Archive of Our Own

Neil thumbed at the thick piece of plastic in his palm, selecting the single contact listed in his phone. At this stage it could hardly be called that, as during most of his travelling he heard people of all ages complain about how easy their phones had been broken, and how the battery was beginning to fail them. He couldn’t relate, seeing as his government issued phone had been kicked, dropped, waterlogged, and had gone through just about everything else in between, and it was still working without fault.

“One week and three days,” the voice on the other end of the line greeted him. “We have a deal, Josten.”

Neil made a sound halfway between a scoff and a huff of laughter. “Good morning to you too, Agent Browning.” His voice was low, inaudible to those who walked past. Despite the irritation already beginning to stir in his stomach, he kept his external composure nice and calm, appearing as though he was talking to an old friend rather than his keeper.

“Do I need to remind you?” Agent Browning asked, voice loud but lacking in anything that could be intimidating. “You call to check in once every seven days at the latest- you call me to let me know when you’re jumping states. You were a couple days close to me sending every cop from Pennsylvania to Florida after your ass!”

Neil waited for Browning to finish his ranting before slowly replying, “And have I ever ‘jumped states’ without telling you? I’ve been working a lot lately, it slipped my mind that I should tell you that I’m still in Virginia. I haven’t even stepped foot in the West for the past week that I’ve been here, and I notified you before I left Pennsylvania and Maryland.”

Agent Browning huffed. “Once a week you call me, until you settle down, that is.”

“I know.” Neil pressed himself further into the wall behind him, grounding himself in the feeling of his backpack digging into his spine. For over a year now Neil had been making these calls, but they had become no less tedious or any more bearable.

There was a beat of silence before Agent Browning asked, “Where are you now?”

Neil reached up, scratched his nose, and sniffled. “Richmond, Virginia,” he answered. “But I’m thinking of heading down to South Carolina, I want to check out the Francis Marion and Sumter National Forests.”

Agent Browning hummed, and Neil could make out the quiet sound of clicking, presumably his laptop keyboard as he looked over online maps. “You gonna follow the interstate through the North? Down to, uh- Columbia?”

“Probably not, Charlotte seems more interesting,” he replied, nose creasing at the thought. He knew almost nothing about Columbia aside from its assortment of bars and bright nightlife- not exactly his cup of tea.

“Alright, assuming you’re gonna be travelling quick, no need to call me when you pass through North Carolina. I expect a call when you make it to Summer Forest or whatever- no going off the grid before you give me a heads up.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Neil drawled, ignoring Agent Browning's irritated tut at his sarcasm. “Enjoy your day, Agent.”

Neil tucked his phone away into his pocket and pushed himself off of the wall, walking up towards the stairs that lead to the entrance of the grand Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. He’d knock off a couple hours here, then find himself a bus headed south. Neil had always appreciated galleries, and had long since gotten over the odd looks that he received, being ill dressed and unwashed in a place like so and all.

After a stern talking to with the staff on hand at the cloak room, Neil left his backpack with them so that he could comfortably browse the art on display. He sunk further and further into the brightly lit rooms, passing oil paintings, marble statues, pieces crafted with gold and silver, and few contemporary sculptures made by emerging artists.

He came to a complete stop in one of the rooms housing the Alphonse Mucha: Paris 1900 collection, dominated by his posters and advertisements. Neil was stood in front of one of the many grand posters, this one depicting a pale-skinned, hazel-eyed blonde woman wearing a crown of leaves, and decorated in layers of flowing fabric. Her posing was delicate and deliberate, but stood immovable within her frame, captivating Neil in all of her glory.

He took no photos of her, he never did at galleries. He’d allow her to live in his mind as he crashed in a nearby diner, downing a coffee and marking out the interstates on his old, worn map. She’d follow him as he sat down in a bus, losing himself in the view outside the window and the thoughts within his head.

There was a comfort that her definite gaze had given Neil that lingered within him even after he collected his backpack and made his way back out into the streets of Virginia. He found himself hoping that the feeling would stick by as he carried on away from her and headed to the renowned Charlotte, South Carolina.

There was a reason as to why Neil adamantly refused to allow himself to hope. Never again was he going to allow himself to fall asleep on a bus.

-

It hadn’t been Neil’s intention to cause a scene when he rushed into what he thought was just another unremarkable store on a Thursday evening. Hell, he’d planned to cut through Charlotte rather than Columbia, and now he was stuck in a tiny city an hour out from Columbia- a place he’d never even heard of until the bus driver jostled him awake hours ago.

To make matters worse, how was he supposed to know that the building he’d shoved his way into was a physiotherapy and wellness clinic? More so, how could he have known that it was a group of crazy assholes that ran the place?

Neil’s worn sneakers squeaked against the smooth linoleum floor as he came barging through the small front door. If it wasn’t for the fact that fluorescent light spilled through the large window to his left and out onto the street, this being one of the few stores that still had its lights on at this hour, he probably wouldn’t have even noticed the place at all.

He didn’t take in his surroundings immediately, too preoccupied with his erratic heartbeat and the looming threat behind him. Rather, Neil spun around in a quick circle, the large backpack pressed against his spine almost tossing him off of his feet at such movement, and he stared wildly out of the window. Held to his chest was his camera, sealed away in its lush protective case. Neil held onto it so tightly that the plastic of the straps and buckles bit into his palms and fingers. He couldn’t make out the sight of anyone when he peered down the streets from the safety of the window, and he idly wondered if he’d managed to outrun them, or if they’d given up their chase when he’d ventured indoors.

Either way, Neil wasn’t too eager to go back outside just yet, even if he knew that he had to seek out a hotel for the night at some point or another.

“Do you have a session booked?” a flat voice asked from some distance behind him. Neil spun around, adrenaline still pumping through his veins and leaving him startled by the other man’s sudden appearance. He was rather short, he realised, tucked behind a neat front desk with a chin propped up in a pale palm. His brown eyes were a little crossed as he stared up at the pale blond lock of hair that he twirled beneath his pointer finger and thumb, completely disinterested by Neil’s arrival.

Neil took too long to answer, and the blond’s eyes shifted from his hair to Neil, a fierce scowl planted on his face. “Well? Do you have a booking, or are you just planning on standing there and tracking mud through the clinic?”

With a quick swallow, he smoothed his hands over his camera and quickly collected his thoughts. “Yes, I mean- sorry. I heard about this place and thought that I’d come by to check it out.”

The blond guy quirked a brow, clearly doubtful of Neil’s sudden interest. “Okay,” he said, leaning back in his chair and folding his arms over his chest. “What are you here for?”

Neil panicked, his eyes flicking the shortest of glances over the receptionist’s head and repeating the name of the first class he read. “Thursday night yoga.”

Silence occupied the front office, and the soft clicking of the wall-mounted clock nearby was grating against Neil’s already agitated nerves. The blond man’s stare was suspicious and calculating, and Neil held it with a calm look and body language as loose as he could manage. It went on for at least thirty seconds before the blond finally cracked.

“Sure, whatever,” he agreed, leaning back into his chair and jabbing at a nearby computer mouse. “The session starts in ten minutes, you can leave your… personal belongings against the wall inside.” Neil nodded, unsure if the blond even noticed as he continued, “Take the stairs to the next floor. The yoga room is the second door on your right.”

Neil glanced to the staircase and the narrow escalator that sat just beside it. “Can’t I just wait here for a while? Until it starts?”

That only seemed to annoy the blond, who shot him a glare. “You’ll scare off the other guests, Bear Grylls, at least wait somewhere where they won’t see you until after they pay.”

Neil’s nose crinkled as he returned the look, mindlessly brushing down the front of his shirt with his hands as he held his ground just a little longer. He really didn’t want to take part in something as mind-numbingly useless as yoga, but he wasn’t going back outside not yet, not until he was sure that the men who’d chased him had taken off. With a slight jerk of his chin, Neil adopted something close to a challenging look as he moved from his place and instead towards the stairs. The blond’s eyes followed him until he was a couple steps up, then he was returning his gaze to his computer and shuffling through loosely detailed documents.

With a soured mood, Neil grumbled all the while he climbed the stairs, cursing the goons outside, the asshole receptionist, and this goddamn city itself. Upstairs, there was a narrow hallway lined with small office sized rooms. He glanced over the small metal plaques that marked each door, catching sight of names like ‘Wilds’ and ‘Boyd’ as he looked for the room that Blondie had mentioned.

There was no name marking this door, but what stood out from the rest was the fact that it was separated from the hallway by large glass windows rather than drywall. Neil couldn’t see through, seeing as large, disgustingly orange curtains hung down from the ceiling, but it appeared to be the room that had been described. Neil slipped through the door, entering a relatively large room, longer than it was wide, with smooth floorboards and ceiling fans. The lights were on, but there was nobody around.

The yoga mats hung up on wall racks and the gym balls tucked into one of the corners was enough for Neil to figure that he was in the right place, and hesitantly he moved to drop his backpack against one of the far walls. It was uncomfortably quiet, and Neil absently looked around while he waited for something to happen. Still, when someone did arrive, Neil wasn’t at all gracious in accepting their company.

They walked in while Neil was stuffing his camera into his backpack- the pair that came through the door chatting loudly, while a third woman tagged along just behind them with hair pale enough to out-blonde the receptionist downstairs. Unlike the other two who walked ahead of her, she was quiet and seemingly content with just listening.

