Another Man's Treasure

by J. A. Rock

  Louis looked at the weed again, at the porn again, and at Eli again. Opened his mouth, closed it. Shook his head at last.

  Like watching a man lose his faith right in front of him, Eli had thought later.

  If he’d had a gun that day, his father would already be dead.

  IV

  “This tastes foul. I’m not eating it.” Nick spooned his pasta onto Patrick’s plate. “You eat it. Get fucking fat for all I care. You’re already ugly.”

  Patrick met Ilia’s gaze, a silent warning to stay calm. Ilia didn’t know how he was supposed to manage that. He was terrified Nick would sit there and make Patrick eat every bite of the poisoned food.

  But Nick got up. “I’ve got shit to do.” He crossed the living room and went into the bedroom.

  Before Ilia could say anything, Patrick spoke, loudly: “Come back here and eat your dinner.”

  Ilia went bone-cold. “Patrick,” he whispered, but Patrick wasn’t looking at him.

  At first Ilia thought Nick hadn’t heard. Prayed he hadn’t heard. But then Nick appeared in the doorway. “What did you say?”

  “I said come back and eat your dinner,” Patrick repeated. Ilia could see the wild pulse in his neck; saw how one hand trembled near his plate. But Patrick’s voice didn’t falter. “If you’re such a big man, then stop acting like a child. Come over here and eat.”

  Nick came closer, a languid predator, not hungry but still curious about the bait dangling in front of it.

  Patrick pushed his plate into Nick’s spot. “A real man wouldn’t need to do what you’re doing to us. Wouldn’t need to torture people to feel powerful. A real man, like your brother, had Ilia because Ilia wanted him.”

  “Don’t!” Ilia begged Patrick.

  “No, no, let him,” Nick said with a grin, waving his hand at Ilia as though Patrick were about to tell a joke Nick had heard a million times but still loved the punch line of.

  “I don’t think you’re any kind of man at all,” Patrick said firmly. “So eat your faggoty vegetarian bullshit. You might as well.”

  Ilia couldn’t imagine Nick wouldn’t just pull out his pistol and shoot Patrick—and then Ilia too, probably.

  Nick sat slowly, still grinning. Picked up his fork and took a big bite of pasta. “Is this better?” He stared at Patrick and took another bite.

  Patrick gripped the edge of the table to still his trembling hand.

  Nick swallowed. “See? I can be a man, when I want to be.” His voice was soft. “I can also be a child.” He picked up a piece of pasta and flung it at Patrick. It hit Patrick’s cheek and bounced onto the table, leaving a smear of white sauce on Patrick’s skin. “Man—” Nick took another bite. Chewed and swallowed. “Child.” He picked up a handful of pasta and threw it all at Patrick. Laughed.

  He made to throw another piece, and Patrick shut his eyes. As soon as he did, Nick lunged across the table and grabbed him by the hair, pulling him out of his seat and shoving his face into the plate.

  “No!” Ilia started to rise, but Nick released Patrick almost immediately.

  Patrick lifted his head. Food clung to his face and hair, and Ilia wondered wildly if the Brugmansia had gotten into Patrick’s mouth—if it could hurt him.

  “Clean up and get ready,” Nick ordered, his smile gone. He stood, shoving his chair back. “You’re coming with us.”

  “Why?” Ilia asked desperately.

  Nick addressed Patrick, as though he was the one who’d asked. “Because look at Ilia over there. I don’t think he has the balls to shoot Captain Porter. Not without some serious motivation. So, Ilia—” Nick finally looked at Ilia. “If you do not kill the Captain tonight, I will kill Patrick. Either way, you will be responsible for someone’s death. And I have a feeling—” Nick glanced at Patrick, who was wiping his face with a napkin, trying not to look at Nick. “You do not want it to be his. Am I right?”

  Ilia knew the term “blind panic,” but this was something more—a demolition of all his senses, clearing the way for a place where there was nothing but fear, from all sides, always. He would live in that place and die in it. He was sure of this.

  Only Patrick’s presence kept him in his seat. Kept him from screaming. Patrick, and the promise that they would get out of this together. The hope that maybe Nick had consumed enough of the poison to die.

