Chapter Text
The weeks bleed into each other, as do the rumors, a cacophony in Anton’s head; since the diner, he hasn’t been able to think straight, and the uncontrollable visions that keep him up all night just follow him into the daylight as well. Each dark corner, extra sound, every oddity at the edge of his vision, they all transform into the man with the limp doing something nefarious, or the guy in the suit menacing him in a way no one else can see.
It’s like an adrenaline rush that just won’t quit.
He’s gotten so easily spooked that he manages to break half a dozen dishes within a week, until Seamus slams down a pack of disposable bowls on the coffee table and tells him, with a deeply disgusted scowl, not to use the good stuff anymore.
Anton’s friends—can he even call them that anymore?—have picked up on how jumpy he’s gotten, so of course they delight in setting him off, pulling random pranks just to watch his reaction. The worst (so far) was a full-size cutout of James Bond that they’d positioned in his locker, and the resulting panic attack had scored him a visit by the school nurse, who’d referred him to the counselor, and he’d had to spend twenty minutes trying to convince her that nothing was actually all that wrong (aside from his friends being assholes).
(Because c’mon, who’s gonna believe the kind of things he’s actually been dealing with this year? And even if he thought, for one second, that she might be sympathetic and open-minded enough for him to open up to, the thought of trying to put any of this into actual words that leave his actual mouth is… well, enough to drive him to another panic attack, if he doesn’t let his mind skitter off to less dangerous topics.)
In the end, she probably didn’t believe him, but at least she let him go. And maybe tried to follow up with his dad, but hey, not like he has to fear Seamus actually taking a hand in his welfare—at any level. Guy hasn’t even noticed the dark circles under Anton’s eyes.
Dozing off during class has started to be a daily thing, but it doesn’t bring him any relief from the nightmares; when he can’t keep his eyes open, the classroom morphs into variations on ways he’s seen the guy in the suit. Mostly it’s watching his classmates and teacher get kneecapped before the guy steals all their backpacks, and Anton wishes it felt as silly as that sounds.
One afternoon, in the midst of an explanation of exothermic reactions, Anton blinks and his chemistry teacher suddenly is the guy in the suit, explaining how to construct a bomb, then holding a bomb and looking straight at Anton where he sits frozen, and then smiling and tossing the bomb right at him—
—the next moment he’s sprawled on the floor, legs tangled in his chair, with the whole class staring at him and the teacher berating him for yet again causing a disturbance in class.
Detention. Sure. Why not. At least the room is quieter, and he can go straight home afterwards without having to deal with his so-called friends.
Graduation is a couple months away, and he’s never really thought too much about it—he’s smart enough, he’s kept his grades just high enough to graduate with minimum effort—but he’s not sure he’s going to make it.
He wouldn’t even care, except that graduation is probably his only chance, slim as it might be, at getting out of this city and away from the terror that stalks him through its streets.
The next rumor to make it to his ears is the guy in the suit striding straight into a marshal’s office and beating up a federal marshal in broad daylight. Which… can’t be true, right? The guy stole Hector Alvarez’s unmistakable car, stole a witness directly from the feds, but even he wouldn’t dare to…
Right?
The thought doesn’t do much to calm Anton’s anxieties. The guy’s not just a serious badass, he’s… unhinged. Who’s to say exactly how far he’ll go, how many lines he’ll cross?
Soon enough, they’re hearing (fifth-hand) of some security guy who’d been walking around an unfinished floor for his smoke break and wound up in just the right spot to witness a taxi getting blown up—not a bomb, some kinda big gun, he saw the muzzle flash—and a guy stalking toward the car, getting in a fight with another guy, one of them getting killed, and a terrified man (in a suit) fleeing the survivor, who sure wasn’t no taxi driver.
And if Anton was jumpy before, well. The mere thought of getting in a vehicle makes the world start to spin.
