It should have soothed Linkara, to know that Snob could open the door if Critic could not, would not. To know that soon there would be food stored away in the corner.
But what would happen, if Critic and Snob should fall together? When the food ran out?
Linkara pulled Spoony closer, kissed him deeper. Tried to quiet the anxiety prickling under his skin with the taste and warmth of the other man.
He thought he understood now, in some small way, had some shadow of what it was to be Spoony. The intrusive thoughts that barged in and took up residence, bulky and squat, pushing the smaller, everyday concerns out.
His next thrust came too hard, almost vicious, drawing a surprised little grunt from his partner. Linkara apologized with another kiss, a dozen of them, each softer than the last.
It was still new, to be the one on top. New and powerful, with Spoony laid out before him, there for the taking. That they both still wore their boxers didn't make Spoony look any less vulnerable, and Linkara took care to keep the trust he'd been given.
They rocked together, slow but without grace, messy with the lube they used to prevent chaffing. And it was good, always so good, always perfect.
But still Linkara could feel the door at his back. With its lock that glowed green, the same color as the energy that thrummed through his veins.
"No," Spoony whispered when Linkara would have turned round. "I'm here. Be with me."
He tried, because here was home, because here was Spoony. Spoony, who tried so hard to be a soft place for Linkara to fall.
Linkara knew there was a cost to it, could see the strain under Spoony's smile. But he was selfish enough to take what he was given, this small measure of peace amongst the chaos.
"You take such good care of me," he told Spoony now, because it was true.
He pushed up on his elbows, kissed his way down Spoony's chest and lower to lavish his scar with attention. Licked hot across the ruined skin before blowing cool across it.
And now something else that Linkara had only recently been allowed. "Okay?" he asked first, brushing his fingers just above the band of Spoony's boxers, watching the jump of his stomach at the ticking touch.
"Please."
Linkara tugged the band down. Not far, an inch at most, revealing skin reddened and tender where elastic had left its mark. Spoony groaned when Linkara sucked and nibbled at it, chin rubbing across against the slimy fabric of Spoony's boxers.
There was a promise here, of more to come, more to touch and taste and have, and Linkara worked his own fevered self against the mattress. Spoony bucked under him and then he was sitting up, hunched over and awkward, fumbling at Linkara's shoulders and pulling him up.
They rutted together, and it didn't take long after that.
For Spoony, at least. When he lay panting Linkara stood, retreated to a corner and turned his back. He bit down on one hand and reached inside his boxers with the other, because this was one thing that hadn't changed.
Simple necessity meant Linkara was allowed to finish in the bedroom, but Spoony still could not bring himself to watch, let alone participate.
Linkara had asked him about it once, phrasing it as delicately as he was able, well aware of what he was risking. But he wanted to understand, wanted to know where the traps lay so he could better navigate around them.
"I was never the one who started it. It was always SWS, but he would leave me to finish it. I've...I've had that, so many times, but I've never had this."
Waking, coming back to himself in time to feel his body's betrayal. Enduring the sticky lust of a stranger splattering his skin. Always the fall, never the rise, and never by choice.
Linkara wiped his hands on a tissue and returned to the bed. Spoony blinked up at him, all flushed cheeks and wild hair, and it made Linkara preen to see his handiwork.
"You wanna get cleaned up now, or in the morning?" he asked.
"Morning," Spoony said through a yawn, "Let Tom sleep."
But Linkara very much doubted the man had slept more than an hour or two a night since Mickey's death. Could picture him too clearly sitting in the dark, staring at the empty side of the bed.
He went without a fight when Spoony yanked him down, curling up with their legs tangled. A damp and sticky embrace, with Spoony's breath slightly sour against his face, and still Linkara sighed with the comfort of it.
Spoony stroked his back, encouraging Linkara to snuggle in that much closer. "You're thinking so loudly lately," he said, "What is it?"
Linkara was thinking of Mickey. Of Tom, and how he had thanked Critic. Of the broadcast scheduled for tomorrow, and how to break the news to Spoony that it wasn't going to happen.
And always, always, of the door.
But to say any of it would mean letting it in. To infect this place and time that made all the rest worthwhile.
"That I'm lucky to have you," he said instead, and pretended not to see the disappointment in Spoony's eyes.
It took a full week for it to sink home.
But when it did the grumbling started. Minor at first but spreading, until they walked heavy with anger, fists knotted at their sides.
In the end, the final straw wasn't a gun hammering down into a friend's forehead. It wasn't another friend pushed to the edge and then punished for falling.
Perhaps Critic hadn't realized how much the reviews meant to them still. More likely he hadn't cared, had been too invested in keeping them safe to worry about keeping them happy.
He should have been playing closer attention.
They were divvying up packets of meatloaf and mashed potatoes when Snob turned to Linkara and scowled.