  “I know this,” Nick continued, “because I see the way you look at each other. I hear you whisper.” He stepped behind Patrick, put his hands in Patrick’s soiled hair and combed through the sauce-soaked strands. Patrick stayed perfectly still. “You know what this is?” Nick asked Ilia. “This is you, when he sucks your cock. You do not take your pleasure.” Nick slammed his hips into the back of Patrick’s chair. Patrick flinched. “You pet him. You are afraid to hurt him.”

  “I’m not like you,” Ilia forced out.

  Nick stared at him. Yanked back on Patrick’s hair, exposing Patrick’s throat—the long blue veins there, the silent pulse. “We’ll see. In a few hours, you will either be more like me than you think.” He patted the side of Patrick’s neck, still looking at Ilia. “Or you and he will both be dead.” Nick leaned down and licked some of the sauce off Patrick’s cheek. Closed his eyes and snickered in his ear. “It is not so bad. Your faggoty... vegetarian... bullshit.” He tugged Patrick’s hair almost affectionately on each word. Then he grabbed a handful of the smashed pasta that remained on Patrick’s plate and shoved it in his mouth. Chewed, swallowed, and straightened.

  “Go. Wash off.” He clapped his hands together. “This is an important night! Now we see who is a wolf and who is a bitch, huh?”

  V

  “If he collapses here,” Patrick said, the sound of the water running in the bathroom sink muffling his words, “we close ourselves in here, okay? Until he’s not moving anymore. Then we try and figure a way out of this.”

  Ilia nodded.

  Wouldn’t work. Wouldn’t work.

  He felt like they’d lit the fuse on this thing, and it was too late to stop it now. They could only watch as it blew up in their faces.

  “If it happens when we’re outside,” Patrick said. “We run. Okay? We run.”

  Ilia met his gaze in the mirror. “And if it happens when we’re in the car, we’re dead.”

  VI

  Nick made Patrick re-lace Ilia’s piercing. A bright red ribbon.

  Made Patrick tie it tight.

  VII

  Nick was sweating. Shiny beads of moisture clung to his forehead, to the roots of his swept-back hair.

  Ilia stumbled as Nick opened the front door of the apartment and ushered them into the hall. God. He wanted to run. It took all his concentration not to do it. He was afraid he would forget and let the urge overtake all his common sense, and then the last thing he’d hear would be a gunshot. The last thing he’d feel would be hot metal ripping through bone and muscle. He sucked in a deep breath and held it until his lungs burned, until the need to run had passed.

  How many times had he walked this hall with Nick and wanted to run? Told himself Nick wouldn’t shoot him in the hallway of an apartment building, and tried to muster the courage to bolt.

  But he never could.

  Because what if Nick would shoot him in the hallway of an apartment building?

  “The fuck...” Nick muttered, reaching out to brace himself against the wall as he swayed.

  Ilia couldn’t look at him. Couldn’t look at Patrick either.

  Nick breathed hard for a few seconds, then pushed himself up and kept going.

  Patrick took Ilia’s hand as they headed down the back stairwell. Squeezed.

  VIII

  Mayrsolt was waiting with the car.

  Nick made Ilia sit up front, and he sat in the back with Patrick. Ilia kept an eye on Nick through the rearview mirror. He was still pouring sweat and looked pale.

  “Hurry up and drive.” Nick fell back against the seat, panting.

  Mayrsolt set off through the city, toward Bethesda.r />
  Traffic, headlights, restaurants all swam by. Women in skirts too short for the weather. Men in long coats. A cyclist with a flashing light on his helmet, and another on the back of his bike. A couple walking their golden retriever.

  When Mikhail was alive, Ilia had spent most days shut up in the apartment, their sanctuary, waiting for Mikhail to get there. Watching videos, killing time on the Internet, thinking about what he’d do for Mikhail later. What he’d offer. What Mikhail would give him in return.

  And maybe that had been its own sort of prison. Nothing like the prison Nick had forced on him, but he’d lived in a place that felt good, felt safe—yet closed him off from the world. Had Mikhail ever thought about that? Worried that his sweet boy didn’t know how to be anything else? Or was there some truth to what Nick said—that if Mikhail wanted something, he found a way to possess it, regardless of the damage he did in the taking?

  I loved him. He was mine too. Never worked just one way.

