Song is by The Foo Fighters!
Vauxhall and Canning are neighborhoods in Liverpool, and Sharypovo is – I admit, just a random town in Russia, since there is no actual intersection between the UK and Russia IRL.
The gay bar raids are based in later history – while they likely did happen this early, this is pulled more from the 50s and 60s Stonewall era. One of the really fun things about Amestris is that its technology and social influences are so scattered that I can pull from a ton of different things at once and it still, largely, makes sense. They have color photography and mechanical/medical technology advanced enough for automail, but they don't have synthesized drugs or (thank FUCKING god) nuclear weapons.
TW: Institutional homophobia, classism, attempted sexual assault (it does NOT get very far), somewhat…gruesome but offscreen death, ableism/sanism, restraints/captivity (related to previous trigger; kind of hard to tag), referenced internalized aphobia
~38~
Send in your skeletons
Sing as their bones go marching in again
They need you buried deep
The secrets that you keep are ever ready -
- what if I say I'm not like the others?
What if I say I'm not just another one of your plays?
-The Pretender
West City had not always been West City. At one point, it had been called Vauxhall; before that, Canning, and sometime before that, Sharypovo, but that was back when the borders had been very, very different.
All of this was stuff Grant usually didn't care about. But he'd been staring at the wall of the local Lieutenant's office, bored out of his skull, for about an hour. Turned out the guy liked old maps. Usually he wasn't any good at reading, but words on maps when you had this much time to kill weren't any trouble, and he'd been practicing. West City was easy enough, although he still didn't know why city started with C. Or why C existed, actually. Vauxhall was a little weird, and he probably wasn't pronouncing it right, but who cared? He'd at least gotten the hang of the 'au' thing. Sometimes it was 'ow' and sometimes it was 'oh' and sometimes it was 'o' and it was completely fucking pointless, but you just kinda made a good guess and it usually worked out. And Vowx sounded particularly dumb, so it probably wasn't that. Canning was easy, although he wanted to go on record again about C. And Sharypovo… he'd given up on, actually.
The door opened. Thank god. The fucker was finally back. Lieutenant Frank Archer sat down across from him, eyeing his cuffed wrists and the pen in his hands with skepticism. "Trying to break out?"
"Naw. Watch this." Grant rolled the pen across the back of his fingers. "Neat, ey?"
"…Fascinating." Archer picked up his pad. "So, the information you gave us when we picked you up with the rest. If you can verify that this is correct? Grant Haberkorn, eighteen, currently unemployed, living at the Algiers Room and Boarding House."
"Yeah, yeah." He really just wanted to go home. It was hard enough avoiding the Halky as it was. He'd found one bar that wasn't run by the Halky and that he could safely go to, and a gay bar at that, and of course the fucking military had raided it. Not for any particular reason either, apparently. They'd said something about them not having an alcohol license, but it came off a lot more like they liked harassing them. "Have I actually done anything wrong other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time?"
"It appears there's a bounty on your head."
Grant paused, pen still between his fingers. Oh, son of a bitch. He'd heard rumours that Max Heinkel had soldiers in his pocket. Just his luck. Or-
He sighed. Or, the reason the bar had gotten raided was because it wasn't under Halky protection. Stupid. He should have known that. His job had been putting the fear of God into the little shop owners and black market dealers who needed persuading. It stood to reason that the more legal-ish establishments had other methods. Not everybody caved at the first sight of a big guy with a bat. "Well, that's boss. Course I get the dirty cop."
"I'm a soldier, not a policeman, and I suggest you learn the difference."
"Is there one?"
"I have better training. For example, I know how not to leave bruises."
That was a pretty fast way to shut him up. Or at least get rid of the snark. Shit. He was in trouble. "So what happens now? You hand me over to the Halky and get a pay day?"
"That depends. You have a decision to make here, Grant. I'm a reasonable man."
