Chapter Text
The measured beeping of the heart monitor cut through everything else first, but as Yok blinked drowsiness from his stuffy head, he realized it was the smoke that woke him. The last vestiges of sleep that clung to the edges of his mind were really just the haze of inhaled cigarette smoke; a sticky, acrid fog across his consciousness.
He scrutinized the flat white and silver planes and perfect 90 degree angles of the room. Even the hospital sheets were folded in neat lines across his slowly rising chest. But the curtains at the edges of his vision stirred with a cool evening breeze that he knew the nurses would never have allowed.
Yok craned his neck backward on the pillow — which squashed disobligingly and nearly buried his head in fluff — before giving up and turning on his side so he could face the open window and Bangkok’s skyline beyond.
But the window wasn’t the open space leading out into the city he expected, because perched in the sill, his languid form like a skyline of its own, was Black.
The cigarette smoke that had filled Yok’s lungs since waking curled from his lips and between his fingers, tinged blue by the dimming light, and his flat hair blew up in strands with the breeze — stiffer here, four floors up, than it would be for any of the pedestrians that Black was watching pass below them. He must have heard the starched hospital sheets shifting under Yok’s still-clumsy body, but his eyes remained cast downward, flickering from what must have been one stranger to another.
“Black,” Yok said, a slight croak in his voice, “what are you doing here?”
Black glanced at him finally, a brief eye contact acknowledging him that felt like as much of a dismissal as a greeting, before turning back to the window and taking a sharp drag from his cigarette. It was a familiar salutation, but something from a different timeline. How long had it been since they’d occupied the same room, and how long since he’d noticed?
“How do you know I’m not White?” he asked blandly.
Yok blinked. The thought hadn’t occurred to him, and yet he couldn’t doubt his instinct. He didn’t think he’d ever seen White smoke. And Black’s presence was heavy, steady, where White’s had always been like a feather on a breeze. The differences seemed obvious in hindsight.
“White doesn’t go to the bathroom without Sean trailing along like a puppy,” Yok quipped. “And he wears glasses now.”
The curl in Black’s lip at the mention of Sean’s infatuation with his twin was almost predictable, and Yok’s mouth stretched into a gentle smirk. But he didn’t rise to the bait, and they settled back into silence.
White had been here, every couple of days or so, and always with Sean glued to his side. Yok couldn’t blame them, after everything. Sean’s hands were always gripping some part of his boy — his hand, or the edge of his jacket, and he recognized the feeling of paranoia behind it. Seeing them like that, no matter how welcome the company, was a one way ticket back to the stifled darkness in the back of that van. When they visited, he eyed their clasped hands when they weren’t looking and the floor seemed to lurch beneath him. He felt the coarse fabric of the bag over his head, and his own hands clenching in the front of his sweat and tear-soaked shirt for lack of anything else to cling to.
Black seemed free of those kinds of jitters. His shoulders were loose and relaxed, his legs tangled carelessly together. And Yok thinks that, even if he had been there, he would’ve been the same. There was an immovable stillness in Black that the others had never possessed — the same thing that made it unsettling to meet his eyes for too long. It wasn’t soothing, but it was unwavering.
The cigarette in Black’s hand burned down to his knuckles, and he twisted the stub into the window sill, leaving a ring of ash the nurses would tut over when they cleaned it. They would probably blame Yok for it, too, if they didn’t know he’d had a visitor.
“Please tell me you didn’t come in through the window,” Yok groused petulantly.
Black snorted.
“That would’ve been a lot more effort than it was worth.”
There it is, Yok’s snide inner voice chimed. The insulting demeanor that’s been missing from our group dynamic all this time.
“Fucker. Why come at all then?” he said blithely.
He knew he’d asked already, but Black still hadn’t answered, and he wasn’t sure what to make of it. In the aftermath, he’d all but disappeared, and Yok hadn’t seen him since that night at the last hospital. He knew he wasn’t the only one.
White’s pinched, far-away expressions sometimes took a different bearing from Sean’s. As if he could will his twin into being beside him. Apparently he couldn’t, because the circles under his eyes deepened every time he visited, and the question Have you seen Black? sounded smaller each time he asked it.
So why is he here?
He didn’t seem to have any real purpose, just sitting in the window in the failing light like he was passing time. But idleness had never been something Black could tolerate. Neither, for that matter, had Yok.
But Black just pulled another cigarette out of his pocket and twirled it through his fingers, not bothering to light it.
“Where have you been, anyway?” Yok prodded.
Black shrugged. “Around. Taking care of some things.”
Yok’s bewilderment only deepened, and it carved a furrow into his brow. Black’s taking care of things was usually him covering up a sentiment more along the lines of cleaning up your mess. Not that there wasn’t plenty of mess to clean up right now, but…
“What, did Gumpa ask you for something?” If Gumpa had seen Black and hadn’t told the rest…
Black barked what was barely a laugh at Yok over his shoulder. “Gumpa doesn’t want shit from me, Yok. He’s made his choice.”
Whatever he meant by that, it went over Yok’s head and it was just one more evasive answer stacked on a dozen others that were all aggravating his sluggish, medicated mind. Impatience getting the better of him, Yok took a more direct tack.
“White’s worrying the rest of us to death cause he doesn’t know where you are,” he huffed.
“He’s fine,” Black grunted. “If he’s in trouble, I’ll know it.”
A small noise of disbelief escaped Yok, an aha with a million pointed jabs behind it. He settled on, “Yeah, that’s what he’s after — a guard dog.”
Black turned around to look at him directly with a chilling stare that White could never have replicated if he’d tried. He held Yok’s eyes so the meaning bored itself into his head.