He winds up skipping three days of school. Then he’s standing there flinching at Seamus screaming in his face. Not because he skipped school—his dad never has, never will care about his academic progress—but because he refuses to join in on a key delivery to the Double D’s.
All the annoyance, mockery, and rage that Seamus has to throw at him can’t persuade him to get in that car, nor can the threat of throwing him out of the house. Maybe if Seamus had ever cared enough to follow through on his threats, but he usually loses his fervor to either booze or apathy, and anyway it’s nothing that Anton hasn’t heard a dozen times before.
In the end, Seamus runs out of time to berate him and leaves, promising Dire Consequences once he gets back.
Keyed up in the wake of Seamus’s rage, Anton finds himself unable to settle, and feeling unexpectedly guilty for not going along. Having a second pair of eyes is a safety measure, and there’s enough unrest in the city lately, enough extra activity from the police and the FBI and the gang wars, to make Seamus nervous about what used to be routine.
To distract himself from yet more horrible visions of the future, Anton starts gathering up the dishes; might as well make it less of a mess for Seamus to return to, even if it’s not Anton’s mess to begin with. (Seamus lives like he’s still a bachelor, with no one to care about other than himself.) With more care than usual—the last thing he needs is another broken dish—he manages to wash them, dry them, put them away.
Doing the laundry would mean leaving the apartment, but he does at least gather up whatever he can find and stuff it into the hamper. Tries to get some homework done, but his mind just skitters away from anything involving concentration, and he winds up tossing his textbooks into the corner and heading back downstairs.
There’s nothing to cook, though he finds some leftover pot roast (the extent of Seamus’s skill in the kitchen) and chokes down a rather dry sandwich, which doesn’t stop the churning in his stomach.
And then, out of obvious distractions, he plops down on the couch and turns the TV up a bit loud, in an effort to stave off sleep as long as possible.
Would be nice if he could find anything that doesn’t bring up images of suits and limps and bombs. The news is right out, as are any shows to do with cops or criminals; modern action films too, along with westerns and samurai flicks. The first drama he hits is set in a diner; the second is right in the middle of kidnapping a terrified young woman. Sports make him think of Corey, which also brings him back to the kidnapping, and even the infomercials are showcasing elderly guys with canes. An educational piece delves into the history of the subway, a PSA brings up teens using alcohol, and when he hits a charity about helping the homeless he very nearly throws the controller right through the screen.
Retreating to his room, he barricades the door again and sits on his bare bed—the blankets are stuffed into the closet, where he’s been sleeping the past few months—still fully clothed, gazing out at the fire escape and
jerking awake
each time he starts to doze off.
By midnight, Seamus still hasn’t made it home. Wouldn’t be the first time he’s fallen into his cups and stayed out until morning, and Anton tries to convince himself that that’s all this is, his dad getting drunk again.
(On a Wednesday night. When he’s scheduled for the early shift come morning.)
He crawls into the closet again, pulling the dresser back to block himself in (and block other things out), and manages—just barely—to get his phone plugged in at an angle he can still see. YouTube’s supply of high-energy music videos is endless, but they only work for a while before he’s watching his dad
out the window of the closet
as it rolls along down the pier toward the harbor, toward Hector’s purple goat
and then he’s falling underwater
getting tangled up in the seaweed and a floating log and he
jolts awake
tangled in the sheet with one leg stuck under his dresser.
Panting, he frees himself and sits up again, finds his phone, realizes it’s four a.m. and… he didn’t hear Seamus come home. Or maybe he slept through it?
Well, at least he’s full up on adrenaline again. Not like he’s gonna go back to sleep.
Bleary-eyed, he stumbles downstairs to scrounge up some breakfast, noting with a sinking feeling in his stomach that Seamus’s shoes and jacket aren’t on the floor by the recliner.
The fridge isn’t any less pathetic than it was last night. The cupboards are nearly bare, where they aren’t loaded with booze, and the canned goods on the bottom of the pantry don’t look like anything he’d know how to make into actual food.
