Page 3 of Freedom
“You don’t mind if I sleep next to you in bed?” he asked at last, in no more than a whisper.
Jake shook his head. “I really don’t. I mean. I’ll probably like it too.” He bit back the urge to addnot like thatbecause he didn’t want to even put the idea in Toby’s head if it wasn’t there. And besides, they still had the PG rule in place. Still... “Just sleeping, right?”
Toby nodded slowly.
It was a little awkward getting into bed that first time, Toby still tense and uncertain, Jake not wanting to push him or make it awkward. But after he’d turned off the light and they’d lain down—still with a healthy foot of space between them and Toby balanced on the edge of the mattress—Jake sighed and reached across to nudge his knuckles against Toby’s hand. “It’s okay. I don’t mind you touching me.”
By slow degrees, Toby shifted closer. Still not in danger of making skin contact, but after a few minutes, he curled his hand around the edge of Jake’s T-shirt again.
Then they were asleep.
It didn’t happen every night after that—Toby was still uneasy, of course, always anxious about intruding on Jake’s space, and Jake seriously didn’t want to pressure him. But more often, they sat side by side against the headboard for an hour before bed, watching TV or (in Toby’s case) reading, and Toby got less worried about leaning against him, head on Jake’s shoulder.
Jake liked it more than he wanted to admit. Not in any sick way, hell no. He wasn’t that kind of pervert. But he couldn’t remember even a handful of times in his life he’d gotten to just sit close to someone he loved. Well, he was sure he’d gotten to with his mom, but he didn’t remember much of it, and it was a hell of a long time ago, before Jake would’ve even been in kindergarten. Leon had only offered the briefest and manliest of one-arm embraces on rare occasions, though Jake thought he could remember one or two incidents, back when he was in elementary school and sick, when he’d gotten to huddle against Leon on whatever couch they’d had at the time as they watched a movie together.
This was different, of course. This was Toby, Jake’s whole reason for living for most of his life, and he still suffered nightmares even when he was next to him. But it made all the difference when Jake could wake up with him, talk to him, touch his face and brush his hair back, until Toby could come fully awake. The first few times, he seized Jake’s hand in a tight grip as shudders ran through his body. Then, over the next few nights, they’d rolled closer to each other, knocking knees and bare feet, until Jake could wrap his arm around Toby’s back and hold him close enough to feel Toby’s breath on his collarbone.
It did help, as he’d thought. For both of them.
~*~
Often Tobias was convincedhe would fuck it all up, even in new places a long way from his Boulder fuckups, or even with Jake next to him humming and tapping along with the music playing in the car. He was a monster, after all, and just because everything around him was good—the Eldorado, the real world, food, clothes, beds, andJake—didn’t mean he couldn’t make Jake sad, angry, silent. Some days, Tobias was certain he would destroy whatever unnamable thing he and Jake had between them and never know how to stop it.
They ate at a lot of diners, restaurants, and fast-food places. Jake might have tried to cook in Boulder, but as he put it, if someone else was getting paid to roast themselves in a kitchen, why should he expose Tobias to his own crap meals? Especially when most motel rooms had little more than a microwave and hot water, if that.
Tobias thought the food Jake had made in Boulder had been fantastic, and restaurants still kind of scared him—too many reals, too many ways for him to betray himself and for someone to recognize what he was. But he had to admit that every time that didn’t happen, every time they got burgers and fries at a greasy spoon, mom-and-pop joint (sometimes Tobias had no idea what Jake was talking about, none at all, the spoons were always perfectly fine), and no one pointed and started screaming about him being a freak or rushed to call the ASC, every time the waitress smiled while Jake placed their order, Tobias grew a little more confident in himself and his ability to survive in the real world. It was one thing for Jake to tell him that it would be fine, that no one would notice him, and quite another to go into shop after shop, restaurant after restaurant, and not have a single person do more than spare him a glance.
It was still hard, but every day got a little better.
A couple of days after the library book sale, at yet another diner—this one busier, the noise just on the edge of where Tobias wanted to curl into a ball and hide but not quite crossing that line yet—Jake unfolded his menu with a practiced flick of his wrist. “So, what do you think you want?”
Tobias looked at the neatly written lines. The glossy pictures. The tiny notes about prices, sizes, cooking requirements and age restrictions, and he closed the menu again, putting it carefully on the table. He was breathing evenly. He was proud of himself.
“Y-you can order for me,” he said. His brain was too full of words, pictures, andfood, utterly unreachable to a monster like him. Except incredibly, it was reachable because Jake was right there across from him.
But even with Jake’s presence and Tobias’s slowly developing tolerance for reals, he was still pretty sure he wouldn’t be able to look at the menu long enough to actually pick something out. There were simply too many options. Too many variables. And he had the sinking suspicion that even if he did manage to decide on one thing—with or without fries, soup, salad, vegetables, sauces, salsas, fruit cups, pancakes, or muffins—and a drink and all the other details that every restaurant seemed to require, Jake would still want him toaskfor it.
He wouldn’t be punished. He wouldn’t lose the meal if he didn’t do it right—although sometimes he thought the confused, wary, or irritated looks of the waitstaff were almost worse than skipping one meal in the dozens of delicious meals Jake fed him every week. He hated the way he stuttered and shook and how Jake’s hand clenched on the table, like he was the one suffering for every one of Tobias’s mistakes.
But unlike any sensible real person or monster (maybe Jake was beyond these categories because he was, after all,Jake), Jake kept pushing for those moments, forcing Tobias to the edge of his safe zone and urging him to take one more step out. Tobias still found it strange to believe there would be no physical pain for a failure, that Jake wouldn’t beat him or even shout at him.
Hard to believe, and yet every day it was true. Slowly, some of the great weight he’d never known he was under eased off. And every time that pressure released... well, he was beginning to want that too.
For Jake, he would jump off a cliff or stare a person in the eye. If Jake told him to, he would pick up the menu again and try to find something edible. The problem was that it would all be edibleanddelicious, and he didn’t deserve that. He’d have understood his options if there were a section marked “Freak Food” on the menu, but even that was a stupid idea, because freaks weren’t supposed to be in restaurants at all.
But Jake didn’t ask. His fingers tightened on his menu, but Tobias doubted anyone else noticed. “Okay. How about a cheeseburger, extra onions?”
“That w-would be delicious, Jake.”
“Or a salad? You liked that chef salad in Kendall, right? And the Greek one in Indy, though maybe with fewer of those weird, wet, leafy things.”
“A-artichoke hearts.”
“Yeah, those. Oh, hey, the soup looks good. Want soup? Or soup and a sandwich. What’s the special—ugh, three-cheese squash and bean soup, I don’t even want to think about that. Uh, if you want to try it, though...”
If Jake didn’t like it, or didn’t like the sound of it, Tobias didn’t particularly want to try it. But he would do anything for Jake. “If you think I sh-should, Jake.”
“Yeah, well, there’s lots of other stuff, too. Hmm, smothered baked potato. Oh, you can get extra sour cream on it. That would put some meat on your bones. You like those?”
