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It's been too long...
Alec shifted uncomfortably where he sat cross-legged in a diner booth, practically bristling with the tense anxiety that threatened to tear his skin. Amber eyes flitted nervously around the nearly empty building, indifferent to the insistent pattern his fingers thrummed on the tabletop. He was aware of the stares he was getting, but it didn't sear under his skin like it normally would. He should have been back by now. Fuck.
Harley had excused himself nearly twenty minutes ago, looking pale and unsteady. Alec wasn't immediately worried, seeing as Harley had always been haunted by an illness that rotted his lungs from the inside out and made him near constantly nauseous. But he was starting to think he should have been. What if he's dead? The thought hammered an aching tear through his chest, causing him to twitch a bit dramatically when a waiter drifted past the booth. More probing stares.
The auburn-haired boy turned slightly, head twitching to the side when he heard the restroom door open. Maybe- Any hope immediately sank in his chest when he locked gazes with the stranger, an uncomfortable chill shooting down his spine.
He looks...a lot like Harley...
The revelation sent Alec's pulse jackhammering in his chest. Something wasn't right. With another skittish glance around the diner, the scarred teenager shifted to his feet, feeling the uncomfortable stab of eyes all over his body. His ears began to ring quietly as he made his way toward the door in the back, his surroundings blurring together in a monochromatic smudge. Not now, not now, please- The sudden clip on the gears turning in his head made his...companion known. He was definitely being stared at now- blankly standing in the middle of the diner, shivering.
"Just leave him. You were gonna kill 'em anyway, kid."
Alec winced, squeezing his eyes shut as his raspy voice echoed around his skull like heated bullets.
Shut up, that was all you. All of it.
A cruel chuckle. "That's what you said about your parents, too. How did that turn out?"
He shook his head furiously, a headache beginning to throb behind his temples. The sharp smell of alcohol was suddenly burning his nostrils, and shards of glass were embedded in his skin. His sister's shrill screams muffled upstairs.
Fuck off.
Surprisingly, his invisible assailant complied, for once. Ignoring the concerned words of some random passerby beside him, Alec nimbly made his way into the restroom, furrowing his brow at the stark silence he was met with when the door clunked shut.
"Hello-?" The only sound that greeted him was a slow drip, drip, drip. At first, he thought it was a faucet, but after a quick glance, he realized that none of them were dripping.
"Harley?' Alec was starting to panic a bit now, a tremor digging its way through his bones. His pulse ribbed in his throat when he noticed a dark substance coating the scuffed tile floor under his sneakers. Alec's heart lurched upon picking up on the distinct coppery-crimson hue. Blood. It wasn't much, but the splatter was disturbed like something had been dragged through it. Gaze quickly scanning the stall doors, he noticed the furthest one was half shut like it had been tugged halfheartedly to completion.
Another worried inquiry died on his lips as he approached, careful not to step in the slick crimson on the floor. Alec's breath stuttered once his gaze rested upon the wreck that was supposed to be his boyfriend.
Harley was curled messily into the corner of the dingy stall, head tucked into his arms and knees pulled stiffly to his chest. The fabric of his hoodie, Alec noticed, was torn in several places and stained with what one could only assume to be blood. His shoulders formed a hard, shaky line behind the mop of wavy black hair.
"...Harley-?" Alec's voice was soft, hesitant. It was normally him in these situations, he didn't know how to properly handle this. Whatever "this" happened to be.
His heart dropped when his partner jolted at the sound of his voice, but not out of surprise. Out of carnal fear. The kind of fear he felt when he was younger, living with his parents.
The kind of fear he associated with cold shackles and rough hands, with the threatening bite of freezing metal holding him in place.
"You never fought back, stray. You enjoyed it."
Alec swallowed his grievances, pulse beginning to thrum heavily within his chest again when he noticed the small sobs his boyfriend was struggling to stifle. Half-expecting to be pushed away, he reached one scarred and unsteady hand toward the darkette's shoulder, but he was instead jerked into a suffocating embrace before he could even process the contact.
He gingerly rested his arms around Harley's shoulders, pulling him close and wincing slightly at the chilling cries that were now muffled into the fabric of his jacket. Fishing for the right words but also probed with guilt and concern, the auburn-haired boy waited for him to calm down, which took upwards of ten or so minutes.