“Oh, hey there!” the loud woman greeted him with a bright smile. “You’re a little early, aren’t you?”

“New, too,” the man agreed, looking over Neil with polite interest. “I don’t think we’ve seen you around, you planning on becoming a regular?”

Neil was overwhelmed by the sudden questions that rapidly piled up, and he silently looked from one adult to the next before finally jerking her shoulders up in a shrug. “Don’t know, I’m just passing through.”

The man’s smile twitched, but the woman beside him seemed unfazed by the blunt answer. “Nothing wrong with that,” she replied smoothly. “My name’s Dan and this is Matt- my fiancé.” Neil didn’t care for the little details, but he managed a twitch of a polite smile nonetheless. “We work here as full-time physiotherapists, and Renee here comes in every couple of days to run mental health and mindfulness classes.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” the supposed Renee said as she split away from the group, looking Neil’s way with an almost unnervingly kind smile. He watched her as she moved across to the nearby wall, flicking a switch and causing the ceiling fans to come to life, spinning above them at a slow pace.

Neil turned back to the pair, picking at the cuticles on his pointer fingernail with his thumb. “Neil. It’s Neil- my name,” he bit out, stumbling over his words. Despite his clumsy answer, the woman- Dan, gave a nod of acceptance and seemed satisfied to leave her interrogation there.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you. I hope you enjoy the session tonight, he's a great teacher,” was all she said.

Then she turned to her fiancé, taking his hand in her own as she enthusiastically began to chatter to him about their possible plans for the rest of the night. Renee wandered away not long after, peeling off her neat leather loafers and placing them beside the pink and blue tie-dye mat that she’d rolled out across the floor. Watching them from where he loitered, Neil realised that all three seemed pretty serious about this yoga business. They were all dressed in appropriate attire- the women in leggings and the man in loose, baggy pants, and Neil couldn’t help but doubt that this was what they wore while working their day jobs.

Neil jumped when a squeal stabbed at his ears, wide eyes flicking to where the other three stood. He was unsure of what it was that had been said, but now Matt had Dan’s back pulled against his chest, tackling her against him while she giggled and tried to wildly wrestle out of his hold.

“Fuck that, I told you two that none of that gooey romance shit is allowed in my room. You two wanna cuddle, you can do it outside.”

With his attention focused on the openly affectionate couple, Neil hadn’t noticed the fourth person that had entered the room. Now that he had, his entire world tilted off-kilter with jarring confusion. How small was this place? Who was working at the reception desk if the receptionist was now here for a yoga class?

Matt scowled at the short blond. “Just a reminder that Dan’s the one who insisted that you were invited to the wedding.”

Blondie gave him a flat look, and when those sharp hazel eyes cut through the room and landed on Neil, he felt his entire body go tense. All he could do was stare back at the eyes that squinted at him ever so slightly, staring him down with what could have been anything between interest or repulsion. “What’s your name?” he asked, his tone almost accusatory.

Neil frowned, clenching his jaw as he stared back at the blond, trying to figure out just what game he was playing at. “It’s Neil,” he answered firmly. “I’m here for the yoga class, remember?”

Blondie tipped his chin up for just a moment before something seemed to click. His expression eased in the slightest, and the amount of amusement that he showed on his face seemed too cautious to be natural. “That’s right. How could I forget a face like yours?”

Unlike his everyday wear he’d been wearing at the desk, now the blond was dressed in black leggings layered with grey athletic shorts, and stood swamped in a large, slightly faded black hoodie. He must have deserted the desk shortly after Neil ventured upstairs- perhaps this was the kind of class that was free to enter as long as you knew the way.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Neil asked, face twisting into a reflexive scowl.

Blondie made no reply, instead he ignored the confused looks of his coworkers and moved to drop his small duffle bag by the front of the room. When he did speak, it wasn’t about Neil’s appearance. “Grab yourself a mat from the wall, I’d recommend that you get sorted while it’s still quiet.”

He knew that it was a class, but still, four already felt like a crowd. Neil dreaded the thought of what Blondie viewed as not quiet, but stubbornly moved to grab himself one of the old obnoxious-orange mats from the wall. He couldn’t run away now, not while he was still trapped under the blond’s scrutinising gaze. He’d dared Neil to run the second he stepped into the office, and he was keen to stick around if only to prove him wrong.

Neil kept to himself while he waited for the class to start, eager to get over it. He refused to take off his shoes, even after the others did, but at least tugged off a few of the layers that he’d piled on for warmth. Still, jeans were most definitely not the right pants for yoga, and it was in Neil’s prayers that the worn fabric didn’t choose to split now. After about five minutes, more and more people began to show up, most greeting the staff with pleasant smiles and genuine appreciation.

Although, the majority of the people who wander in and took their place on the floor weren’t the kind that Neil expected to see at a yoga class. He expected most of the members of the class to be young to middle aged women, with a couple older women and men scattered amongst the lot. There were of course a few, but the majority of them seemed to be young people- old teenagers and younger adults. A common theme that Neil noticed was pinched, greying skin below loose yoga clothes, torn and irritated cuticles on the nails of the fingers that curled around water bottles, and tired eyes that hid between loose strands escaping from messy buns.

A few of them cast Neil curious looks, at his dishevelled appearance and myriad of scars, or his unfamiliar presence- Neil was unsure. Either way, they all stayed away from the spot he’d claimed in the corner, keeping their distance as they unfurled colourful foam mats and peeled off their sneakers.

“When I told you to get a mat, I didn’t tell you to hide out back here in the corner,” a voice said, startling Neil. His head jerked to the side and he found that the agro blond was back, hovering nearby with an empty look in his eyes and the slightest of a frown in his thin brows. “How are you supposed to see the correct form?”

“I can see just fine from here, thanks,” Neil bit back, tugging forward the hem of his long sleeve.

The blond didn’t look impressed, his silence long and purposeful. “Say, how much did I charge you for today’s session?” At Neil’s confused frown he explained, “We changed the session prices recently. I didn’t overcharge you, did I?”

“You didn’t charge me at all, remember?” Neil asked, falling still. He could see some of the women sneaking glances their way, and the unwanted attention made him uncomfortable.

Blondie nodded slowly, assumingly recounting what had happened at the register in his head. “Right,” he finally agreed. “Come up to the front. We’re starting soon.”

What could have been an offer sounded more like a firm yet subtle command that only made Neil feel all the more tense. There was a tug in his stomach, something that told him to play along, and he reasoned that at least at the front he could be the first one out the door the moment this thing was over. He didn’t plan on sticking around for a chat, not even to put back his borrowed yoga mat.

Eventually, he picked up his things and awkwardly carried the lot of it over to the spot that Blondie guided him to. Blondie didn’t offer to give him a hand, and Neil was glad that he didn’t bother- he would’ve bit his hand off if he so much as mentioned touching his things. All the while, he wore a pinched glare on his face and let out a continuous stream of muttered apologies to the people that he brushed past. Because of his new placement, he ended up somewhat circled by the three he’d met earlier, with Renee on his right, Dan and Matt just behind him, and Blondie moving to his left.

Only, Blondie didn’t stop. Rather, he stepped up onto the slightly elevated platform at the very front of the room.

Neil didn’t take much notice of this fact. He was stuck within his head, stewing over his confusion and frustration, cursing the weird blond receptionist, the men that had chased him into the centre, and damning South Carolina as a whole. He was moving in autopilot, shoving his backpack and stripped layers against the nearby wall, and toeing at his borrowed yoga mat with the toe of his shoe to flatten the bends and curling edges.

It wasn’t until a tranquil sound of quietly whistling wind and the gentle patter of rain began to spill from the overhead speakers above him that Neil finally looked again. With all the surprises that had entered his life that day, Neil couldn’t say that he was sure of what it was that he expected to see when he glanced up. What it was that he did see was honestly rather mundane in comparison to his other life experiences, but somehow it seemed to kick his heart into a stuttering mess of overdrive all the same.

Suddenly it made sense. Blondie here wasn’t just some passionate yoga fan, he was the yoga teacher.

Neil hadn’t seen him change, but now he had stripped off a couple layers of his own and even gone to the extent of pulling back the crown of his hair into a short ponytail. Wisps of fine hair hung against the milky skin of his forehead, swaying slightly whenever they were caught in a soft gust of air from the ceiling fans. He’d taken off his jacket too, revealing a loose-fitting black tank underneath and a pair of armbands that concealed the skin from his wrists to his elbows.

His upper body wasn’t what caught Neil’s attention however, rather, he was so absorbed in the blond’s lower half that he didn’t even think to be ashamed of himself just yet. What it was that shocked him to his very core was the fact that this strange blond man was wearing leggings. Not only that, but they made his ass look unfairly good.

Slowly, Blondie sank down to the floor, settling with his heels together and his knees pressed against the mat on either side of him. Ritualistically, everybody followed the movement in loose synchronisation, and Neil hesitantly followed close behind.

He snapped himself out of his entrancement as he instead turned his attention toward replicating the position that Blondie held. The movement was a little awkward with his chunky sneakers, but no way in hell was Neil taking them off. To his surprise, he found that the position wasn’t nearly as easy as he thought it to be. He knew that he had good legs, as he spent more time walking than anything else he ever did in his life, but flexibility seemed to be a whole different art in itself.