’Bout time for a shopping trip.
If Seamus ever makes it home.
The thought of getting in that car sends him hurrying off back to his room, where he remembers a granola bar he’d swiped from one of his friends during lunch last week—nothing he’d actually cared to eat, but a bit of payback for the way they were mocking him. But without other options, he digs into his backpack, strewing notebooks and papers across his bed while trying to find the damn thing.
Strawberries and cream. He’d mock Brent over that one if it wouldn’t mean admitting that he took it in the first place (and inviting yet another round of mockery in return). It’s kinda stale, but he gets it down, follows it with a glass of water, and retreats to his closet again, watching stupid pointless hijinks on YouTube
until finally he hears the door
open downstairs.
Before he can decide whether to go downstairs or pretend he’s still asleep, he freezes. Again. This time because there are a lot more people downstairs than he expected. More noise than Seamus just bringing home a bar chick. Raised voices—Seamus and a few others, some not in English, angry—and then a crash, and the voices turn to shouting, and the sounds of a struggle and then gunshots and Anton has one thought in his head: Get out before they find you.
Barely breathing, he shoves sneakers and wallet into his backpack, snatches up his jacket and he’s out on the fire escape, sliding the window closed behind him and ducking out of sight, taking a few agonizing seconds to zip the backpack shut as quietly as he can. Before the sirens even start to sound in the distance, he’s hurrying barefoot down the cold metalwork, trying not to cry out each time he slips and has to pause, rigidly holding himself up, while he finds the rung again.
At least he’s not in night clothes. Small blessings, comes his mom’s voice in his head, from back when he could believe that God gave a damn about a kid like him or the little details of his day-to-day life.
Three blocks down, he ducks behind a dumpster, heart in his throat, and listens for sounds of pursuit.
When minutes pass and nothing rises above the typical background noise, he finally dares to pull out his sneakers, brush the crud off his feet, and then, leaning into the corner between dumpster and wall to balance awkwardly on one foot at a time, he manages—after a few fumbling attempts—to get the sneakers tied on. Then, still hearing nothing nearby, he pulls his jacket on over his hoodie and shrugs back into his backpack.
Then takes a deep breath, and heads off down the street, trying to look like he’s part of the scenery and knows exactly where he’s going.
Which… where is he going? Even if he could force himself to get in a cab, he’s got no money and no destination. The only places he can think of are the police station or a homeless shelter, which just makes him choke down a hysterical sob. But where else?
He’s got his phone—charged during the night, that’s something—he could call someone. Brent, Nick, Troy, Keith? They’re not exactly on friendly terms right now, and being woken up before dawn isn’t going to help matters, but they’d help him, right? Let him couch surf for a couple days apiece, maybe.
Except that their dads would send him right back to his dad, or at least make a call to find out what’s going on, and that… the cops are gonna be there, they’re gonna ask him where he was, he’ll be called up as a witness even though he didn’t see anything, and even if he doesn’t say anything he’s gonna wind up on some hit list for the Bulgarians or the Russians or whoever it was who busted into their apartment like that and they’re gonna—
The deep rumble of a police subwoofer hits him in the stomach and he ducks into an alcove and stands there, gasping and shuddering, as the car races by, ignoring him. Because of course it’s not after him. Nobody knows he was even in the apartment, right? All he has to do is make his story plausible, make it consistent. Lay it out for… Troy, probably; his dad is the one who’s sheltered runaways before. Got in a fight with my dad, he’ll say—the neighbors surely heard that much last night. Figured I better stay scarce. Say he’s been out all night, he’s been… what has he been doing all night?
His gaze gets drawn to a small but colorful crowd just a couple blocks away, waiting on line to get into some low-budget club, and suddenly he’s got his answer: trying to sneak into clubs. Trying to sneak into clubs, like a normal kid his age; Troy had gotten busted for that before, it’s plausible. Getting turned away, because his fake ID is shit, that’s even better because it’s true.
