Page 30 of How to Bite Your Neighbor and Win a Wager
“You don’t belong in this city.” Babcock took a step forward. “We have a better place for you.”
That was another set of familiar quotes, ones with their own specific meaning. In them, thebetter placewas not one with the soothing safety of a home like Wesley’s, but a camp, a cage, or a grave. They would have to drag Vincent there if they wanted him to go. By the looks of them they were more than willing.
His heart pounded. The windows had bars and the doors to his left and right only led to dead-end rooms. Babcock and his assistant stood in front of the only way out, and even that was closed. As Babcock continued drawing free his weapon, a terrible burning tingled along Vincent’s exposed skin, prickling and scorching. He raised his arms instinctively to cover his face. His limbs felt weak, sluggish. He stumbled, his knees threatening to buckle. His boot slipped in the puddle of blood.
As he steadied himself, he caught sight of the weapon: long, thick, and silver. Not literal silver—that had never bothered Vincent—but a silver that burned. He had encountered nothing like it before, and by the way his skin felt even this far from its exposed metal, he would have been happy to never do so again.
The window rattled suddenly as someone banged on it from outside, and all three of them jumped.
A shout came through the entrance, “Hey, you got a lighter in there?”
Babcock turned just as the door flung open, blocking the silver weapon from Vincent’s line of sight. Its effects dimmed instantly. Vincent seized his chance.
He tore past the startled Babcock and his assistant, stumbled straight into the person outside. The man grabbed him by the shoulders, wheeling him onward. Vincent recognized him from the street corner.
“Go,” the stranger mouthed and winked.
Vincent obeyed. He sprinted down the alleyway, only glancing back long enough to be sure that Babcock and his assistant weren’t heckling his timely savior before turning onto the main street and dashing into the night. With his speed, his legs carried him outside the pair’s reach in seconds. He turned north on Wine Street and west on 34th and caught the bus back toward the suburbs.
Only then did his limbs begin to shake.
He leaned against his knees, cupping his forehead in his hands. All he wanted was to show right back up at Wesley’s, to curl on his couch with him in the safety of his cozy little house and nibble on his neck and make him laugh and pretend that this hadn’t just happened, that he hadn’t lost the best job he’d had in months and been attacked—attacked—with some terrifying burning metal. But he couldn’t do that, couldn’t put that pressure on Wesley after all the man had already done for him.
He couldn’t make himself more of a burden.
So when he got off at their neighborhood’s stop, dead phone in one pocket and all his ragged emotions bundled in the other, instead of knocking on Wesley’s door, Vincent slipped around to the backyard. He settled against the wall beside the tarped exercise bike and plugged his charger into the external outlet. His phone chimed as it woke up, and he frantically muted it, glancing at Wesley’s window on the second story. His room remained as dark as the rest of the house.
HotMouth
Hey, phone’s charging now, just letting you know.
Thank you again for everything. I’ll make it all up to you, I promise.
Work’s going to be funky for a bit so just let me know when you’re free next.
As his final message sent, a dim illumination reflected off the edge of Wes’s windowpane—a phone screen, Vincent realized. Wesley’s icon brightened. It felt just a bit stalkerish to watch, but Vincent figured this was a step up from breaking and entering. And there was no way he could handle sitting in anyone else’s backyard to charge his phone in his current emotional state, risking someone calling the cops on him or worse. He needed this: being here with Wesley’s fences on all sides and the comfort of the house at his back. He needed, just for a moment, to feel safe.
LordOfTheWin
I’ve been a shit to Kendall lately so I should probably reserve tomorrow night for her.
What about Friday?
HotMouth
Friday it is :)
Vincent tucked his phone against his chest. Friday then. It left an odd flutter in his stomach, a combination of excitement and dread. He wanted this—wanted to be around Wesley, to bask in his kindness and try to repay him for it. But at the same time, he knew himself and the patterns his life took on. He didn’t want to drag Wes into that. And he didn’t want to be kicked to the curb again when Wesley finally realized just how much Vincent wasn’t worth his effort.
13
WESLEY
Wesley was half awake, caught between detachment and misery. He’d fallen into bed post-emotional breakdown with the intention of napping to clear his head, but he’d managed to sleep for over eight hours and still had not removed the numbness from his mind or the ache from his chest. With his own hands, he’d come so close to placing Vincent in inconceivable danger and backing out had left Vitalis-Barron still standing. It was still standing, still killing, still putting mothers in unmarked graves and forcing their children to bury empty coffins, and Wes was doing fuck all about that, at the moment.
Because he’d chosen Vincent.
Wesley had no regrets about that, but he still had a whole lot of other feelings, ones he couldn’t bear to deal with yet. He was supposed to be comingoutof an emotional breakdown, not falling back into one.