  The love had been real, just…

  Incomplete?

  No. He didn’t want to think about this. How could he think about this, with the shit storm that was breaking?

  They were entering Bethesda—black trees, quiet streets. Ilia saw Patrick trying to meet his gaze in the mirror, maybe trying to tell him something. But Ilia’s focus was on Nick, who heaved, stretched, and rolled his head toward Patrick. Ilia noticed that even Mayrsolt was watching through the mirror.

  “Whuuhhjjjoo do tuh me?” Nick slurred, tugging on Patrick’s sleeve.

  Patrick didn’t look at him.

  “Hey, bitch.” When Patrick didn’t respond, Nick dragged out his pistol and aimed it sloppily at Patrick’s face. “I said whuh. Joo. Dotome?”

  Ilia closed his eyes and counted to ten, like he used to do when something in a movie scared him—give himself time to recover, to remember that what he was watching wasn’t real.

  Wouldn’t work here, but he didn’t know what else to do.

  “Nothing,” Patrick said coldly.

  Ilia opened his eyes and saw Nick pick up Patrick’s arm. He placed the barrel of the pistol against the knob of Patrick’s wristbone, then jumped it a few inches up Patrick’s forearm; a few more inches, then a few more...almost delicately, until he finally reached Patrick’s neck and held the gun there. “Know yuhdid somethinnnn.” Nick pushed at Patrick’s Adam’s apple with the gun.

  Patrick swallowed, but didn’t move.

  “C’maaaahhhn, whore.” Nick stared at Patrick, his face slick, his jaw trembling. “Feel sick ’s a bitch.” He let his gun hand fall to the seat.

  “Do you need me to stop?” Mayrsolt asked.

  “No!” Nick snapped. He swung the gun toward Mayrsolt. “‘F I need to stop, I’ll fuckin’lsaystop.” He looked at the ceiling. “All yuhfuckers need tahshuddup!”

  He dropped the gun into the seat well. Ilia stared, his lungs tight, heart still. Maybe this was it. Maybe he needed to do something—attack Mayrsolt, crash the car, get out before Nick could retrieve the gun.

  But before Ilia could move, Patrick lunged down into the seat well, grabbing for the pistol.

  Nick’s arm shot out. He caught Patrick’s wrist and wrenched. Patrick shouted. Nick slammed Patrick’s arm against the back of Mayrsolt’s seat. Slammed it again and again until Ilia heard the crunch of bone over Patrick’s cries.

  Nick released Patrick, breath sharp and shallow. A string of drool made its way down his chin. “Luuhhkame. Sick’sabitch. Still...fuckin’...stronger...’n youuu.”

  Patrick’s sobs jarred something in Ilia. Something beyond words, animal and visceral, a rage he couldn’t translate to action. No attack Ilia could have mounted, on Nick or on Mayrsolt, would have satisfied it. Not even the outcome Ilia and Patrick had most hoped for—Nick dead, the two of them free—would have quelled it. His body and mind were caught together in one vast, silent howl.

  No matter what he did, someone would hurt, someone would bleed. He’d never be able to save Patrick, the one good thing he clung to, slick with blood and still shining, a true light, a real hope. He’d lose it all—every couple with a golden retriever, every black tree and headlight and shouted greeting and cold evening and any chance at putting things right. But his greatest loss would be Patrick, who offered honesty rather than admiration, comfort rather than safety. Who demanded Ilia look after him in turn. It wasn’t love; didn’t have to be. But Ilia wanted to live long enough to learn to value whatever it was, and whatever it might become.

  The car stopped in front of a house that was familiar even when Ilia himself felt unrecognizable. Mayrsolt shut off the engine. Patrick quieted as Nick clapped a hand on his shoulder, jostled him, and said, “Shhh, lih’l bitch. ’S ssshhhhowtime.”

  IX

  When Ilia’s father had to work a morning shift, he went to bed at ten thirty. He played FreeCell on his laptop for half an hour and was asleep by eleven.

  Ilia’s mother sometimes stayed awake reading for a little while after that.

  Tonight, though, the time was a little after eleven, and the bedroom window was dark.

  Ilia still had a key. He wondered, briefly, what would happen if his parents had changed the locks. But the key turned smoothly, with a faint little click that should have sounded as heavy and ominous as thunder.