Grant couldn't help but flick his eyes up and down, wondering if this was going where he thought it might. He hadn't pegged the Lieutenant for that kind, but you never knew with military types. And if sucking some dick meant he stayed alive, then sure, he'd do it. He wasn't bad-looking. A little greasy at the sides, maybe, but beggars couldn't be choosers.
Archer caught Grant's wandering eyes, and scowled. "Pull that depraved mind of yours out of the gutter. I have no interest. No, this is very simple. I let you go, and as far as I'm concerned, you weren't at that bar. And in return, I can contact you for a favour – one favour, at any time."
Oh, he didn't like that. He did not like that. He almost would have preferred being handed over to Heinkel. "Owin' yer seems dirtier."
"Interesting. It sounds like you don't trust me."
"I don't."
"Only one of us is gutter trash, Grant," Archer replied, not even looking at him as he scrawled a number on a piece of paper. "And only one of us has anything to lose other than a life which, from the looks of you," he eyed Grant with distaste, "isn't worth much to begin with. So really, it's me who has no reason to trust you. I suggest you take the olive branch and run with it."
Grant resisted the urge to hit him. Even with the cuffs on, he could have managed it. He was bigger, stronger, and-
-and Archer probably had a gun, let alone all the people outside.
So he shut up, took the number, and left.
Gutter trash.
"I'll show you gutter trash, you twat," he growled under his breath, crumpling the number in his fist – then he straightened it out, staring at it with a sigh. Corrupt pricks like Archer were everywhere in the West City military. He knew that good soldiers existed, theoretically, ones who fought people like the Halky instead of helping them, but there weren't enough of them.
Quietly, with no more substance than a whisper, a memory seeped in. It got stronger as he stepped out onto the smog-choked streets, jumping onto the back of the tram as it passed and pulling his scarf up over his face. All of those years, hoping somebody else would show up and save him from his father, waiting for some sort of hero to fix things. And in the end, it'd been him who shoved the fucker down the stairs.
Sometimes, you just had to do the damn thing yourself. And why not? If somebody like Frank Gobshite Archer could become an actual officer, it couldn't be that hard.
In defense of his teenage self, Jareth sighed internally as he stared at a wall that this time around, was completely bare – he hadn't expected Archer's career to last. Nor had he really expected the country to be small enough for him to actually meet Archer face to face again, even allowing for the slim possibility of him surviving the Halky.
It had been a dick move, admittedly. But he didn't feel particularly guilty about setting up Archer to get shot by the Halky. If anybody deserved it, it was him. And somehow, the fucker had weaselled out it. Maybe that was what happened when you had more Brillo in your hair than conscience.
He drummed his fingers on the table. He would have been dealing better if he had something to fiddle with. They were letting him sweat, which was a typical tactic. 101, really. Didn't mean it wasn't working.
He hadn't killed Hughes. Obviously. But –
But he'd been at home. The person he'd been with was dead now, and had probably been involved. He didn't have an alibi. And all of this was just to distract from the horrible, roiling anger in his stomach that he wasn't going to look at, he wasn't going to acknowledge, because if he got angry that was just going to make everything worse-
Frank Archer let himself into the room, and gave Jareth a look of such cold fury that Jareth wondered if making things worse was possible. Instead, he folded his arms. Archer sat down across from him, and turned on the tape recorder.
"Where were you on the night of June fifth?"
He sighed. "I was attending Phillip Armstrong's retirement gala."
"According to other attendees, you left early, and alone."
"I did. I don't like parties much – too many people."
Archer didn't look furious. Instead, he looked calculating. That wasn't a good sign. "Hm. And after that?"
Shit. Did he include Ling in this or not? The homunculi were classified information outside of National Defense – but Archer was Investigations. "I went home, I had a few drinks."
"Was anybody with you?"
Jareth couldn't help but chuckle a little. "My reputation precedes me."
"In more ways than one," Archer drawled in reply.
"I didn't have a girl with me, no. I did run into a homeless kid trying to get his shoes off the wires, and I helped him get them down, but that's the only other person I talked to that night."
"Did you get his name?"
