21

Az sat alone in the large circular room. He'd watched Spencer and The Sam sit there hugging. He'd watched as they began to get foggy around the edges. He'd tried to reach out and touch them, but by the time he'd plucked up the courage to do that, there was nothing left to touch. And now he wondered if they'd ever existed.

Slowly he got to his feet. There was nothing left here to do. He'd broken all the seals which were there. He'd risked everything and now there was nothing to show for it – except Isgar maybe? There was always that chance. If Spencer and The Sam were gone? …

Az turned his back on the open hole in the floor and walked quickly from the room. He felt light headed and hot. The air was suddenly stuffy and stale. He ran as his heart thumped alarmingly in his chest. He pelted down the long corridor and up the first flight of steps, but something was wrong. Something was horribly wrong. The light was fading. His own internal light flickered and spat and dulled. He didn't want to be down here alone in the dark. He really didn't want that! He ran, taking two steps at a time, tripping in his panic to escape. He yelped in surprise when his foot caught the top step and sent him flying across the floor. His knees scraped, his hands tore on a surface which was no longer smooth as polished marble… and his light dulled to not much more than a flicker from a candle.

He got up and hurled himself down the next length of passage. He called for help. He screamed for someone to come and find him. Things seemed to be crawling over his back, down his legs… across his chest, almost as though it was trying to pull him back, or down. He was half way up the next lot of stairs when that flickering light gutted and disappeared.

Az screamed and started to crawl up the stairs which cracked and buckled under his hands. Bits began to fall from the ceiling. The stairs felt as though they buckled and folded under him, until they were no longer stairs, but a rubbery slippery ramp. He howled in distress. He called for someone to help him. He screamed out for forgiveness for what he'd done. Tears ran down his face as he reached a flat level.

The floor under Az's hands was like that of the ramp. It was rubbery, cold… like thick living flesh.

'No! Please no! I'm sorry!' He cried as he curled up and wrapped his arms around his head.

In the distance Az could hear the sound of wings… something dark. Something rotten.

o-o-o

Floyd

You see this is why I was so careful. I could easily have said … 'I need Spencer.' It would have been easy! But they would have done something to fuck it up. It doesn't matter whose team you're batting on, there will always be a curve ball. You can't avoid it. I could have asked for a happy Spencer, but there would have been something to make every one else miserable. You can be happily insane you know? I know… I know that feeling very well.

I know that they screw you around.

I know that they like nothing better than to see someone squirm… I had to be so careful. It's all in the fine print, the details. They bitch, whine and complain at me because I apparently manage to twist things to my own advantage. That's normal though huh? Doesn't everyone do that? No one is going to stand around in an ice cold field of mud, when they could be sitting next to an open fire on a sweet rug with herbs aburning and the love of your life next to you… under you… behind you? Where ever it is you require your love to be.

What I'm trying to say here is that they twist things to such a degree that the original purpose is usually all but lost. And then there's Them, they have to get a look in too, so that original walk in the park has suddenly become a down hill skiing session, or a bungee jump… with no bungee. You get where I'm coming from…? I had a list in my head.

You will obviously want to know what I requested…

Here goes: I want Spencer

I want Sam

I want to a two storey home with a wrap around porch.

I want my bike and I want Sam to have a bike

I want Spencer to be happy, loved, beautiful, to have a job he loves.

I want Sam in college.

I want peace. No deals… no jobs… just peace.

I NEED Spencer's contract extended.

Now I don't think that lot is too much to ask. I also added something… I wanted Az removed. I wanted him removed and sent somewhere to wait for me. I can sneak back whenever I want you see? Spencer and Sam never need to know about it. Never have to know and never will know. I'm going to have that sweet arse of his and then I'm going to have it again. I'll train him. I can do that. I can't train him in the same way I have done Sam. I can't teach him how to hunt and trap and make outside tents with no tools… no fuck… can't do that and really have no desire to. But I'm going to use that little angel until he's screaming and can't stop. I will teach him every dirty little trick in the book. Is it possible to make something which started pure, vile and sick?

Sure!

I'm living proof of that shit! Of course it's possible.

I'm tired of being the one who has all the shit thrown his way. It's time someone else took some of the blame. And that someone will be Az. It's that or I'd have to stay hell bound for a fucking long time. I want temporary release? I need to find a replacement.

Welcome to your new home Az old buddy. Just think your self lucky. Your virginity is mine to take. Once it's gone… that arse of yours belongs to anyone. Keep those buttocks clenched!

