Page 11 of All Your Days
For better or worse, ever since that first day I arrived at The Facility with Sarah, I’ve been drawn to Eli. Compelled to keep watch over the terrified boy trapped on a pile of trash staring down a zombified snake.
In the beginning, Eli took my hovering as a sign to try and make friends. But I’d been too scared and to hurt to let him get close, so I turned down all his attempts at friendship. The problem is, I’ve never been able to truly shake my obsession with him, while he does his best to pretend I don’t exist.
Tamping down the racing of my heart with a couple of steadying breaths, I press the entry buzzer for the doors to subbasement four. I have the completely irrational impulse to do something about my hair. Thankfully, the doors buzz and the metal lock releases with a loudthunkbefore I can start fussing at myself.
The vials clink gently in the cart as I drag them into the Labs.
“Ah! The samples! Excellent.” Moby claps his hands and gets off his stool, an island in a sea of technology I can’t even begin to understand, and shuffles over to check on the samples.
“Oh. Didn’t manage to get them all, I see?” Moby looks a little disappointed as he picks up one vial after another for a quick inspection before replacing it.
Considering that it’s mostly my fault, I feel the flush of embarrassment.
“Uh, yeah, nah. Sorry. We weren’t able to get some of ‘em. They, uh, you know….” Fuck, it shouldn’t be so hard to explain that they were having sex but the man is old enough to be my father, judging by the creases around his eyes.
“Ha!” Moby doesn’t seem to experience any of the same awkwardness about it that I do. His face splits into a wide smile to accompany his loud laugh. “Yes, I understand. Never mind.We’ll get them another time. Take them over there, would you? My assistant’ll get them all sorted.”
Moby waves his hand carelessly around the lab, shuffling off to the machine he was using when I arrived.
It’s a strange device. Moby’s eyes are pressed against the black tubes—they look kind of like the binoculars we use on watch. But they are too small and attached to an arm that points more tubes towards a plate. Moby hums to himself while he looks through the device, occasionally adjusting the knobs on the side.
“So are you gonna hand those over or what?”
I didn’t see Eli when I came in, but now he’s right here, behind me. Turning to face him, my nerves pulse anxiously in my throat.
Eli looks just as perfect as he did this morning. His soft brown hair frames his face, with a swoop at the part from where he’s shoved his hand through repeatedly while working. He bats his big brown eyes at me, apparently completely unbothered by my staring. His mouth is even quirked up in the corner with a little smirk.
Does he know? Does he know just how badly I want him?
Eli crosses his arms over his chest and I’m mesmerised by the sight of his forearms, where he’s pushed up the sleeves of his shirt while he’s been working. Does he know how fucking sexy that is? And hishands. They are stained black around his nails, despite the constant scrubbing he has to do down here, and I’ve spent far too many nights picturing what they’d look like wrapped around my cock. Or his cock. Fuck, wrapped around both our cocks, with both our cum spilling over them.
“Uh, yeah. Yeah.Yes.” I answer when I finally remember he asked a question.
Eli takes the trolly, not commenting on my stammering answer. He does give me a look, though, like he’s wondering if I’ve gone mad. I’m kind of wondering the same thing.
I blame it on the chaotic feelings of my morning. On finding out Eli is going out with Daniel on the weekend. I know it’s not my place to have feelings about it, about any of the fellas Eli’s been with over the years. But I do. And then spending too long underground. That always messes me up. And then spending time with Kelly. Seeing someone so young, with his entire life ahead of him and having it all ripped away… It’s set me on edge.
Because sometimes I feel like one of the zombified down below, rattling the bars of my cage, just going through the motions each day, waiting for the end.
“Were you on guard downstairs this mornin’?” Eli asks, when he realises I’ve lingered behind.
Despite knowing better, I latch onto the excuse to stay.
He stands at a tall desk, cataloguing each sample into a ledger. Nobody should be beautiful under the harsh fluorescent lighting of the Labs, but somehow, Eli manages it. The light creates the perfect shadows to highlight the pouting fullness of his lips and the sharpness of his jaw.
Walking closer to the workstation, I shove my hands into the pockets on my uniform pants to keep myself from reaching out. A stray lock of hair has fallen over his face, and my fingers itch to tuck it behind his ear.
“Yeah, I was just bringin’ the samples on the way to level nine.”
Eli looks up, pulling a face. “We’re not exactly on the way. What do they want? They sendin’ you away again?”
There is a forced casualness to his voice that gives me pause. Does he notice when I’m gone?
The idea that he might not onlyknowbut alsocaresparks an awful kind of hope inside me. I hate it, and the way the part of my head I’ve never been able to control runs away with itself with all kinds of fanciful ideas. Nothing good lies down that road.
“I dunno, probably. It’s that time of year,” is what I say instead.
“Oh. Well.” It really sounds like Eli is going to say more, but he doesn’t.