He snorted. "I was drunk, and he was some beggar kid. What do you think?"
"Hm." Archer took a few more notes. This was eerily familiar. He wasn't fond of it. "What was your relationship with Maes Hughes?"
"We were best friends."
"How long were you two friends?"
"God, uh. Forever, really. We met when we were thirteen or something like that."
"So before you joined the military."
"There's only one person I know who joined the military at that age and he's a special case. So, yes." Archer shot him a glare, and Jareth did his best to dial back the snark. Frank just brought it out in him. All the same, though – "You and I both know that I didn't kill him," he said, unable to help himself. "This is a waste of time."
"You seem very comfortable stating that."
"Because I didn't kill my best friend."
"Crimes of passion are terrible things," Archer replied dispassionately.
"Crimes of – what?" Jareth rolled his eyes. He couldn't wait to hear this theory. No way was it going to hold up. He loved Gracia, sure, but she was one of the few women in this world that he had basically zero chemistry with. And Gracia didn't particularly like him. She didn't actively dislike him, no; she just didn't really know what to make of him, and he didn't expect little miss Finishing School to.
"How would you describe Maes Hughes's marriage?"
"Sickeningly adorable and happy, to the point of nauseating," Jareth said with a laugh. "Kind of the idyllic couple. Or, uh. Not anymore, I guess," he added, chest twinging. "But they were good together. She made him happy, and he made her happy."
"He never voiced discontent to you?"
"No, never. I think the most unnerved he ever got was feeling like he was being a bad husband for working late-" -and not wanting sex enough, Jareth added mentally, but it was bad enough that Hughes's marriage was coming up with Frank Archer as it was. He didn't want Gracia humiliated in the process.
"Hm. And what about you?"
"What about me?"
"Well, you're a single man. Promiscuous, by all reports, except…" Archer flipped to another page, "no records of treatments for syphilis, gonorrhea, the usual culprits."
Jareth felt his face turn red, the prickle of embarrassment on the back of his neck almost painful. He fought it down. God, he hated Archer. "It's called using a condom, you self-important prick," he snarled. "What are you trying to prove by bringing up that I don't get enough venereal diseases for you? And I have a girlfriend. Sheska Thomas."
"Ah, yes. A recent development."
"Still don't know what you're driving at, here."
Archer closed his file. "It must have been hard for you, when your best friend got married. Six, seven years ago now, wasn't it?"
"Yes, but –"
"And a child only solidified that."
"Are you kidding? I love Elysia."
"I'm suggesting, Jareth," the name dripped from his lips like it was poison, "that all of these women have been chaste dalliances and a front for something much more sinister. Tell me, did you ever make romantic overtures at Maes Hughes?"
Jareth stopped, his hand falling to the table. Something was ringing in his ears. He'd just had this conversation with Havoc. Christ. Christ, Havoc. "No," he said dully. It wasn't entirely the truth. There'd been once, when they were barely sixteen – but Maes had said no, and it had stopped there, and it had never gone any farther.
"I see. Have you ever made romantic overtures at other men?"
"No."
"Are you willing to swear by that in front of a court martial?"
And Jareth stopped, staring at Archer with so much hatred he thought he might throw up or kill Archer or both. Because Archer knew, perfectly fucking well, who he was. The moment he'd seen Jareth and Diana, the jig had been up. And if it had just been that, that would be one thing. Fine. And if Jareth had to lie about being gay to some other investigator, sure. The Wilde Act was in force, but it was such an open secret in the military that half the damn forces were queer that nobody took it that seriously.
But Archer had arrested him ten years ago in a gay bar. Archer didn't just know Jareth was gay, he knew everything about him that he'd hidden. He knew how to prove it. He knew how to make it hurt. And Archer had a grudge.
Jareth leaned forward and turned off the tape recorder. "This isn't just your grudge. It can't be. I know you want to see me go down, but you can't possibly hate me this much." It was risky, but there was no way he could pull off still denying that he was Grant Haberkorn. He hadn't changed that much.