So that's that sorted… Except I didn't get all I wanted. Sure the Az stuff they accepted happily.

The Sam stuff they said… 'It will be a partial job.'

Not sure what they mean by that, but I'm about to find out.

Actually I'll let Sam explain it.

Spencer…

I'll tell you now that I never beg. I just don't. There's no point. But I did. I begged. I even kissed the floor as there were no available toes. I would have had my tongue right down the back (or front) of their trousers, but they told me very clearly…

'The contract on Spencer has been extended a full ten years, but if you do one thing to break the peace you have asked for, then that contract will fall to two years.'

So I asked them if that meant two years from now or two years from when I finally crack and hit him…

'Two years total. If the contract has already gone beyond that point…'

They didn't have to explain. So… that's the whole new deal. I have Spence for ten years, but I'm not to hurt him.

I can do that. I think I can do that. A lot of nights having barbeques with the neighbours, reading at book club… playing golf… and watching manly sports on the television.

Sure I can do that.

BUT

… for how long?

o-o-o

Spencer

The headaches are back with a vengeance. I'm trying to listen to what is going on, but all I can feel is the pounding in my head. I know I've been rubbing at my temples a lot recently. I know I've been drinking too much coffee.

I can't sleep.

I can't stay awake.

I've been smoking again. I hate that when I'm stressed I feel the lure of the cigarette.

Oh and they all know I've been smoking too. It's not that I smell of them. Oh… no not that. I'm oh so very careful.

It was the pack… that small red and white pack of smokes that fell out of my bag at work! What it was doing in there in the first place I don't know but I stood staring at the pack which had fallen on the floor at Morgan's feet and I was like a scared child. I wanted Derek to say something. Ask me something, but he didn't. He just picked them up a slipped them back into my bag, but that look. The look was worse than a thousand words. Why do I feel the need to have my team mates' approval on everything? Is it because most of my life outside of work is so disagreeable to them? Though why they feel that way I really am not sure.

Things are for now at least, going well in my relationship. I want to laugh at that thought… but I feel too sick to laugh.

I just can't sleep… or once I'm awake I feel that drag to pull me into nightmares.

That's the problem. Horrific nightmares. I do sleep. Of course I sleep, but I wake up screaming. I wake up shaking and covered in sweat and there's always at least nearly always, someone there to hold me, get me a drink… pass a smoke… hand over a needle… offer some snort… yes there's always that.

'Just try it… try it, it will relax you.'

I've been clean (mostly) in that respect for a while and I'm not going down that road again (often). That doesn't stop everyone around me at home from doing it though. Even though they know. They seem to take undue delight in tormenting me.

'Take a pain killer if you have a bad head.'

No. I wont even do that.

'I can't sleep.' I tell Derek. 'They relax me.'

Of course Derek has never smoked. Why would he understand that? He wouldn't. He would think it's an excuse and rightly so, because it is an excuse in a way.

Sometimes I wake up on the floor. My bladder has let go, my throat is sore from screaming… my jaw aches… and the house is empty.

I drink too much. I disguise that well too. I drink Vodka. That's fine! Not enough to get drunk… not when I know that I have work and I do love my work… I just…

'I can't sleep.' I tell Garcia and she knits me a hat, which I do take home and it's thrown in the trash, but not by me. 'I tell her about the nightmares. I don't tell her any details, but just that they're back again. She has an opinion on why I have them. Everyone has an opinion. Garcia is the only one who never voices it. She will put her hand over mine and give me her special look and she'll never ask any questions…

I fell asleep at my desk and woke up with a yelp. Great. That was wonderful. I know what they're all thinking. I know it. I can almost feel their minds blasting it out at me.

It's that man…

I can see the words floating over their eyes. They don't have to say anything.

I want to stand up and rip my shirt off. I want to stand there and show them that I have no bruises! I have nothing! My track marks and scars are old and yes I have a new scratches on my arms, and a bruise on my hips, but I'm not showing them my hips! Really they just wont ever understand.

People can change.

They accept that good people can turn bad. They wont accept it can be the other way around.

At home… at home on my own again. Back later, x … that's what the note stuck to the fridge with a magnetic slice of lemon says. Back Later… Can I ask where? Can I complain?

No.

Oh he's never hit me. Please don't think that. He's never done that… and I sometimes wonder why. I stand there and I shout at him and I throw things at him and he shouts back and calls me a whore. He tells me I am a filthy slut. He tells me that I'm sick. He says that I'm in denial of everything and I'm never sure what he's talking about. He throws small blue pills at me and they scatter around my feet and I'm on my hands and knees picking them up and stuffing them in my pocket. One, two, three, four… I count them and I cry, because I'm not a junky. I am clean! Look at my arms if you want proof! Look and what do you see?