"He's not crazy."
He spoke as if he'd grown tired of repeating the words, as if they were picking up a conversation that had grown stale days ago, though Linkara had spoken only rarely to the man since the attack.
"He's not crazy," Snob said again, "And he's not wrong. The broadcasts are a risk, Linkara, and so is Spoony. He's my friend too, but that doesn't change the facts."
Linkara said nothing, only went on counting. And waited.
Not for long. Snob shook his head, a sudden, violent shiver, and threw down his clipboard. The metal clip broke off, skittering across the floor at their feet.
They both stared down at it until Snob forced a chuckle. "Symbolism!" he said in a surprisingly good imitation of Film Brain. "God damn it, Linkara. Even if...even if he has gone round the bend, what the fuck are we supposed to do about it?'
"I don't know," Linkara said, expect that he did, and so did Snob. It was just that the answer was too terrible to contemplate, and Linkara knew well that loyalty could be a burden, could be a leash, a tether that kept him at the feet of a man who looked upon him with disdain.
"He's not crazy." Repeating it for a third time didn't make Snob sound any closer to believing it. "But I think we need a backup plan.
"Just in case."
It took another week of whispering in corners before Snob and Linkara realized they weren't the only ones talking
Phelous and Larios, Joe and Lord Kat, Paw and Benzaie...there were mumbles over dinner, conversations that died when others walked into the room, hummed songs of rebellion.
And slowly they gathered, cautious, testing each other with leading questions.
"Does Critic seem stressed?"
"Could a few broadcasts really be that dangerous?"
"He looks like he's not sleeping...like, at all."
So they learned who shared their fears, who could be trusted to rant in the night and smile at Critic come morning.
Only a few were excluded from these not-so-secret meetings. Handsome Tom owed Critic a debt that could not be repaid, and no one expected him to stand against the man.
And while Chick's eyes were worried, she was still Critic's twin, still his lover. It had been one thing to speak with her of ways to ease Critic's burdens, quite another to outright question her brother's sanity and ability to lead.
The last was Film Brain. Like Tom, there was a debt there, stretching back to the days before the Fall, when Critic had given the boy a job and the confidence to try again when his first reviews fell flat. They assumed that the boy would stay with his mentor until the end.
Until he barged into the mess one night, stomping over to the table where they pretended to play poker.
"I want in."
When they pretended not to understand he swept the cards and pot of candy from the table, just a child throwing a tantrum in their eyes.
But when he spoke again his voice was a man's, with a man's anger riding rough across the words.
"For Mickey. He has to pay."
"He was hurt, Film Brain." Linkara realized even as he spoke how patronizing the words were, as if Film Brain might have somehow missed the blood, the yellow curve of the skull. "You don't...you don't come back from that."
"We have painkillers and sedatives. He could have waited. We could have tried."
He leaned forward, fists clenched, all aggression and impulse. A man, but new to his manhood, clumsy with it.
And Linkara held up his own hands in surrender, for what would have been the point of arguing?
"Pick up the cards, kid," Larios said, "And take up a seat."
Critic watched the stars come out.
It was quiet in the systems room, a peaceful hush that he was coming to crave. No whispers (and did they think he didn't know, didn't hear?) No sister to shout her concerns with the lift of her brow and the curl of her lip.
There was food here if he wanted it, courtesy of Linkara and Snob. A chemical toilet if he needed it.
And a window to watch the world go by, the small dramas of coyotes and lizards playing out again and again. He whispered to himself sometimes, reviewing their stories, shaking his head at the cliché of vulture shadows circling on the red earth.
"We've seen it all a gazillion times. Cue the hawk."
And a hawk would scream, rasping and atmospheric. It was the sound of the desert, of its canyons and cacti, its buried bones.
The fox pup was grown now. He'd found himself a pretty little vixen to court, and soon there would be new cubs in the den amongst the rocks.
And that was the problem with life. It went on.
Never stopping, never giving him time to catch his damn breath.
Behind him the door opened. He didn't turn round, already knowing who it would be.
"Come to bed."
Chick spoke softly, but there was no mistaking it for anything less than an order.
And that was the other problem with life. It echoed.
He remembered standing in the stockroom a lifetime ago, looking down at the altar built to honor Baugh and Critic's own hubris. Chick had sought him out, had spoken the same words in the same tone, and Critic answered now as he had then.
"No."
Her eyes flashed, and he felt his own anger swell. A bubble of rage pressing against the walls of his chest, thinning his breath to a hiss.
She took him by the chin, nails pressing deep into thin skin. "Brother mine, I've been patient, but now I'm starting to get bored.
"Come. To. Bed."
Last time Critic had given in, given up, trailed after her like the fox pup had trailed after its mother. Let himself be taken by the hand and lead out of guilt.
Now he stood, so much taller than she, his little sister.
"No."