"That's true. As much as I hold it against you, what you pulled was pretty impressive. No, I may be enjoying it, but this is about more than just our checkered past."
"What is this about, Frank?"
"Call me Frank again and I'll split your skull and call it self-defense."
"I don't put that past you, unfortunately," Jareth sighed.
Archer's eyes glittered. "Do you remember that old saying that Maximilian loved to use?"
"There were a number. You'll have to be more specific."
"You put one of us in the hospital, we'll put one of yours in the morgue." Archer picked up his papers, tapping them against the table and picking up the tape recorder. "So what happens when you put one of theirs in the morgue?"
Lust. This was about Lust.
Their suspicions had been right, about Dr. Holland. Wherever this cult was based, they had the military's protection and support. Which meant –
He was fucked.
After Archer left, Jareth buried his face in his hands. Thank god there was no mirror or anything in here. He knew he wasn't being watched.
Shit.
For all that he'd talked to Havoc about being careful, he wasn't the most cautious. He didn't go around with a sign on his head, no, but once you got to a certain rank, you sort of stopped caring. Besides, out in the real world, it was one thing. Here, everybody was queer. The number of straight men in their unit was frankly a statistical miracle. Maria Ross was – he was fairly certain from the way she'd slapped him, anyway – a lesbian; Davidson's owlish gazing over Will was obvious from a planet away, and for all of his muscles, Sander spent most of his off-time at one of Central's classier gay bars. What it was actually like, Jareth didn't know – the classy ones gave him migraines.
Except –
Except he had committed the grave mistake of being queer, and pissing off powerful people. That was the trick.
Idiot.
And now everybody in his life was going to get dragged into it too.
The truck stopped for the second night at a small outpost at the edge of the Powell Lake; Will only knew that much because he saw the signpost before the guards dragged him into the inn. The first night, they'd just left him in the truck and camped out. That had been uncomfortable enough; the inn, however, had people. And if he was doing the math right, they were distressingly close to Dublith.
It didn't help that one of the guards had had the bright idea to gag him. It wasn't anything fancy – a bar of metal, that was all – but it made him look so much worse than he needed to. They entered the inn, and he immediately dropped his shoulders in frustration.
The inn was empty. The innkeeper, however, had a small child at her legs, and was staring at the soldiers with obvious fear. No, he amended, trying not to feel like he wanted to wither up and die. She was looking at him.
"Ma'am, we need to commandeer your lodgings for the night. We're transporting a dangerous lunatic."
Luna- For christ's sake. The little boy looked terrified. Will worked his teeth against the gag, and managed to spit it out. "Would you please stop scaring the kid? I-"
The soldier whacked him in the stomach, and he doubled over, winded. Motherfucker.
"Um – upstairs."
The gag got shoved back into Will's mouth, but he caught a glimpse of the woman's face as he passed. She still looked scared, but it had changed a bit. Point for impressions, he supposed.
Once they'd got to the top of the stairs, the soldier who had hit him slammed him against the wall. "Don't counteract me in front of civilians again."
"Last time I checked, I outranked you, Corporal-"
"Not anymore."
"Is it official?" Will snarled. "Because I don't think you've got the power to do that. Or the balls," he added with a smirk.
"You're one to talk," the soldier replied. And before Will could parse exactly what he meant, the soldier's hand was running over his exposed stomach, pushing him harder against the wall –
Will closed his eyes, forcing himself not to react, not to do anything, anything would just make it worse, and the hand was moving downwards –
There was a sudden yelp, and the hand moved away. He opened his eyes. The corporal was shaking, looking not at Will but the slim fingers on both of his shoulders. Kimbley stood behind him, looking surprisingly serene.
"Did you know, Corporal, what the human body is made of? It's such an intricate thing. All of those chemicals and molecules, and when you boil it down to its basics, well… Will, why don't you help this poor gentleman?"