Blondie’s eyes were closed, his chin raised and his chest opened as he took in a slow breath. “Today is the eleventh of November,” he said to no one and everyone. “You are in the Palmetto Physio and Wellness Centre. It’s ten o’clock, and I give you permission to take a moment for yourself to breathe.”

The introductory spiel itself was nothing that Neil thought to be particularly unique, even with his outrageous lack of experience with yoga. Although, he couldn’t deny that there was something about the way that Blondie spoke that seemed to set something off within him- no, that wasn’t right. Perhaps it was his tone or the blunt matter-of-fact way of speaking he used, but it was like he switched something off. Pale palms slid across the foam mat as they all shifted into what Neil at least knew as downward dog, and he couldn’t help but imagine the abstract thought of those slender fingers easing the tension from his mind and shoulders.

Neil shoved the mental image out of his mind, instead envisioning his own tan hands slamming those switches back to their rightful settings. He wasn’t going to allow some agro blond to wiggle his way through his defences with a flat expression, cold words, and a marginally impressive ass.

“Fuck everything else going on outside. Right now you are here, and you are safe.”

That was unexpected.

Blondie had raised his voice so that it could still travel to the outer reaches of the room even with the mat muffling him, and the unexpected volume startled the smallest of a twitch from Neil. He snorted softly, hiding his entertained smirk against the mat. If anyone was near enough to hear him, they didn’t comment on his behaviour.

To say that Blondie’s technique was different would be the understatement of the century. He had this way of pairing slow, purposeful poses and breathing techniques with blunt curses and vicious commands. It was like doing anything other than finding your calm was a taboo.

As the class continued, Neil was caught between an awful game of tug-o-war. Part of him was desperate to ease into the lull of a chance to relax, but that desire stood no chance against his natural instinct to stay attentive at all times.

When heads dipped down low, obscured by closed lids and stretched limbs or the floor, Neil’s eyes remained open. Initially, he kept his head down too, as to not draw any attention to himself while others still remained present within their surroundings. However, as time trickled by and more and more people became entranced by Blondie’s assertive stability, Neil couldn’t help but steal some looks.

To his surprise, he found that many of the attendees appeared to look far younger than he had assumed them to be at first glance. With stress lines dissipated and tension removed from stiff joints and guarded shoulders, it came to his attention that most could hardly be out of their teens, if at all.

Neil got too comfortable in his staring, seeing as when he finally was busted, he was hardly even bothering to be subtle, nor was he putting much effort into the yoga pose he was supposed to be imitating. The cobra pose wasn’t all that difficult, and he’d admit that it did offer some relief to the muscles in his chest and shoulders- drawn tight from the weight of his backpack. Lazy blue eyes wandered from one person to the next- from a girl with short-cropped blue hair to a guy with long brown curls that were fighting to stay in a bun.

When he caught sight of a pair of dark brown eyes gazing back at him, half-lidded with an excessive expression of calm, Neil’s heart just about leapt out of his chest.

His eyes shot back to stare at the orange mat beneath him, eager to avoid the gaze of Renee even though he had already been busted. He could feel heat in his cheeks and the tips of his ears burned, embarrassment churning through him like he were a child caught misbehaving. For somebody with a history like Neil, that feeling wasn’t at all pleasant.

To prove a point, Neil pointedly kept his gaze focused on Blondie, even if he was unsure of whether or not Renee was still watching him. This wasn’t too bad at first, and it wasn’t like he was aching to examine the odd bunch of strangers around him, that was until they shifted to a new pose.

When everybody climbed up onto their feet, movement sluggish as they patiently awaited the next demonstration from Blondie, Neil was actually starting to feel a little confident in his yoga. He’d always been athletic, even if he wasn’t all that flexible, and as they neared the hour mark he felt confidence and pride bubble in his chest. However, the standing forward bend proved to make the cobra pose seem like child’s play, Neil dully noted not long later.

There were a few amongst the class who had actually dozed off sometime during the cobra pose, now just laying stretched out across the mat on their bellies, but no one made a comment on it or tried to wake them up again. The thought of actually being comfortable enough to fall asleep in a room pact tight with strangers was something that Neil could not at all comprehend.

Blondie drew in a slow breath, and Neil watched as he quite literally leaned forward and folded himself in half, body contorting as he held his face to the gap between his ankles. Neil startled when he realised that most of the others in the room had fallen into the same position, and those who weren’t flexible enough at least made a decent effort.

Neil’s belt cut into his ribs when he slowly bent over, hands settling around the midpoint of his shins before the tension became strained. He didn’t drop his head, too nervous of the chance that by doing so he’d see Renee staring back at him expectantly. Initially, he kept his head raised and eyes focused forward just to avoid looking at anyone, but this of course meant that all he had to look at was Blondie, folded up like an outdoor chair.

It wasn’t long before Neil’s attention shifted from an admiration of Blondie’s flexibility to a gentle appreciation of his body. Sexuality was a complicated topic for Neil, but that didn’t mean that he was completely unaware of the way in which Blondie’s tight clothing hugged distinguished muscle definition and smooth curves. His body wasn’t built from excessive walking and occasional manual labour like Neil’s was, it was defined through careful construction and practised exercise.

Neil’s eyes drifted from the curve of his hips, trailing down his toned thighs and catching on his jutting calves. He thought back to the gallery he’d visited days ago, of how this blond yoga instructor looked as though he’d broken free of one of the marble sculptures of ancient nobles, as if he were a muse who had stepped straight out from his wooden frame. There was no skip of his heart, no hot attraction burning below his skin, but he was intoxicated by his body. He admired him like he was a piece of art, entitled to his very own headline exhibition. Finally, they came to rest on piercing hazel eyes, stabbing through the space between them with toxic composure.

This time, Neil did jump out of his skin.

A gasp tore from Neil’s throat as his whole body lurched with surprise, but a quick glance around revealed nothing more than a handful of curious glances from those around him. His embarrassment was highly pronounced, but unlike the gentle warning that Renee had given him, Blondie’s flat look didn’t have shame pooling through his gut and face. Neil wasn’t sure what it was, but he could almost describe it as something like genuine curiosity.

Neil hardly had the time to regain at least an inch of his composure before Blondie was rising, outstretching his arms and opening his chest as he took in another slow breath. How the others had known to follow him when their eyes were closed and they stood with the backs of their heads facing him was beyond Neil, and oddly fascinating to watch.

“That concludes tonight’s session,” Blondie said, his voice deep as if he’d only just woken up from a long nap. “Wake up whoever is asleep, pack your things, and get out of here. I’ll see you all next week.”

Neil hurried to grab his bag, tugging out layers of clothing and pulling them back over his head. He sure as hell wasn’t sticking around to stay another week, and he wasn’t putting back his mat if that meant that he’d have to deal with the consequences of his habitual… people watching. It was just as he was pulling a fleece sweater over his head that he had the life scared out of him for the countless time that evening, now by the unexpected appearance of Blondie standing just before him the moment that his head poked through the hole.

“Not you,” Blondie stated bluntly. “You’re staying back.”

Neil glared at him, his defences on the rise. “You can’t make me do anything.”

Blondie went quiet, thoughtfully choosing his words before he spoke again. “You’re right,” he agreed placidly. “I want you to stay back.”

With a sceptical look, Neil punched his arms through the sleeves of his sweater. Finally, he turned away and reached for another garment, slowing just enough to make it clear that he wasn’t planning on booking it the moment Blondie turned away. His curiosity had gotten the better of him once more, and determinedly lulled him away from every other impulse that told him to run.

It took an unexpectedly long time for the room to clear out, with the class members moving slowly with calm-induced exhaustion, and almost everyone stopping to thank Blondie for the class. He hardly spoke back to anyone, but no one seemed offended by his resigned silence. The only ones he spoke to were the three that Neil had met earlier- even then, it was nothing more than a grunt and the slightest of a glare.

Neil loitered against the wall, standing with his backpack pressed to the side of his leg. He was swallowed up in layers of warm clothing, and as badly as he hated having to wait for anything, at least the classroom was warmer than what it was outside.

“You planning on putting that back?” Blondie asked, only turning to Neil again once the last person had cleared out the room. He’d gotten dressed again, hiding that enamouring body of his beneath baggy clothes.

Neil glanced down to the bright orange mat that lay on the floor in front of him before looking up again. “Maybe,” he said with a shrug. “Still deciding.”

Blondie hummed, reaching up and pulling the hair tie from his hair. Neil’s eyes flicked upward as he watched the blond strands come loose, cascading down from the crown of his head and spilling across his forehead. “Everyone else who came here for the class put theirs away,” he pointed out, threading his fingers through his hair to tousle the locks.

“I didn’t come here for the class,” Neil admitted, figuring that there was no use lying about it any longer. He was going to take off after this- find a diner to crash in, a night bus to catch, or a cheap hotel to spend the night in before fleeing from Palmetto as soon as possible.

Blondie’s gaze didn’t falter. “So why are you here?”

“Why does it matter?” Neil bit back, feeling defensive from the way that Blondie could speak so calmly, but have him shaken from such an accusatory tone.