Heck, he can add a little color to his alibi by getting a little pushy with the bouncer. Right? Make his presence a bit memorable, doing something he wouldn’t be doing if he’d just left the scene of—whatever just happened to his dad.
When the cops finally catch up to him, or if Troy’s dad turns him over, he’ll act kinda cagey and then come clean about playing hooky and trying to score some booze. Nice, normal reason for a kid his age to look guilty. Maybe they’ll give him a slap on the wrist if they’re not too busy to bother.
All he has to do is stick to the story, and he’ll be fine.
With the sky just barely starting to lighten, he joins the tiny crowd and pulls out his phone to look up Troy, already prepping part of his speech: Ugh, my old man, started in on me again last night, I don’t fancy going home for more of the same, can I crash at your place for a couple hours—
Except, he’s got no service.
That’s… odd. He’s got an unlimited plan and it’s the middle of the month—he should be paid up.
“Stacy? Stacy, you still there?”
“Augh, right when they’re about to kiss?!”
“Worthless piece of crap—”
Against his will, he glances around, taking in the fact that half the people waiting are on their phones—all different kinds of phones—and that they’re all reacting like they’ve suddenly lost service.
“You just said you take Venmo—” “We do! It’s just not loading—”
That’s the guy manning the door, and… this can’t be a coincidence. Everyone losing signal all at the same time?
His blood is running cold even as he tries to convince himself, logically, that there’s no reason, no reason at all to think that this, of all things, is somehow connected to the guy in the suit, or even the guy with the limp.
(Maybe somebody bombed the damn cell tower—)
Pulling his hood up, Anton leaves the line and heads on down the street, trying not to look like he’s being hunted. More rumbly sirens drive past, that deep bass felt before you really hear or spot them, and he tries not to wonder what’s got them all excited tonight.
Focus on anything else.
Okay, so he can’t get in touch with Troy, or at least not right away. He could go straight to the police, but that’s at odds with the story he’s planning to tell; if he’s worried about them realizing that he’s been doing minor crimes then the last place he’s gonna want to be is the police station, which makes it even worse of a choice than normal. So he’s gotta somehow get… somewhere… on his own.
Okay, so what has he got? Backpack, wallet, jacket… not much. A bit of cash, not enough for a cab to anywhere he couldn’t walk… probably could get a little food and not much else. His subway card, too, not that he’s going to use it now. Maybe some pens, a pad of paper—most of his school supplies are strewn out over his bed.
He can’t think about his room right now.
Can’t think about who might be lying on the floor just below.
Or what might happen when that catches up to him.
Just… keep moving.
The next few hours are a wash of adrenaline and paranoia and doing his best not to let either of those change his behavior enough to get noticed. He manages to avoid attention; honestly, the few cops he notices seem oddly distracted, so maybe there’s something else going on (again) and they haven’t got time to be worrying about truancy.
Small blessings, says his mom’s voice in his head again, although he doesn’t think she’d approve of him skipping school in the first place. Unlike Seamus, she had always had high hopes for the things her boys could achieve if they put in the effort.
He aches—his back, his legs, his feet. Thanks to the lack of socks, he’s got blisters forming on his soles and the back of his heels where the shoes have been rubbing; when he finds himself next to a dollar store, he sticks around for twenty minutes until they’re finally open, then pops in to at least pick up a two-pack of socks and some Band-Aids. (Briefly, he considers browsing for more, but he could easily spend everything he’s got on random stuff he doesn’t need, and anyway he can’t stop checking over his shoulder to see if the guy with the limp somehow followed him in, so he checks out quickly, dresses up his sore feet, and moves on.)
Since leaving the house, his stomach hasn’t stopped churning with anxiety, killing any thought of food. It’s nearly noon when he picks up the scent of cumin, garlic, and cinnamon—the Halal Guys already handing out gyros to a small but growing crowd—and suddenly Anton is ravenous.