Motherfucker. "Water, 35 liters, Carbon, 20 kilograms, Ammonia, 4 liters, Lime, 1.5 kilograms, Phosphorus, seven- no, eight hundred grams, salt, two hundred and fifty grams, saltpeter, one hundred grams, sulfur, eighty grams, fluorine, seven and a half grams, iron, five grams, silicon, three grams, and fifteen other trace elements including cobalt, zinc, and iodine."
"My, my, what an excellent memory you have. Now, Will, do you happen to know – for this gentleman's benefit, how many of those are also in gunpowder?"
"Carbon as in charcoal, saltpeter and sulfur," Will recited, feeling numb. Elements. This was easy. This was normal ground. Maybe.
"Corporal, do you know how easy it is for a skilled alchemist to rearrange, perhaps rebalance, the ratio of certain elements in the human body and compress them?"
The corporal was openly sweating now. Will suddenly started to feel sick.
"Of course," Kimbley lifted both of his hands from the Corporal's shoulders, and Will glanced at the two halves of the transmutation circles tattooed on his palms – neither complete, he noticed, not real circles unless they were used together – "a skilled, ethical alchemist wouldn't do so. It's simply possible. So I suggest you go smoke a cigarette and reconsider your actions tonight, hm?"
The Corporal nodded in fear, and Kimbley handed him a cigarette and lighter, watching him run out of the door with barely-concealed glee. The other soldiers shrank back from him, and Will stared at him.
"You sick bastard."
Kimbley just grinned, and then put up his fingers and counted, mouthing silently, Five…four…three…two…one…
Boom.
The other soldiers practically squeaked in horror, falling into line and waiting for Kimbley's next words. He just sighed at them. "The next of you to think that 'declared incompetent' means 'free use' will get the slow motion version. Now shoo."
Will watched them go, feeling a little dizzy.
"You don't have to pretend you didn't laugh, by the way. I saw that smile."
"Fuck off." It had been a little funny, but the part of him that found the fucker blowing up funny was the same part of him that had thought taking cocaine before a military mission was a good idea, so he wasn't inclined to give it much free reign. But… "You're dragging me back to Central in chains, and you stop one of your own men from- that?"
Kimbley opened one of the room doors for Will, being almost chivalrous. "Sexual violence is one of those things I have very little patience for. Which surprises some people, and I'm not beyond turning a blind eye when I don't have the time or energy. That said," he smiled, and it struck Will once again as being almost predatory, and he closed the door behind him, "I know who you belong to."
Will narrowed his eyes into a glare. "I don't belong to anybody."
"I'm sure you think so. But Jareth is very possessive of his things."
There was a little thud in Will's chest at that. He sat down on one of the two twin beds, realizing with an annoyed but unsurprised sigh that he and Kimbley were sharing the room. Being a prisoner was wearing thin very, very quickly. "You mean Lieutenant Valjean?"
"Oh, so formal." Then Kimbley examined Will's face. "I see he didn't talk about me much."
"Can't imagine why not," Will retorted.
Kimbley clutched a hand to his chest in mock distress. It was annoying, how almost everything Kimbley said and did felt like mockery. All he wanted to do was curl up on the bed and ignore Kimbley, see if he could sleep, get this awful journey over with faster.
Except the end of the journey wouldn't be any better. The end of the journey was a horrible morass of uncertainty that – worst case scenario that wasn't as unlikely as he hoped, prayed it was – meant being locked up in a hospital. For a while. Not forever. He hoped. They'd just… keep him there until he was eighteen, until he got better, whichever came first. He was pulling a lot of this out of his ass, but it was all he had.
He glanced up at Kimbley, who seemed to think they were the same, somehow. They weren't – Will knew that much – but if he believed they were, maybe that was something he could use. He'd been in jail for something. Clearly his loyalty to Amestris was patchy at best. And he knew Jareth, apparently.
"How, um… how do you and Jareth know each other?" Damn it. He'd turned bright red right at the end, because he had a pretty good idea from the piercing in one of Kimbley's ears and Jareth's… well, everything. Jareth is very possessive of his things. There might have been a straight way to interpret that, but Will didn't know it.