“You come in with a bag almost as big as yourself and you look like you haven’t showered in days. Then, you come into my yoga classroom and spend more time staring at my students than looking into your own head,” Blondie reasoned, arms curling to cross over his chest. “I think I deserve an answer.”

Neil paused, reasoning between slugging the guy or answering his patronising questions just to get it over with. After a long silence, he finally answered, “Some guys tried to mug me, I came here cause it was the only place open on this strip. No other reason.”

“What were they after?” Blondie asked, eyebrow twitching. Neil understood the question: What does someone like you, in hole-punctured clothes and mud-stained sneakers, have that’s worth any value?

This was starting to feel like an interrogation, and Neil’s discomfort became more pronounced. “The crown jewels and the dinosaur bones I took from the Museum of Natural History, I assume,” he replied flatly, smoothing down his shirt with his hands.

Blondie only nodded. “And you didn’t do anything to cause them to chase you?”

Neil scowled. “No, unless walking at night is considered a punishable offence. Any other questions?”

The question was supposed to be sarcastic, but Blondie took it as an offer. “Did you like what you saw?” he asked, head tilting to the side.

“What?” Neil asked, agitation faltering in way of confusion.

“Did you like what you saw,” Blondie repeated. “When you were staring at my ass?”

Embarrassment cast a devastating blow across Neil’s entire body and soul, rendering him a stuttering, beet-red mess as he fought to justify his actions. It was all useless though, there was no excuse that Neil could find- one that would be believable, at least. All the while Blondie stared at him, gaze unshifting as he watched the last of Neil’s composure unravel into a sad, distraught pile on the floor.

“Hello?” a voice called. “Who’s that-”

“Fuck off, Kevin,” Blondie shot back, cutting him off completely without even looking to the man who had entered the scene. “You’re early.”

Neil couldn’t help but look, and when he did he saw a tall figure with broad shoulders and dark hair. The guy, Kevin, had an obnoxious chess piece stabbed into his cheekbone and wore a look of equal parts confusion and anger alongside his designer sportswear. He was a fair bit taller than Blondie, but he didn’t so much as utter an argument back to his rude dismissal, just tossed him a snarl before he ducked away into the hallway and shut the door behind him.

Blondie didn’t give Neil so much as a moment to think. “You didn’t answer my question.”

Neil sucked in a sharp breath, tearing his eyes away from the door and back to Blondie. “I don’t know what to tell you. You’ve got a nice body.” Blondie raised a brow, unimpressed by Neil’s answer. To that, Neil scoffed and released a huff of laughter. “Sorry, would you prefer for me to compliment that bright personality of yours?”

“Fuck,” Blondie replied, almost, almost sounding entertained. “You sure have one hell of a mouth. You really know what to say, don’t you?”

“Believe it or not, I’m not usually much of a talker,” Neil shot back.

“Really? I wouldn’t have picked it,” Blondie retorted, sarcasm dripping from his tongue. “After all, it’s that mouth of yours that stopped me from kicking you out onto the street.”

“Well, that’s just perfect because-” Neil paused, mind going blank. “Wait, what?”

Blondie held his tongue, face purposefully void of any emotion.

Neil cleared his throat, not daring to look away. “If that’s the case, you can’t blame me for admiring your physique.”

“Admiring my physique,” Blondie echoed. “If you like it that much, maybe you should take a photo.” There was a firm knock that sounded from the other side of the door and Blondie’s face twitched in a snarl. “Fuck off, Kevin!”

This time Neil didn’t flinch away from Blondie’s sudden burst of aggression- his mind was elsewhere.

“Would you let me?” Neil asked, and at Blondie’s odd look he continued. “Allow me to take your picture, I mean.”

If Blondie was surprised by the sudden offer, he didn’t let it show on his face. Rather, he stared at Neil with an unrelenting firm gaze, as if he was still trying to figure out whether or not he was being serious. Neil knew that he wasn’t that great of a talker, and there were exceptionally few people that he had photographed during his travels. He tried to project all the honesty and seriousness of the question into his face, almost tense with the desire to take such a photo.

Blondie didn’t speak a single word to Neil, but after a full minute of silence, he promptly turned away and started towards the door. Neil turned, watching him from where he stood and quietly bracing himself for rejection. He was expecting Blondie to open the door, to hold it wide open for him as he demanded that he take his leave.

Only, he didn’t.

The last thing Neil saw was a bored expression plastered upon his face before he tugged the door open and looked to a figure half-hidden behind the door frame. “Come back later.”

“When’s later?” Kevin, Neil assumed, asked, exasperated.

Blondie shrugged. “For our Saturday session.”

A scoff. “Why? I put off a date with Thea for this session- you never cancel on the day, let alone after a class has started!”

Blondie was unflinching below the taller man’s aggression, but his patience appeared to be rapidly wearing thin. “Because I feel like it. I’ve got other things I want to do tonight,” he answered in a frighteningly calm tone.

Kevin stepped to the side, and his cold eyes locked straight onto Neil from outside the open doorway. His rage was simmering at the surface, his bright red skin struggling to conceal such fiery anger.

“What?" Kevin asked, his tone low and accusatory. “Like him?”

Neil stood stiff, his jaw strung tight and a heat of his own beginning to make its presence known where it festered in his chest. If Blondie hadn’t stepped to stand between them, Neil was sure that he would have marched straight across the room and socked the guy in the nose. Blondie looked like David compared to the Goliath that was Kevin, and Neil couldn’t help but frown when he saw the way that Kevin’s whole body ran stiff with tension. It took Neil a moment to notice it, and it wasn’t until the light caught on the small blade peeking out from Blondie’s fingers- the point catching on the fabric of Kevin’s hoodie.

Neil watched the silent exchange unfold, neither moving and both waiting for the other’s move. The look on Kevin’s face was fierce, obviously offended by Blondie’s actions, but he didn’t dare move, didn’t even open his mouth.

“Come back on Saturday, Kevin,” Blondie told him slowly, his voice vacating every corner of the room and leaving behind no free space for argument. “Aaron will refund you at the door.”

Kevin held his gaze for a little while longer, then finally submitted and took a step back. “Don’t worry about it,” he muttered, shoulders pinched as he turned away and stormed back towards the stairs.

Blondie took his time to face Neil again, casually slipping the blade back below one of his black sleeves when he turned around. Neil was actively trying hard not to gape at him and the weapon that he handled so carelessly, but he wasn’t all that confident that it wasn’t showing on his face.

He did speak first, however. “He’s not homophobic, don’t worry about that,” Blondie said simply, adjusting his sleeve. “Just a prick.”

Neil cleared his throat. “A regular, I assume?”

“Yeah, you could say that,” Blondie agreed after a thoughtful moment.

“If that’s so,” Neil began. “Was that okay? To just cancel on him? Can you do that?”

Blondie’s gaze turned cold as he tugged down his sleeve, eyes returning to Neil’s. “I do what I chose to do. I’m not going to do something just because it suits someone else’s wants.”

Yoga teacher, Neil reminded himself, he was speaking with a yoga teacher.

“So you’re not just doing this out of morbid curiosity.” Neil couldn’t help but make a cheeky comment, it went against his modern principles. “You want me to take your picture.”

Blondie scowled, turning away again only to shut the door. “Waste my time and you’ll be leaving here in an ambulance.”

Neil let out a huff of laughter, finally moving from his spot to instead walk over to his bag. He crouched down in front of the large backpack and fiddled with the plastic clasps, elastic drawstrings, and numerous zips, only standing up again once his camera was back in his hands.

“Alright, so, I’m going to have you-” Neil began, only to be cut off by Blondie a short moment later.

“Hold on,” he interrupted him. “I’m not just going to let you take my photo. Let me see your other pictures first.”

Neil frowned. “Why? I don’t really show anyone the photos I take.”

Blondie’s irritation flared in his eyes. “Because I want to make sure you’re not some freak.”

“Says the one who just pointed a knife at one of their customers,” Neil retorted, hands tightening around his camera bag.

“I’m not letting you take any photos of me until I see your history,” Blondie said, ignoring the comment.

Neil shot back, “Well, I’m not showing you any of my photos until you’ve modelled for me.”

“Well.” Blondie’s arms came to rest folded over his chest. “I guess that we’re at a crossroad.”

The silence that fell between them was a long one, filled with so much tension that Neil was partially sure that Blondie was going to pull a knife on him too. He didn’t though, just stood there with his arms crossed and an unwavering frown on his face. His stubbornness seemed to match Neil’s, something he thought impossible.

“Fine,” Neil just about barked, scowling at his camera bag as he worked the zip open. “Only a few.”

Blondie’s face was blank, but there was an air to him that screamed victory. Neil gestured Blondie closer, and he at least seemed to know better than to try and take the camera from him. Perhaps it was the way that Neil strangled the poor thing, or maybe how he just barely even tilted the camera towards him, forcing him to hover at his shoulder if he wanted to get a decent look. For the most part the both of them remained silent as Neil flicked through the most recent images that he’d taken, mostly of city streets or forests.

The most that Blondie would ask was a murmured “Where’s that?” to which Neil would reply with nothing more than the name of the city or the forest he’d been passing through.

“Do you sell these?” Blondie asked, not taking his eyes off the images that flicked across the small screen.

Neil shook his head. “No, they’re just for me.”