Mouth already watering, he waits impatiently for a beef-and-falafel gyro, and nearly moans at the first juicy, crunchy, savory bite. It makes his whole bizarre morning seem pleasantly distant as he merges back into the crowd, flowing along the sidewalk and pausing at the crosswalks, taking small bites every few steps and chewing them thoughtfully while trying to think about absolutely nothing but the taste of the spices on his tongue.
“He’s in danger now,” comes a deadly calm voice that
freezes Anton in his tracks, clutching his half-eaten gyro as he stands there trembling, getting jostled by the rest of the crowd that flows around him and he just stands there, unable to even take his eyes off the sidewalk as the all-too-familiar voice, soft and a bit hoarse, continues: “Because he was working for you. So you’re going to help me get him back.”
When the silence stretches for a long moment, Anton dares to raise his gaze, just barely, looking out of his hood to see the back of a suit, just a few feet ahead of him, standing just as motionless and… staring skyward.
In the small sliver of visibility, Anton can’t make out what the guy is staring at, but before he gathers himself to look higher, a pay phone rings nearby, making Anton jump.
And the guy in the suit turns, because the phone is a bit behind him. Turns and strolls toward it, with Anton full in his view, and Anton whimpers and nearly—nearly—bolts.
But the guy doesn’t seem to notice him. Just picks up the phone, holds it to his ear with a curious expression. Listens for a moment, and then hangs up.
Turns further, and walks right by Anton
with no sign that he even realizes who he just passed.
It’s
a long moment
thereafter
before Anton dares to move
dares to walk
like a normal person, around the corner and then
turn back
waiting to see if the guy’s actually following him. Because why would he be? And yet—
But no. One minute passes, two, five, and Anton stays there, a rock in the stream of people, and no one hurrying by even acknowledges his existence
aside from the gal who glances at his chest and licks her lips suggestively, and he has the momentary impulse to tell her to stop looking at him that way before he glances down and realizes that he’s still clutching a half-eaten gyro.
He’s never gonna be able to eat another gyro without thinking of the guy in the suit, is he?
In protest of that idea, he takes a good, solid, defiant bite and, shaking, stomach churning anew, chews it stubbornly, dry-mouthed, until he’s finally able, with effort, to choke it down. And then follows it up with another bite. Like hell he’s gonna lose gyros on top of everything else.
The act of eating calms him a little, and he ducks out of the way of the crowd, finding a little island of calm where he can take a few more bites before carefully wrapping up the gyro and stuffing it into his backpack, hoping it won’t make too big of a mess by the time he wants an early dinner.
So… okay. The guy in the suit—and it can’t be anyone else, he knows that damn face, and who else would be talking at the sky that way and answering random phone calls from public phones—the guy in the suit walked right by him and didn’t stop or question or threaten him or even pay him the slightest attention.
Which suggests that Anton… probably has been freaking out over nothing?
No. There’s still… there are bombs going off in New York City, several in the past year alone, and there are gun battles and kidnappings and car thefts, more than usual—or at least Anton’s aware of them more; he hasn’t been freaking out over nothing at all. Just, he might possibly be letting it feel a lot closer to home than it has to.
The guy strolled right into the shop, called him by name, shot up his friends and stole a bag of guns, but.
Okay, that’s pretty close to home.
But.
Maybe the guy forgot him; it’s been a few months. Maybe the guy’s too busy to bother with one little punk kid who’s already learned his lesson.
Maybe a lot of things.
Point is, whatever the guy in the suit is up to, he’s ignoring Anton. For now. And Anton knows which way he was headed, and has the chance—as he might never again—to turn the exact opposite direction and run for the hills.
Sounds more appealing than trying to sell some sob story to the cops, anyway. He’s so keyed up right now that the cops are gonna know something’s up, something big, and it’s not like he can point at the guy in the suit. Who’d believe a story like that over the much more obvious stuff about his dad?
So. Time to disappear.
Right?