"Somebody's curious."
"I'm bored, mostly. Shockingly, your meathead soldiers aren't wonderful company."
Kimbley snickered a little. "I'll have you know, they weren't my choice. He and I were on the same Black Ops team in Ishval. Which I suspect I'm not supposed to talk about, but it's old history by now."
Black Ops. The same thing the Colonel had talked about. "I, uh – Solaris talked about that."
"Oh, the lovely Diana. I'd say I miss her, but I fear she'd catch wind and murder me in my bed." At Will's expression, he added, "She never liked me, and that was before everything ended sourly."
Again, Will wasn't particularly shocked. For all of Diana's flaws, he couldn't imagine her and the smooth-talking sadist in front of him getting along.
"You are very eager to find out more about Jareth, aren't you?"
Will jolted back to reality. "Lieutenant Valjean and I are friends," he replied, just a little too woodenly.
Kimbley laughed, then moved over to sit next to Will on the bed, brushing some of his hair off of his shoulder. "You are a beautiful little thing, too. I imagine his eyes have wandered plenty, even if his hands haven't-" He put a finger to Will's earlobe, and Will bared his teeth at him. "Don't worry, don't worry, little one. I have no intentions on you. Like I said, I know perfectly well you belong to Jareth."
"Not in a million years. I don't belong to anybody." And yet, part of him was fixating on the words anyway – not of belonging to Jareth, but very simply that Kimbley had called him beautiful. It was so stupid. It was awful. The worst person in the world, and he was clinging to the fact that Kimbley thought he was beautiful.
"Then perhaps I shouldn't protect you so strongly. I'm sure you can take care of yourself, hm?"
Will scowled at that. He couldn't very well refuse the protection. And then he felt it – a stirring somewhere in his consciousness. Selim. Selim was awake.
Don't make things worse. Play along. Don't get angry. But damn, all he could think about was how this, this was the person responsible for ripping Minna Bradley out of the world. This was why. Him. "For somebody who detests sexual violence," Will said, trying to keep his voice even, "you're sitting awfully close to me."
"This isn't sexual violence. It's flirting."
Will couldn't help it – he laughed. The sheer brass of it was, he had to admit, absolutely breathtaking. "Do you blow up unwanted suitors for everybody you court? Or just the one in handcuffs?"
"Not everybody. I reserve it for special occasions."
"Fuck off."
Kimbley held up his hands, keeping them away from Will. He didn't, however, uncuff Will to let him sleep. That would have been nice; instead Will had to wrestle the cuffs behind himself and get himself down into a position that was almost comfortable. He kept his back to the wall, watching Kimbley crawl under the covers. If anybody came in, he'd know.
…Will? Are you okay?
Worry about yourself, Selim. It's fine. Then, unable to hide the guilt, knowing Selim could feel it anyway, I'm sorry. I really didn't think it'd hit you. It usually doesn't.
Do you… make a habit of taking drugs?
He chewed on his lip. He could see Selim's room on top of this one – much more cheerful, much more familiar. Sometimes? I'm not an addict, if that's what you're worried about. It just – helps, sometimes. Not a lot does.
You should stop.
Well, I'm definitely going to now. You didn't sign up for that.
Selim's spikes softened into something more comfortable. It's okay. I – I helped, right?
You did. You kept me – not lucid, exactly, but lucid enough. Will closed his eyes, and focused. He hadn't done this part of it on purpose before. It felt weird, like he was dreaming. Selim was… dizzy. A little hurt, physically – from falling earlier, it looked like. He was so bad at identifying his own emotions, as weird and eccentric as they were. Someone else's was just as hard, especially because Selim's… felt different. What was this one? He was – worried. Anxious? Chewing on an idea like a dog on a bone. It wasn't like Will's own anxiety, which felt jagged and constant, like razor-nails on his skin. This was more specific, even though it underlay so much.
I'm not good enough. And I have to be the best. If I'm not, then something terrible will happen. Whatever the something was, he didn't seem to know-
"What are you doing?" No vague thoughts here – Selim had mumbled it out loud to the silent room.