“What’s there to photograph in Palmetto?” Blondie held up a hand, and they paused on an image of an empty bus stop.

“Nothing,” Neil replied with a scoff. “I’m just passing through, headed north for the national forest. You’ve seen enough, haven’t you? Let me take photos of you, now.”

Blondie wasn’t silent, eyes locked on the photo that Neil had come to a stop on. It was of a makeshift exy court, one that he’d found in one of the rougher parts of South Carolina that he’d passed through. It was nestled between two buildings, a wide alleyway with a goal spray-painted onto the back wall and clumsy half-court lines worn down where they decorated the concrete floor. With the low exposure he’d set, there was something eerie about the court, something that made it hard to believe that a place so cold housed energy and entertainment on weekdays and after school.

Finally, he agreed.

“Okay, where do I stand?” he asked, finally looking away from the camera to instead look to Neil. Neil barely glanced his way before he was giving a thoughtful hum, instead scanning the room as if it were a movie set. He looked at the lights, the windows, the colours of the loose objects that decorated the open space.

“There,” he said, pointing in the direction that he was looking. “In front of that window.”

Blondie frowned, pointing out, “But there will be glare coming through from the street light right outside.”

“That’s just the point,” Neil agreed, smiling at the scowl Blondie tossed his way.

Despite his lack of artistic vision, Blondie silently obeyed Neil’s prodding commands. A few minutes later, Blondie was sat up on the windowsill, his back pressed against one wall, and his feet propped up on the opposite side. It was a small space, but Blondie made easy work of folding himself in, looking completely comfortable as he bent into the shape of the window, just about headbutting his knees.

“Take off your hoodie,” Neil told him, pulling an odd facial expression as he peered through the lens. He was crouched down with one knee pressed into the floor, his wrists bent at awkward angles as he fiddled with the settings on his camera.

Blondie answered in an instant with a bored, “No. Hoodie stays on.”

Neil frowned, dropping his camera down for a moment. “You were fine taking it off in front of all those people earlier,” he reasoned.

“That’s not the same,” Blondie replied, head tilted away as he gazed out of the window and down at the empty street below. “Let me see the photos of the other people that you’ve photographed.”

It took Neil a moment to reply, too captivated by the way Blondie’s breath fogged up the glass around his face. Just as he’d assumed, the light of the streetlamp made his pale skin and hair glow, while his dark clothing made the rest of him disappear into the night around him.

For a moment all that there was the sound of the camera shuddering while Neil took a handful of photos, then he answered with a simple, “No.”

Blondie didn’t look the least bit irritated by his rejection, just replied, “Then my clothes stay on.”

Neil bit back a huff, instead choosing to work with what he had rather than buy into the blond’s agitating games and having him kick him out. The pair fell into a relatively comfortable silence, something that might have surprised Neil if he wasn’t too absorbed in his photography to notice. Blondie’s gaze remained empty, moving every now and then to change his pose in the slightest of motions, each dragging Neil under another wave of inspiration.

It wasn’t until at least another twenty minutes had passed before Blondie stated, “I want to have a smoke.”

There was a twitch of frustration within Neil, the one that wanted to carry on all night sliding across the floor and filling his memory card with that elegant blond body. He kept it shoved down, and instead lowered his camera so that he could look directly at him when he gave an easy nod. Not that it mattered, Blondie was already shoving himself off the window sill before Neil could even give a word of input.

“That’s alright,” he said, then paused. “Thank you for holding the pose for so long, that couldn’t have been comfortable.”

But Blondie didn’t seem to care for his compliments in the slightest, instead pacing across the room with silent footsteps. Neil watched as he bent down and picked up the small bag he’d entered with, sorting through its contents for a brief moment before standing up again with a lighter and a carton of cigarettes in hand.

“Staring,” Blondie said as he fiddled with his lighter, mumbling passed the cigarette between his lips.

Neil made no reply, unable to bring himself to look away as Blondie lit his cigarette and took a single drag. Then he was moving again, cigarette pinched between his fingers as he walked further away. For a moment Neil feared that he was going to leave, but just as he was about to take a step of his own, Blondie deterred and stopped next to one of the walls. Entertainment graced Neil’s jarring features as he watched Blondie carry a suspiciously placed stick back to the centre of the room, all the while kicking along a trunk of concealed objects.

As Blondie climbed up onto the trunk, stretching up onto the tips of his toes with the stick in hand, Neil quickly scampered into a position of his own. For a moment Blondie seemed genuinely distracted, his attention focused on prodding at the smoke detector above him in an attempt to switch it off before his cigarette sent the fire department their way. Neil doubted that he was unaware of the fact that he was being photographed, even as he scowled down at Neil the moment that the smoke detector gave a final beep of good bye.

Neil paid no mind to the cold look, his eyes downcast at the screen of his camera as he flicked through the most recent of photos he’d taken. The photos of Blondie stretched up towards the sky, elongating his torso amongst the thin plumes of smoke around him. These pictures heavily contrasted the others, with a white backdrop and lights so bright that they threatened to swallow him up. Only, they didn’t, because how could you look at anything but the blond.

Blondie stood beside him, looking down at the camera that Neil held in his lap where he remained half-crouched on the floor. One hand was tucked in the pocket of his hoodie, and the other hung near his face as he took periodic drags from his cigarette. He didn’t compliment the photos, but he didn’t criticise them either, he just stood there, utter indifference on his face.

“You want a smoke?” he finally asked, hand emerging from his pocket as he held out the carton to Neil.

Neil thought it over, and eventually nodded. He’d dropped his smoking habit a couple months into his trip when money became tight. Smoking wasn’t at all a cheap habit, and to him it was nothing more than a pastime. Before that, though, it had been a crucial, if not the only, way he’d tapped into his memories of his mother. Nowadays that awful ache of longing and conflicting emotions was gone, all that there was, was a smoke-inflicted burn in his lungs.

Blondie thumbed a cigarette out of the carton, dropping it and the lighter into Neil’s hand. When Neil flicked the lighter, he cupped his hand over it habitually from months lighting up on the side of the road or in the open woods, Blondie had been watching but made no comment. Not until he sat down, at least, slowly sinking to the ground to sit on top of the trunk.

He propped his elbows up on his knees and folded his hands together, watching Neil with a keen eye, a cigarette hanging from his mouth, and smoke spilling from his nostrils. Neil pointedly ignored his staring, focusing on his own cigarette while he waited for him to speak first.

“These people that you’ve photographed, are they special to you?” he asked, gaze unmoving.

Neil didn’t need to think before he answered, “No. They’re not.”

“Travelling companions?” The question came quick, and Neil’s brow twitched.

“Not exactly.” He looked at him, fighting back a smile. “Why are you so curious?”

A scowl crossed Blondie’s face in the blink of an eye, then he was unfolding his hands so that he could take another slow drag. “If you show me their photos, I’ll take my shirt off.”

The words took a moment to land, but when they did Neil struggled to keep his composure. He choked on the smoke of his cigarette, coughing as he expelled it from his lungs and dragged clean air back in. “You will?” he asked, voice rough and unnatural.

Blondie seemed irritated by his immediate disbelief. “I’m not repeating myself,” he muttered, ashing his cigarette onto the floor beside him.

“Why?” It was a genuine question, and perhaps Blondie saw that on his face, because the stifling glare he tossed his way lessened in the slightest.

He took a moment to answer, rolling the butt of his cigarette back and forth between his thumb and forefinger. “I guess I am,” he replied slowly, choosing his words carefully. “Curious, that is.”

They were just photos, Neil knew that. He knew that there was no way the strange blond he’d met a little over an hour ago would be willing to undress for him just because he wanted to see a couple photos of strangers. Then again, before tonight, he’d never seen a yoga teacher pull a knife before, either.

No. He knew that he was the desperate one here. He could already imagine the bare skin of Blondie’s chest, the way that it caught in the light. He wondered if he had any birthmarks, any moles, and scars. He had to know, and he knew that Blondie knew that too.

After gently stubbing out his cigarette Neil stood up, crossing the room to dig through his backpack once more. Blondie sat still and watching when Neil turned around again, chin resting in his palm and his cigarette stubbed out and laying on the floor beside him. Neil settled back on the floor, legs crossed and his camera in his lap. He placed what he’d grabbed from his bag down onto the floor beside him: a double layered snap-lock bag with an abundance of memory cards stored inside. Each had a date marked on one side, and Neil silently sifted through for the ones that he was looking for.

“How are you going to find them?” he asked, bored expression resting upon his face.

Neil didn’t pause in his searching, but confidently answered, “It’s been a while since I took them, and almost all of them are on the same couple of memory cards.”

Silence returned as Neil found the card he was looking for, swapping out the current one for the older one with practised fingers. This one was dated back to over a year ago. Most of the photos were similar to the ones that he’d taken recently, but they were clumsier and lacked personal style. Most weren’t all that interesting, but then they found the first of the photos he’d been searching for.

A young man was sat on the edge of a small bed, sheets pooled over his lap, and his bare back dominating the frame. He was lean in a conventional way, with a splattering of freckles covering his shoulders, which were so pink that they almost matched his light ginger hair. The only light source was a bedside table that peeked in on the left hand side of the frame, and through the open window on the right, the night sky could be seen.