“As long as nobody does anything stupid that puts him in danger, he doesn’t need me.”
Yok flinched.
Satisfaction creeped into Black’s piercing eyes, having gotten the reaction he was after. Then he turned back to the window, unmoved and unbothered by Yok’s stricken face. Yok didn’t bother breaking the silence again. Black lit another cigarette and smoked halfway through it without saying a word or acknowledging him again, and when he was through, he simply flicked it out the window and stalked past Yok to the door.
I guess he really did come through the door like everyone else.
Black paused to catch his eye one more time and said, “Your cop boyfriend is hanging around downstairs, asking the nurses about you. He’s been here for a few days.” The latch on the door clicked open, and Black walked out, leaving Yok with a burning in his throat and in his chest and in his palms.
◐
The twisted metal rails of the balcony cut into the skin of White’s back where he leaned against it. He shifted to find a new patch of skin that didn’t ache, but he’d done it a million times already and his indecision was costing him a lot of bruises. He stared down the scuffed and chipped surface of the door to Black’s apartment and sighed.
Years apart from the day their parents had separated them, no matter how they returned to each other, the string between them seemed determined to stretch thin and brittle. Black was here, somewhere in the city, behind this door, maybe, but he might as well have been in Russia. Maybe they’d switched places in more ways than White had realized. Maybe they would always be half a world apart, even while walking the same streets and wearing the same face.
He could feel his brother’s pain, and know when he was safe and when he needed him, but he couldn’t divine a single thought from his head that he didn’t want to share. And still the connection they shared was the last thread of hope that White clung to. It was a tether that kept them both grounded. He’d thought, when he’d submerged himself in the waves beneath the pier, that he’d reminded Black of everything they still shared. He thought he’d understood. That White needed him. They weren’t the kids that had made a promise over a bloodied handkerchief, but they’d found their way back to each other and found they’d been growing in parallel lines all along. They were half of a whole that had been torn apart too soon, but they still fit together at their edges.
And besides, Black had made a new promise. If I can end Todd, we will see each other again. The thought put a queasy little twist in his stomach, because he knew how Black solved problems. He’d known when Black said it, what he meant to do, but he could only accept it then. The tone of his voice had told White that he would only let one of them walk out of that penthouse, and no matter what Todd had been to either of them before, if White had to choose between him and his brother, he would let Todd die a hundred times.
But Black was alive, he wasn’t even hurt — their bond at least allowed him this one comfort — and White knew if he was still alive, it meant he’d succeeded. And still his promise hung in empty space over White’s head like a taunt.
The still-closed door across the walkway was serving a similar function.
White hissed through his teeth and pulled his phone out of his pocket, restlessly thumbing through to Yok’s contact for the thousandth time in two days. The last message waited in garish green, unchanged.
Black was here. He’s fine, but I don’t think he’s planning on coming to see you.
The tiny furrow between his brows deepened and the corners of his mouth tugged down into a pout that Sean would’ve tried to kiss away if he’d been there.
He’d thought, at first, that Black must’ve needed space. They’d been friends long before they’d been enemies, and White had spent enough time watching over Black with Todd to know he still held a tiny private world of genuine affection for him. That Black might feel conflicted about his actions seemed like an understandable explanation. Next he’d thought there must have been loose ends to tie up after everything. Todd was a high profile citizen, after all, his death would doubtless cause a stir. After a while, he’d even thought maybe he was still angry about Sean, but he knew better than that. The idea that Black might be walking around the city, visiting Yok in the hospital, not even thinking of him, was not one he’d entertained.
White would’ve given him his space, if that was what he needed. But he had spent most of his life missing his brother, he couldn’t just let him disappear like this.
White rested his hand on the doorknob, knowing it wouldn’t be locked, and when he twisted, the door swung open without protest.
Everything was exactly how he’d left it the last time he’d been here. The pillows were thrown across the bed, the sheets tangled and disordered. A thin layer of dust rested on the windowsill, visible in the late afternoon sun. White stepped gingerly as he ventured further into the room, cataloguing items as he passed, knowing he’d put each one where it lay now.
Every sign of life was his, and he realized with a sinking heart that the apartment had been empty for a week or more. White’s feet scuffed against the floorboards as he stopped before the open wardrobe. A messy chunk of clothes was missing from the center, leaving stragglers on either side. That was new.
White tapped his fingernails over the wood door as he closed the wardrobe. Any certainty he’d had walking into the room slipped through his fingers. Maybe he should’ve guessed that Black wouldn’t have come back here. If he was avoiding White, would he stay in a place where he knew to find him? He’d tried once before to find his brother when he didn’t want to be found, and it had only reminded him of how separately they’d lived their lives. All the places their paths had diverged.
He’d known Black was avoiding him, but it hadn’t occurred to him that he would’ve found somewhere else to stay. How could he predict anything Black might think or do?
Where would he go?
The apartment, the garage, both off-limits by whatever rules Black was playing by. Where else was there? Where did Black go to hide? There must have been somewhere safe for him.
He glanced over the room again. The books, familiar covers whose insides were a mystery to White, were all still there; stacked on the floor and overflowing their shelves. The picture frame on Black’s nightstand was still standing, but with a pang, he realized the picture of them together as children wasn’t inside anymore. He must’ve taken it with him. The little figurines with Black and Gram’s initials were there still, too. Gram.
Maybe Gram would know where to look. In the years White hadn’t been here, Gram had. And they’d been closer than any of the rest in the gang, hadn’t they? But White brushed his fingers over the tops of the figurines and the idea faded.
He sighed and flopped onto the mattress, letting his eyes close beneath the sunlight.
Where are you, Black?