  Ilia looked back over his shoulder. The car was parked on the street. Dark and sleek, but Ilia knew they were watching. Nick and Mayrsolt. Not Patrick though. Patrick was curled up on the seat, clutching his broken wrist and sobbing.

  The thought made Ilia’s eyes sting.

  Weak, a voice spat at him. You didn’t cry. Not until he came along.

  This was the voice that had told him to suck Nick’s cock, because that was power—to moan with pleasure instead of crying in pain. To take whatever he was given and slam it onto his identity, build his body into something made of that suffering and therefore immune to it.

  Ilia stepped inside and closed the door behind him. Felt relief, if only for a moment, at being out of Nick’s sight.

  He stood in the mudroom awhile and breathed. The house still smelled the same, felt the same. But he knew he was wrong to be here—a killed-off television character resurrected as a ratings stunt to find he no longer belonged in the story, that the other characters had moved on with their lives and that the narrative had sealed like a wound, shutting him out.

  Click. Click. Click.

  Dog claws on the floor. A nose nuzzled around his knees.

  “Hey, Charlie.”

  Charlie always barked at strangers.

  “You miss me?” Ilia whispered, rubbing his fingers over the coarse hair on the dog’s head. “Didn’t know if you’d remember me.”

  Charlie stretched and huffed, then padded back toward the kitchen. He slept there, Ilia’s mom said, because he didn’t want to miss a thing. What if someone went for a glass of water in the middle of the night and Charlie wasn’t there to see the fridge open? Who’d make sure he got a snack?

  Ilia thought of Patrick out in the car. Thought of Nick pressing the gun to his head and pulling the trigger. Thought Patrick’s death, his own, were fucking inevitable, so why was he in here? Ought to be out there. Ought to die with Patrick.

  Just need to breathe, just need a chance to breathe for a minute, to think.

  Nick hadn’t been able to pick up the gun from the floor of the car. He’d stopped Patrick from getting it, but he hadn’t been able to reach down to get it himself.

  He’s sick. He’s sick from the poison, and maybe he’ll die. If I just wait here, if I just wait, maybe he’ll die.

  Maybe he’ll die, and then what? There’s still Mayrsolt.

  The choice was the same as it had always been: Ilia and Patrick, or Ilia’s father.

  Something was buzzing in Ilia’s head like a trapped insect. He couldn’t swat it, could only feel its wings vibrate between brain and skull, irritation fueling the dark heat in his body, the trembling of his limbs.

  He walk
ed carefully through the shadows. As he did, he tried to twist himself into what he’d been before Patrick. Soulless, mindless. Doing what Nick said because it was better to be Nick’s ally than his victim. Better to learn to hate weakness in others than to cultivate it in himself. There was a part of him that believed he could do it: kill the man who’d treated him with derision and contempt his whole life for a chance to save a man who’d been nothing but kind to him.

  Not a completely selfish choice then.

  So do it, you coward. For once in your fucking life, be a wolf.

  He clutched the stair railing and gulped back a sudden, hysterical laugh. Patrick was the one who had ripped Ilia from that cold place and then barred the way back. Had convinced Ilia to see strength in compassion, to treat his soul, his conscience, as a gift. To fight. And in doing so, Patrick had sealed his own fate.

  Ilia couldn’t let Patrick make that sacrifice. He had to be a monster again, because it might be the only chance Patrick had to get free. Patrick was worthier than Ilia anyway. Stronger. He’d never lost himself. The world would be better for having Patrick in it, and wouldn’t feel Ilia’s loss any more than an animal would feel the absence of a fly shuddered from its skin.

  He took the stairs slowly. Knew which ones creaked.

  His parents slept with their bedroom door open.

  Ilia stood in the doorway.

  His dad was closest to the door. He was on his side, the pillow jammed up under his head. Ilia’s mom was snoring lightly behind him. They slept back to back, which Ilia thought for a moment was incredibly sad, although he wasn’t sure it meant anything.

  “Dad,” he said, raising the gun.

  His dad came awake slowly. “Wh-what...what’s going... Eli?”

  “Dad.” Ilia’s voice trembled. “This is for Mikhail.”

  This is for Patrick.

  CHAPTER TWELVE