“Like I said, not exactly travelling partners,” Neil said, just to fill the silence created by Blondie’s empty stare.

He didn’t laugh, didn’t even glare. “Show me another,” was all he said.

And Neil did. He lost track of time as he sifted through image after image, pausing whenever he found another one of his past sexual partners. The further back they went, the more the images were dominated by women, most stretched out across dishevelled sheets, some sitting up against the bed frame, one taken from where she stood in the en suite of her bedroom, leaning towards the mirror as she fixed her hair.

There was less of the men, partially because Neil’s development of his sexual identity had been horribly delayed, but mostly because there were far more men opposed to the idea of having their picture taken by a stranger. The ones that allowed it often kept their face hidden from the lens, either cropped out of frame or obscured by the back of their head or conveniently placed decorations within the room.

All together there were rooms of white, beige, black, green, brown, red. And there was a person that went with each room- bright-coloured punks from the streets of New York and California, dirt-stained farm-hands from Idaho and Indiana, figures tucked below thick duvets somewhere in Alaska and Maine.

“Do they know that you have their photo?” Blondie asked, his voice eerily flatter than before.

Neil scowled at him reflexively, his defences snapping upright just as fast. “Of course they do,” he explained snappily. “I never photographed anyone who said no.”

Blondie didn’t agitate at his tone, didn’t look away from the photo they’d settled on. She was a brunette with her small breasts on full display while she sat up in bed, head tilted downwards as she stared at the phone in her lap. “Why did you stop photographing them? Did the trees become more interesting to you?”

“No.” Neil struggled to keep his voice even, his fingertips digging into the corners of his camera once more. “I just don’t do that anymore.”

“That?” Blondie repeated, quirking a brow.

The discomfort that had been rolling around Neil’s gut for the past ten or so minutes surged to the surface in full force. There was something about the blond that made him want to spill his guts, but tearing yourself open and exposing the rawest parts of yourself had never, ever been comfortable. Not for someone like Neil.

“Will you keep talking if I take off my shirt and pose for you?” His eyes flicked over to Blondie, scowling when he saw nothing more than that blank look on his face- he didn’t even try to pretend to look interested, and yet he kept on tugging Neil along nonetheless.

Neil worked his jaw for a moment before dropping his gaze downward and tugging the memory card free from the camera. As he shoved the current one back in, he muttered a quiet, “Yes.”

Blondie nodded easily. “Where do you want me?”

“Back at the same window as before,” Neil answered, resealing the cards into their bags before turning in the opposite direction.

He was stood at his backpack, shovelling the bag back in when Blondie called, “Turn the lights off.” It wasn’t a question, it was a demand.

“What?” Neil asked, turning back to look at him. “Why?”

Blondie was stood hovering by the window, his large hoodie sat on the floor nearby, and his hands curled around the hem of his tank top. There was a tension running through him that Neil hadn’t seen before, a flaw in his immaculately calm person. He wondered if it had only just emerged now, or if it had always been there, concealed by the thick fabric of his hoodie.

Neil was already in motion to turn off the lights from the switch. His question hadn’t been looking for persuasion or justification, rather it was his way of asking for something in return for the stories he’d spilled already. There was something tangible in Blondie’s choices to give him what he wanted, and what was a good photograph without a message behind it?

The lights switched off, and for a brief moment it was impossibly dark, so much so that Neil could make out nothing within the room that wasn’t exposed by the street light that spilled through the windows. His eyes adjusted slowly to the sight of Blondie raising his elbows, revealing his stomach, ribs, collarbones. He seemed to glow wherever the light touched him, captivating Neil’s entire field of vision with his utter brilliance. He even forgot to pick up his camera.

“I don’t like stripping in front of others,” Blondie explained flatly, and at this distance Neil could only make out the sight of his jaw moving.

Neil moved closer, his footsteps slow and predictable, and it wasn’t because he feared tripping over something in the dark. “But you’ve done so for me.”

A scowl crossed Blondie’s face, the light catching on his downturned mouth. “Not for you, because I wanted to. Besides, hearing about your batshit life makes me feel better about my own.”

“Right, right,” Neil agreed, trying to bite back his smile. The black armbands stayed on, he realised, but he made no comment, no question.

“So,” Blondie began. “Why’d you stop photographing them?”

Neil drew in a breath, his smile rapidly falling. “Well, to put it simply, I just stopped sleeping with people entirely. But for that to make sense you’ve got to know about everything else too-”

“You don’t have to tell me everything,” Blondie quickly cut him off. There was no kindness or care in his voice, and Neil couldn’t help but think that this was his way of stating the conditions of where the conversation was headed- Blondie wasn’t going to be tossing him any sympathy if he fell too deep into his memories.

After a short silence Neil answered, “I want to. I think.”

Blondie nodded, leaning back into the window and raising his arms above his head.

Every impulse in Neil’s body told him to keep his secrets to himself. He had no real reason to tell them, it wasn’t like the blond was begging to know or threatening him to spill. Still, it’s like he could have been, because Neil could already feel the words jamming his throat, begging to occupy every inch of the room they were in; to spill them out through cracks in the windows and below doors, uncaring if the whole world knew. He cleared his throat once, twice, and Blondie stared, as detached as he was invested.

“You see, back when I was a kid,” Neil began, face screwing up as he raised the camera sight to his eye. And just like that he told the strange blond receptionist yoga teacher everything that came to mind about his life over the past decade or longer.

It hadn’t been his exact intention, although even that was clouded. Even in his rambling he was careful of what he told and didn’t tell. He mentioned the fact that his mother died on a beach, but he carefully avoided the indulgence of his father beating her senseless, of her body melting into the car wreck and the fuel tank in his hand. He mentioned his impaired sense of identity, and how treacherous of a search his self-exploration had and has been, but not the fact that you’ll find an entirely different name if you were to look at his birth certificate. And he spoke of the freedom that came with his father’s death, just not the graphic images that still played in his mind every now and again of his uncle tearing his old man apart.

He told him about his life on the run from his father, of the cities that he and his mother passed through in record time, never stopping to admire the tourists spots or natural beauty of the area. He spoke openly of his mother’s paranoia, of how she would plant a hand in his hair whenever his eyes began to wander, admiring graffiti or decorated storefronts. He practically spat out the words when he spoke of the way that she had beat him when he kissed a girl, about the visible scars he’d accumulated from running for his life.

He’d lost track of how many photos he’d taken, how many poses they’d gone through. “After they died, for the first time ever I had the freedom to do whatever the hell I wanted. I mean, it’s a little tedious calling up FBI agents every other week, but I’m not complaining. The sex came with that- something like a retaliation, I suppose. Something that I knew would make my mother turn in her grave. I mean, she made it into such a big deal, so it took me a while to realise that I never really felt anything from it, never did- I only did it for the photo and a place today,” he laughed, but Blondie didn’t. “It all became pointless.”

“You found better things to photograph,” Blondie suggested, the first thing he’d said in who knows how long.

Neil nodded, holding his silence while he took another photo, then answered, “Yeah. Everywhere has something.”

Blondie raised a brow. “Everywhere?” he repeated, doubtful.

“Even Palmetto,” Neil replied surely. “Definitely Palmetto.”

Blondie hummed. “Let’s take a break.”

Neil dropped the camera and Blondie immediately hopped down from the window, wasting no time to seek out his cigarettes from his hoodie pocket nearby.

“No comment?” Neil asked, letting his camera hang from his neck while he took a moment to stretch his back and shoulders. “No pity?”

Blondie shook his head. “Pity is worthless, a waste of time. You don’t seem like the type, either,” he explained nonchalantly, eyes focused on the cigarette he was struggling to pull from the carton.

Neil snorted. “Aren’t you supposed to be all pro mental health? Cause you’re a yoga teacher? All green tea and organic food and meditation?”

“I do believe that therapy is crucial to recovery from trauma,” Blondie bit back, cigarette going forgotten as he gave Neil a flat look. “I just doubt that someone who runs from their problems would like to sit down and reflect on how sad their life is.”

The honest words struck a nerve within Neil, and his anger flared up again. “You sure do know everything about me, don’t you? After only a handful of hours.”

“Only your entire life story,” Blondie chimed back.

Frustration licked the heels of Neil’s palms at the causal statement, and for a moment he was a teenager again, examining the blond like every edge to him was sharp enough to hurt him. His anger, however, wasn’t directed at Blondie. In his moment of brief panic, he couldn’t be mad at him for using his words against him, but he was kicking himself for feeling secure enough to enable him to do so in the first place.

“Not that it matters.” Neil scoffed, forcing any visible tension from his face and shoulders. “I’m never going to see you again after tonight.”

“Right.” Blondie nodded, pausing to place his cigarette between his lips. “And that’s the only reason why?”

Neil spluttered, stumbling over his words. “Stop that,” he demanded. “Don’t pull this therapy shit on me, I don’t want to hear it.”

It had been too easy to tell him everything. The combination of the dark room and Blondie’s impossible stillness had led to Neil forgetting any of the repercussions that could follow. Regret stung at his chest in a dull rage that he refused to accept as betrayal. Now, all that Neil could see of Blondie was the pale silhouette of his skin and hair, and the bright red cherry of the cigarette mocking Neil with its rhythmic flicker.

