and Toby felt the space between them like a physical blow to his chest. First Mark, now you, too, Alex?

"I never wanted you to leave," Toby blinked and looked at Alex's impassive face, lips drawn in a thin, almost angry, line.

"But, the door...?"

Alex only stared at him, and for just a split second Toby wanted to punch him because goddamn it, he'd had enough of the fucking silent treatment and those stupid quiet stares that seemed like they somehow saw more than they were allowed.

But then apprehension slapped him in the face and he felt guilt and a little bit of dark humour bubble in his stomach.

Oh.

"I had a choice." Toby cracked a grin and wiped a hand down his face, covering his eyes in mock embarrassment. "And this whole time I thought you were just trying to get rid of me."

The rustle of clothing reached his ears and Toby's head snapped up, grin widening as Alex toed off his shoes, his eyes alight with a predatory glint that had been noticeably absent for some time. Toby felt his body responding accordingly and without any further thought, he vaulted at Alex and laughed at the grunt the impact forced out of him.

Alex's hands cupped his ass and Toby gave a short, dry chuckle that quickly turned into a breathy moan as Alex used the hold to lift him to his toes and press even closer, rubbing against him. Tilting his head, he let Alex take control of the kiss, barely putting up a fight at all as he forced his hands between them to undo Alex's belt buckle.

He felt the smirk against his lips.

Still so cocky.

Not for long.

"Going to be different this time, Alex," he murmured against his lips before flicking out with his tongue and unbuttoning Alex's jeans at the same time. "'S my turn."

Toby would wake up the next morning with more cuts and bruises and bites than normal, but he'd feel satisfied and happy for the first time in a long time, and he'd wonder why he hadn't taken Alex before now.

And Alex would be stiff and snappish, but his lips would be turned up at the edges and his eyes would hold a soft edge to them beneath the fringe of his hair, and he wouldn't let Toby out of his line of sight for more than a few minutes (even if he had to struggle not to limp around the apartment to do so) at a time.

So when he pushed into Alex in the cover of darkness, he tried to put everything he could into the actions, tried to voice what he couldn't verbally say. Not yet. Because it wasn't love. No, it wasn't about love.

But it could be, someday.

He watched Alex writhe and snarl beneath him with each thrust, muscles strung tighter than a snare drum and eyes wild and lips swollen, seeking; hands clutching and caressing and scratching. He huffed a breathless laugh, shocked that all of this, everything, had happened because of some stupid toxin in his blood. Because of the single-mindedness of war and the need to win.

It was crazy, but in some weird, fucked up kind of way he was glad it happened. It had its drawbacks, its moments of pain and suffering, but something good had come out of it and he could feel himself healing. Everything would be fine, given a little while, he was sure of that. Because this was his place, his safe place-his sanctum.

Sanctum - A sacred or holy place, an inviolably private place or retreat.

End

A/N: ...Yep, this will be rewritten someday, I can already tell. I wanted to go into detail with the smut guys, I really, really did. But damn, if I ain't all smutt-ed out. Not to mention FF was being a bitch and kept deleting this everytime I fixed something, so now I don't know if I even finished the stupid thing. Tried to tie up loose ends with Cavin, hope that worked out well enough.

Yes, that's an actual poem Toby was quoting and it's a really good one, too.

And, yes, Cavin blew the base to bits, though it was done when most everyone was out on the streets, so no fatal casualties really. (It was just ONE of the bases, and Alex did pretty much destory one in-game, so I figured this wouldn't botch it up too bad. Besides, Cavin need to go out with a bang.)

And we are DONE. Thank you to all that have followed the story and reviewed, and thanks to Joveesia for all the help she gave me and Keenon for the sheer hilarity and persuasion!