I'm not a junky though. I wont take pain killers but this stuff… it helps me relax… really… it helps. He screams and throws things at the wall and he looks to be almost on the verge of… I don't know… crying?... I never know what I've done wrong.

I hit him once. And I thought I was going to die for it. I punched him. Hard. And what did he do… he stepped to the kitchen and got a tin of lager out of the cooler and went and sat on the front porch with blood running down his nose.

This is what got me though. Some woman across the street, I heard her talking to Floyd…

'What happened?'

A muttered reply.

'He hit you? And you put up with that? Why don't you get him thrown out?'

More muttering.

'Well you can always stay over my place if you want. I have a basement and a pull out bed – couch thing. You're always welcome.'

I heard him thank her. I heard him say that he appreciated the offer and might take it up one day. He said something about being tired.

I couldn't believe that he spoke like that. Now I'm the bad guy. I'm the one who beats his boyfriend. I'm the one who no one trusts. I'm the Fed. The Fed who carries a gun. I'm the one who slams doors and wont leave the house or socialise. I can't. I'm too hyped up! I need…

I need a fix.

I have to do special things to be allowed one… I have to please him… and if I don't do it right then I don't get my fix…

But he never hits me.

o-o-o

Sam

I have dirt covering my dirt. It's not easy keeping clean. I use the bathrooms at stops along the side of the road and I strip off and wash myself down, but I don't have clean clothes. I've lost weight again. My hair is dirty. My fingernails are short and sharp… my teeth are small and like fucking razors.

I'm being careful.

I'm hitching lifts across the country. But not everyone wants to pick up an obvious road kid. You can tell from a hundred yards that I've not slept in a bed in years… it feels like years anyway.

Some of the guys I get lifts from are OK. They don't do much but ask where I'm from and I tell them I'm from the West Coast, but I don't get specific with them. No need to. And on the few times they've asked more, I've lied more. I'm never in the car or truck long enough for it to matter.

There are few who will offer to buy me some food when we pull over and I never turn it down. I don't want to appear greedy, but sometimes I'm so hungry that a burger is gone in two bites.

There are a few who will drop me off with my stomach growling, outside a burger joint and they'll go in and get food and pretend they'd never seen me before. I'm OK with that too. That really is OK.

There are a few who after half hour of silence in the car will put a hand on my thigh. 'Do you want to play?' I've been asked that a few times and I shrug and say…

'Yeah…' But I try never to sound too enthusiastic. I don't want to be kept for ever by some bloke who is married to his sister… There's lots of weirdoes out in the wilds! So sometimes I get fucked over the hood of a car or maybe I blow the chap… Once I did what was required and he then told me that I'd driven him to the foul deed by looking at him with my eyes and by doing that thing with my mouth. He kicked me out into the street. I cut my arm, but that's all. You see there's lots of nasty people out there.

So now I'm standing in the toilets looking in a cracked mirror.

I have my hands holding onto the dirty wash basin and my jeans are around my ankles.

I don't know his name. It's not really necessary to know who's got their dick up your arse, but he seems sort of nervous so I try talking to him.

'Shut the fuck up you dirty whore.'

I've heard worse. I wriggle a bit for him and he tells me to stand still. He's hurting me!

'Owie! Take it easy big boy!'

I wake up on the bathroom floor with blood around my head and flies buzzing… Someone is having a piss. Whoever it is isn't the bloke who hit me… hit me hard I think. He's the wrong colour for a start. But he ignores me.

What a fantastic world.

I want to phone Floyd or Spencer, but Floyd isn't registered as a phone owner (no surprise there) and I can't get Spencer's address or phone number even when I cry or make threats. I don't know what else to do, but track them down this way.

Shit.

It's raining.

It's real hard to get picked up in the rain. They don't like stinking wet kids in their cars or trucks. I sit in the doorway of the restrooms with some paper towels pressed to my brow. I've a cut there. It's bled all over me and my hair is sticky with it.

Why do people have to be such bastards?

'Fucking cunts!' I shout at the passing traffic. 'You fucking cunts.' I mutter. 'I fucking wish I was dead.' I whisper. I only whisper it though, because I don't want some shit to think I mean it.

a/n: Next chapter I move on. Sorry if this was a bit weird.