“Right again. I’m a yoga instructor, not a trained therapist. Just curious, is all.” Blondie’s lips popped as he pulled the cigarette from his lips, exhaling slowly, thoughtfully. “Yoga is a form of therapy, though. So is photography, ever think about that?”

An answer didn’t come quick from Neil, because he realised that his reflexive answer of ‘no’ would be a lie. Because he had thought about it, he knew that it wasn’t a coincidence that his photos were so important to him, even if there were memory cards he had never even flicked through. He couldn’t say that his photography was meaningless, not when he couldn’t justify it. Not when he had stumbled into the wellness clinic ass-backwards with his chest heaving and his camera held to his heart.

“Let’s do yoga.”

Neil blinked. “What?”

Blondie took another drag, then said, “You know that I don’t like repeating myself.” Neil stared, and Blondie pointedly avoided his gaze. “I let you take my photo without my shirt on, let me show you a couple poses. Your posture is shocking, all hunched like that.”

“Thanks.” Neil glared at him. “But I don’t see how sticking my ass in the air is supposed to help with that.”

“You’d be surprised,” Blondie mused. “If I hadn’t found yoga I’d probably be dead or in prison.” He paused, as if the thought entertained him. “Maybe both- dead in prison, quite the way to go.”

It was the sudden honesty that took Neil by surprise, not the dark imagery that he’d created. Still, Neil remained sceptical- even if this yoga shit had done one thing or another for Blondie, there was no promise that it could help someone like him. He thought back to earlier, to how he’d felt stretching out stiff muscles and tight skin during the class. His mind drifted at the thought of Blondie folded over so easily, of the soft curves of his body, and it shouldn’t have been a surprise when his mind began to wander further.

The suspicion must have been noticeable on his face, because a moment later Blondie scoffed and threw him a viscous eye-roll. “No, this isn’t the start of some cheap porno,” he reassured him with hostility laced within his tone.

Neil prayed that the dark obscured just how flushed his face had become, mouth jerking open as he desperately tried to deny the assumption that had been made, to convince him that he hadn’t been amusing himself with such a thought. The porn that Neil had watched in his time was minute, and nothing more than shitty tapes left behind in motel cupboards alongside Disney films and family classics. He’d tried to wank to one once, when he couldn’t sleep. But at the mention of the word ‘step-brother’ he’d promptly switched the tv off, feeling moderately disturbed.

In the end he snapped, “Didn’t I just make it clear that I’m not interested in-”

“Yes, you did,” Blondie said, cutting him off as calmly as ever. “But after that last pose I held for what, ten minutes? I think I at least deserve a moment to stretch. You scared that you’ll embarrass yourself? Don’t worry, I’ve already seen it all- I know you’re as stiff as a brick wall.”

Neil scoffed, genuine agitation playing on his face just above the childish desire to beat Blondie after such a lazy jab of a challenge. He put his camera on the windowsill, somewhere where he could leave it without having to worry about treading on it. Speaking of,

“Just follow my movement,” Blondie said some minutes later, after they’d retrieved a pair of mats and started their session. “This would be a lot easier if you took those shoes off, you know.”

“It would be easier if I could actually see you,” Neil snapped back, glaring at the pale outline of Blondie nearby. The first few moves had been the basic kind of stuff that Neil could at least recognise and imitate, but now it seemed like Blondie had far too many limbs, all jutting out at impossible angles.

Neil, at Blondie’s unrelenting request, had pulled off his shirt and dumped it onto the floor beside him just before they’d started. Distrust had been a choking force, but after staring at Blondie’s form for so long, almost completely indistinguishable in the dark, he figured that there was no harm in playing along. In the dark he couldn’t see his scars, nor could he see the thinnest layer of dirt that stained his skin, from his fingertips to his wrists, and trailing up his neck and into his hairline. Showers were harder to come across in the colder months, with cheap hotels offering nothing more than frigidly cold water, and the small construction sites that Neil chipped in at for cash becoming fewer.

There was a sigh, and then Blondie was moving toward him, coming to a stop only inches away from Neil. “Yes or no?” he asked, tone flat.

“Excuse me?” Neil shot back, body tense at the nearness of the other man.

“Can I touch you? Yes or no?” Blondie explained, obviously irritated by Neil’s misunderstanding.

Not that it made any more sense to Neil, even if the words had been specific and practically spelt out for him, he felt as though what Blondie had asked him had been complete gibberish. He swallowed. “Why?”

“So that I can show you how to do it properly before you end up hurting yourself,” Blondie snapped at him, beginning to sink away into the dark. “Fuck.”

“Wait.” Blondie stilled and Neil paused, working his jaw for a moment. “Yes… if you want, I mean.”

Blondie made no reply, and for a moment Neil was sure that he’d pissed him off for sure. He was just about to move, to shift to his knees and chew him out for being so indecisive, when he felt an unexpected pressure against his waist.

“This one’s called marichyasana,” he explained, his voice softer than before, almost dropping to a mumble. “Here, this foot stretches out- like that, yeah, and the other comes towards you.” Blondie’s fingertips were feather light across his skin, guiding his limbs into place with precise movement. Even when his touch glided over the raised skin of Neil’s countless scars, he didn’t falter, didn’t flinch, and made no acknowledgement of them. This in itself was obscure to Neil, in all his one night stands, had never had a partner who didn't avoid touching them as best as they could, or ruin the moment with prodding questions and forced lies.

“I can't bend like that,” Neil complained as Blondie’s hands slid across his arms and guided them to meet behind his back. His knee slipped into the space between his ribs and his interlocked arms, and the strain on his hips and shoulders was becoming rather noticeable.

Blondie scoffed. “Yes you can, now rotate your chest towards me, nice and open like this-” His hands trailed up Neil’s chest, dipping into the grooves of his ribs and sliding along his collarbones. He tutted when Neil’s breathing faltered, chest stuttering under such a careless touch, and Neil scowled back at him, finally looking to face him.

The closeness of Blondie’s face to his took him by surprise, muscles tensing as he locked up with surprise. Even with the dark, he could make out his bright hazel eyes staring back at him in the dark, could feel the warmth of his breath drifting across the bridge of his nose and cheekbones every other moment. Neil’s heart sped up, thumping loudly against his chest and his mouth went dry- when he swallowed, it was loud and tense.

He waited, completely still, for something to happen. The ache of his joints went forgotten, and for a moment he forgot how to breathe, completely captivated by just how beautiful Blondie was up close. It was entirely unfair. Then Blondie was pulling away, hands leaving Neil’s chest as he sunk back to a safe distance.

Disappointment ran deep through every inch of Neil’s being, but he shoved it away with a muttered, “How’s my form?”

“Decent, for a beginner,” Blondie replied slowly, returning to his own mat. “You should work on the mobility of your shoulders though, it’d be a shame to let them go to waste.” Neil frowned, and opened his mouth to express his confusion just before Blondie spoke again. “You should get out of here. At this rate you’ll miss the last night bus.”

Neil’s confusion only deepened until he glanced away, realising that outside the window, the earliest signs of dawn were beginning to show. He couldn’t believe it, he had spent the entire night smoking cigarettes and taking photos and practising yoga with a stranger. He hadn’t noticed the time, or the exhaustion that was beginning to creep into the edges of his vision, not even the hunger that was beginning to make its presence known within his stomach.

He wanted to point out the fact that buses ran twenty-four/seven, that it wasn’t something that they had to worry about. But he knew what such a statement meant, even if the blond had been anything but blunt during their earlier conversations. Neil’s time here was spent, and in the next half hour the light was going to seep through the dark seclusion of their room and spoil the intimacy that came with such privacy.

“Yeah, you’re right,” Neil agreed, slowly uncurling himself from the position he was in and feeling around in the dark for his things. Sat on the mat he pulled on layer after layer once more, ignoring the hum of loss that he felt when Blondie sunk away from his field of vision to retrieve his own clothes. “Sorry, by the way. I lost track of time. No one’s expecting you back home, are they?”

“I didn’t,” Blondie replied from the dark, pulling on his shirt. “And no, only the cats.”

Neil hummed, a smile slipping onto his face once more. “What are their names? I’m sure that they’re worried about you.”

“Sir Fat Cat McCatterson and King Fluffkins,” he replied easily. “And no, I don’t think that I cross their minds until it’s dinnertime.”

Neil let out a snort of laughter, even if Blondie hadn’t necessarily been joking. He wondered what it was like to have pets, to have anyone, to return home to at the end of the day. His mind started to drift, and with that thought the both of them sunk back into a comfortable silence.

Neil hung his mat up on the wall, packed away any other sign of his presence and hauled his backpack up onto his shoulders once more. Blondie sat on the windowsill, eyes heavier than before as he smoked another cigarette and gazed out towards the rising sun in the distance. Neil’s camera remained untouched beside him, and Neil picked it up with delicate hands, careful to avoid touching his thigh.

“Mind if I take one for the road?” Neil asked, embarrassed by his own hopelessness.

Blondie’s eyes drifted over to him, and he took another slow drag. “Sure, but only if you give me something in return.”

Neil swallowed, thumbing at the corner of his camera. “What do you want?”

“What can you offer?” Blondie shot back, words slow and sure.

“Not much,” Neil replied honestly, the smallest of a smile flicking across his lips.