Will started back, realizing with a flush of embarrassment that he'd been practically rifling through Selim's mind. Sorry. I, um – Sorry. I won't do it again.
"I don't…" Selim was still out of it, the crash from the drugs still affecting him now. It wasn't just the drugs, to be fair. Mania was worse than any drug, especially secondhand. I didn't- Even mentally, Selim was tripping over his words, embarrassed, almost flinching away.
Will felt something twinge in his chest, and buried his face in the pillow. How was it that he was so scared, stuck in a situation he didn't have a way out of, and he still had room to worry about Selim, to want to be there with him, to make him feel better?
Selim laughed, possibly-unconsciously turning on the bed to wrap his arms around one of his extra pillows. "I dunno. Maybe you're dumb or something."
Usually, Will would have had some sort of snappy comeback. Instead, he smiled into the pillow. Maybe.
He felt a flush of heat across his face that wasn't quite there, because it wasn't his face. Worth it.
The anxiety was still there, and almost worse, so he decided to go ahead and ask. Do you feel like that all the time? I'm not – I mean, you're in my head all the time. You know.
Selim hesitated. I- Kind of. It feels silly. I'm not an anxious person. It's just kind of there. He sighed, holding the pillow a little more tightly. I came home from Lyon Hall because I wasn't really – I mean, I made friends. I was happy, sort of, but I wasn't.
I thought you were just done.
I had another two years, if I'd stayed. And Dad wasn't mad or anything. I got a decent education. But…
Something strange happened, and Will leaned into it, no longer questioning the connection between them as anything more than a weird, wonderful magic. Izumi wasn't wrong – it was a problem, sure – but right now, it was the company he needed. He was there, in Lyon Hall, and people were talking to him, but he couldn't hear what they were saying to him. All he was thinking was how stupid they were. Or, worse, that they were alright, maybe, but he was better. He'd designed automail at eleven, he didn't need to court their attention. He didn't need their praise, except –
-except, then, he wasn't getting it, and it felt like he was drowning, there was water in his lungs (no water, he was fine) and this was fine, he just had to impress them, that was all, impress them and they would praise him again-
I didn't lose any friends, except for that one jerk who spread a rumour about being a spastic, Selim said, his face buried into the pillow. It was all in my head, and I knew it, but I couldn't deal with it. That's why I came home.
Will wasn't sure what to say. He knew, generally, when Selim was unhappy, or restless – but Selim's emotions were so muted in comparison, and it was only recently that the details had started to come through with any clarity. That, and –
-and, he realized with an exhale, there was every chance that he'd caught plenty of this and just thought they were his own thoughts.
Selim's heart jumped, and Will felt it, and it wasn't like Selim hadn't known this, but there was knowing a thing and there was having it said – well, maybe not out loud. But where it mattered.
It's wild, isn't it? How many people think that being an arrogant jerk is something that people do because they're super confident and sure of themselves.
Are you calling me an arrogant jerk? Selim huffed slightly.
Eh, sometimes.
Selim deflated slightly – then he giggled into the pillow, tension suddenly releasing. I didn't think that would help.
Hey, from the pot to the kettle-
Selim just giggled some more. Stop making me laugh, Dad's going to get suspicious.
….Shit, you gotta tell him something, huh?
Yeah. I – I might just tell him. If he believes me.
You sure? I mean – Will pulled a face. Your dad is not the most, uh, flexible person in the world.
Selim sighed, then held his hand up to the light, curling it into a fist then flexing it again. I don't know what else would work. And, I mean… there's a few things I have to talk to him about.
Will sighed. Well, do it in the morning, will ya? I have to deal with weaselface over here all day tomorrow as well, and I'd like to do it on a full night's sleep.
He does look like a weasel, doesn't he?
Selim was going to be awake for a while longer, Will knew. He'd spent most of the last two days unconscious. But at least he was at enough peace for the moment that Will could fall into at least light sleep. He was going to need it.