Blondie was silent for a moment, then he announced his final decision with his eyes locked directly onto Neil’s. “Let me take a photo of you, just one, and I’ll give you my last smoke. Yes or no?”

It wasn’t what he was expecting, surprising him more than Blondie’s unexpected cursing, his sharp tongue, his odd demands, or even his touch against his skin had. To anybody else, Neil would have refused on the spot, would have turned around and charged away. But to him, it felt wrong to say no.

“One photo,” he repeated slowly, faltering for a brief moment before shoving his camera away from his chest and towards him instead.

He watched as Blondie took the cigarette out of his mouth and propped it up between his head and his ear, uncaring of how close the cherry came to singing his thin hair. He took the camera from Neil slowly, removing the cap, switching it on, and holding the sight up to his eye.

“How do you want me to pose?” Neil asked, awkwardly messing with his unruly red hair.

Blondie’s reply came instantly, laced with that telltale irritation. “Someone like you doesn’t have to.” The camera clicked, the flash surprising Neil, and then the camera was back in his hand.

Neil pulled the sling back over his neck, smoothing down his hair again while he waited for his cigarette to be rewarded to him. He didn’t have to wait long, as a moment later Blondie was plucking out the cigarette from behind his ear and holding it out to him.

“This is my last cigarette,” he explained, waiting for Neil to take it. Choosing to ignore the rush in his chest, Neil took the cigarette and gently placed it between his lips, almost shivering at the dampness that Blondie had left on the orange filter. “Now get out of here, Rabbit.”

The command lacked the same bite that most of his others had, and Neil didn’t even try to keep the smile off his face as he turned away, threading his hands into the pockets of his jackets as he crossed the room and slid out of the door. He didn’t look back, not as he walked down the hallway and took the stairs back to the lobby.

Neil locked the front door behind him as he slipped out of the building and back out onto the streets, now populated by the earliest of early risers who were up and beginning to prepare their stores for the day. He took his time smoking the cigarette, trying to make it last as long as possible as he wandered towards the first bus stop that he could find, one located only a couple blocks away.

Sat on the seat and waiting for the next bus to arrive, Neil found himself unnerved by the quiet around him for the first time in a very long time. He reached down and lifted up his camera, switching it on and tucking it under his jacket as he opened up the memory file. The first image to pop up was the photo of himself, his red hair practically glowing thanks to the use of flash in such a dark room. It was the first photo of himself that had ever been taken on the camera, and the last itself had been the photo for his ID card. He looked different to how he usually looked in mirrors, relaxed and open in a way that he could hardly recognise on himself. More so, he looked tired.

Swallowing down the emotions that threatened to bubble to the surface, Neil thumbed at the buttons, flicking away from himself and instead to the photos of Blondie. They were all stunning, each and every one, particularly the shirtless ones, but only by a short margin. With every photo that he looked through, an emerging feeling that had festered in his chest became more and more prominent. It was new and it most definitely wasn’t welcome, but it sure as hell wasn't going to leave.

The space around Neil lit up as large headlights approached, and the silence was broken by the soft screech of tires. Neil stood up and flicked the last of the cigarette onto the floor, sidestepping to crush it below his heel. He stared at the crushed tabaco for only a moment before he was tugging his backpack up onto his shoulders and walking towards the doors that shuttered open with a low groan. He climbed the stairs and looked around, unsurprised by the fact that there was no one around besides him and the driver.

“This bus heads towards Francis Marion and Sumter National Forest, right?” he asked, voice rough from the excessive amount of talking he’d done.

The bus driver didn’t look his way, his knobbly fingers fiddling with the control panel beside the wheel. “It does, I can get you all the way up to Kinards in about an hour, seeing as we won’t be making many stops at this hour.”

“Okay, thank you,” Neil muttered, sinking further into the bus so that he could occupy one of the empty seats. He dumped his bag down beside him and sank into the stiff seat, trying his best to relax as they pulled out onto the road and accelerated towards the interstate. It was cold inside the bus, and Neil tugged his coat further around him, eyeing the nearby window that rattled obnoxiously, welcoming in the draft. He sunk further into his seat, trying to block out the stale smell within the bus and instead get some sleep, forgetting the promise he’d sworn hours ago.

What was his name?

The thought struck Neil suddenly, and then he was rigid with the most awful feeling he’d felt in months. He didn’t know his name. He’d spoken with him all night- had photographed him and spilt his secrets like they were afternoon gossip, and he hadn’t even thought to ask his name.

This was a mistake- leaving was a mistake.

“Can you pull over, please?” Neil had thought that there was someone else on the bus, and it took him a moment to realise that the choked voice that had called out to the driver was him.

The bus slowed as the driver removed his foot from the accelerator. “What?” he called back, his voice bouncing about against the windows.

“Pull over!” Neil yelled, up and out of his seat before the bus had even stilled. The bus shuddered to a sudden halt, and Neil struggled to keep his balance as he staggered forward, lunging back a moment later to seize his backpack.

Neil was running before his feet had even hit the ground, lurching down the steps and through the door. Then his feet were beating against the cold cement pavement, struggling under the weight of his backpack as he charged further and further down the street. The sun had risen further, now a dull glow and the shopfronts that he ran past, its brightness daunting as it threatened Neil with the start of a new day.

His chest hurt and his legs were heavy with exertion when he finally made it back to the familiar street, his eyes wide and frantic as he hurried up the steps. He stopped just before his nose could bump against the door, immediately raising his fist to rap his knuckles against the surface.

“Hello?” he called, ignorant to the workers nearby who tossed him odd looks. “Is anyone there?”

The lights were switched off inside and nobody came to answer his frantic yelling. He had been too slow.

Neil let out a deep sigh, turning around to face the street as he sunk down onto the floor. His bag was a stiff pressure where it sat sandwiched between himself and the door, and the chilled surface of the stone steps was quick to seep through his jeans. Neil dropped his head down to rest between his knees, trying desperately to get a grip on himself before he spiralled. His heart was pounding and his chest ached, but above all, the feeling of regret was the deepest pain within his body. It was unfamiliar, and he wanted it gone.

Travelling America was supposed to be about exploring the unfamiliar- and to an extent that was exactly what it had been. Neil learned to live with who he was and who he is, he learned to live. But after a certain amount of time, every foreign place, every stranger, they all began to blur together into one giant mess. Then he had staggered into Palmetto that evening with a murderous scowl on his face.

The city was the same as the last, the people too. But what had been different was the blond he had met at a wellness centre, the last place that he expected to visit. He had been something new, something exciting with all of his jagged edges and contradictions. He looked at Neil like he really did see him, and that recognition was as brilliant as it was terrifying.

Forests would always have their leaves and lakes, roadside bars would always have their promised hookups and cheap drinks, and motels would always have their lousy heaters and creaky beds. But it wasn’t every city that housed a man like the blond- it wasn’t every state.

“Oi, Rabbit, that’s not your burrow.”

And Neil had been foolish enough to let him go, without even-

Hold on.

For a moment everything tilted off its axis, and then Neil’s head was jerking upward so quick that his neck spasmed with pain. Parked only metres away against the curb was a sleek black Maserati decorated with tinted windows. Only one was rolled down, and through it poked out a sleeved elbow and a pale face wielding what Neil dared to call a smirk.

“Get up off the floor before one of my coworkers shows up for the opening shift,” Blondie called. “They’ll mistake you for a homeless man and try to drag you in to join one of their rehab programs.”

It took him a moment, and then Neil remembered how to use his legs and pushed himself up and off of the floor. His calf muscles ached and his backpack had butchered his hips and shoulders, but he couldn't bring himself to care. This moment itself had been a blessing, and he wasn’t going to waste his last chance on the state of his own body.

“Your name,” he said, coming to stand on the pavement only a few steps away from the Maserati. “Tell me.”

“Curious all of a sudden?” Blondie asked, chin shifting to rest atop his wrist. The sun caught on the tip of his nose, and Neil tried hard not to stare. “I’ll tell you, but what will you give me in return?”

“Anything,” Neil replied. Blondie quirked a brow, and Neil’s gaze remained firm- this wasn’t something that he would state with an empty meaning.

He must have understood, as his calculating gaze eventually faded. “It’s Andrew,” he said. “Minyard.”

“Andrew,” Neil echoed, that desperate frown of his finally breaking as he made way for a relief-driven smile. “Andrew Minyard.”

Andrew’s frown only deepened at Neil’s hysteria, leaning forward out of the car. “Don’t lose your head, it’s only a name,” he muttered.

“It’s not just a name,” Neil shot back, smile unwavering. “Not to me.”

Andrew hummed, tension easing from his face as he stared at Neil. “Get in,” he demanded, voice firm despite the flat look he wore.

Neil blinked, voice pitching higher as he asked, “What?”

“Your end of the deal,” Andrew explained. “Come with me.”

“Where to?” Confusion took place in exchange of relief and Neil was left somewhere between hopeful and almost overwhelmed by the desire to flee from this proposition of sticking around.

Andrew rolled his eyes. “I was planning to head over to a nearby cafe. The blonde on shift is a bitch but she makes good coffee. Stop running, Rabbit. Get a drink with me. Yes or no?”

No, no, no.

“Okay, yeah- sure. Just one cup.”