Alec let his hand gently brush Harley's cheek as he leaned back to study his face. Shocked, but struggling to keep the reaction contained, amber eyes widened just a fraction. A huge gash was stretched across the freckled bridge of Harley's nose, oozing blood down his face in a twisted metaphor of a waterfall. Other scuffs and scrapes were visible, especially the further down his neck you studied, but the nose injury and what seemed to be a growing black eye were stood out starkly.
Alec swallowed a lump in his throat. "Baby, what...what happened?" He kept his voice soft, straining not to bite the inside of his cheek when Harley's face scrunched up like he was about to start weeping again.
Harley had rushed to the restroom as quickly as he could, leaving a baffled and nervous boyfriend grasping at the space he'd just occupied. He'd moved as soon as he started to taste the familiar burn of iron on the back of his tongue accompanied by the sudden rattling of his lungs, both telltale alarms he'd grown accustomed to.
The black-haired teen had ambled so quickly he didn't notice someone's gaze burning into the back of his neck, or the heavy footsteps that followed him when the dining floor switched to tile.
Shit...
Hacking so often was starting to take a toll on him. His throat burned and scraped unpleasantly as he forcefully expelled the dark, half-coagulated clumps of blood into the trash bin, gasping for what little breath he could suck into his lungs. Harley straightened up, wiping the lingering crimson from his chin with his hoodie sleeve, blinking rapidly at the familiar dizziness that engulfed him for a few moments.
Wordlessly, the green-eyed boy noticed the lanky shape of another man in the facility with him, who was standing awkwardly over one of the sinks closest to the door, otherwise known as his only escape from the cool-tile paradise. Harley barely suppressed an involuntary shiver, meeting the man's dark, probing gaze through the reflection in the mirror.
"...Can I help you?' Harley's voice was rough from retching but it got his point across well enough, he supposed.
The man only replied with the slightest tic of a head movement, staring the teenager down. With a nervous intake of breath, Harley noticed the resemblance between himself and this stranger. The same shimmering shade of black hair, only the other man's locks were long, dull, and tangled. Their eyes were similar shades of green, but Harley's were noticeably more vibrant.
He'd never met his father, funnily enough. From his earliest memories as a child, all he could remember was his Mom. And all these years, she never spoke a word to Harley of his blood lineage or even if his father was living or not. But this was likely just a coincidence.
Green eyes and black hair aren't common around here, genius. Harley shook the thought away. He's just some random creep, I should get out of here.
Harley took a tentative step toward the door, unease seeping under his skin as the stranger's eyes followed him, all through the mirror as his steps brought him inch by inch closer to freedom, but at the same time nearer to this... entity of a man. He had half a mind to try and scream when suddenly the lanky stranger was gone and cold, bony hands clamped over his mouth from behind.
Panic settled over him like a white-hot blanket of nerves. The teenager bucked to and fro, heatedly attempting to dislodge his assailant, but he had always been small. It was no use.
With his pulse now pumping like a livewire, Harley was barely able to comprehend it when his head was shoved forward roughly, slamming into the porcelain sink-edge with a blunt thump. Pain seared through his nerves as the metallic taste of blood flooded his mouth, when he tried and failed to gasp for breath through the gangly fingers gripping his jaw. Harley was distantly aware of something hot and heavy dribbling off the tip of his nose, but everything was beginning to blend together in a dizzying array of colors and screeching sounds. Tears began to well in his sea-green eyes.
Otherwise, he barely reacted at all, even when he was practically folded in half and pressed into the cold surface of the sink, harsh fingers tangling in his hair and tugging painfully at his scalp. A mix of a whimper and a keen tried to wrench itself from Harley's throat, but it proved unsuccessful and instead earned him a threatening growl close to his ear. Too close. His head was ringing so vividly he couldn't make out any words, or really any feelings at all besides the agony that radiated from his crimson-oozing nose.
So when unwelcome hands fumbled with his belt, he didn't react. When the cold air of the room bit into his bare thighs, he still didn't react. The sound of his own miserable weeping was muffled, but not completely. Still, it wouldn't be loud enough to warrant someone to search for him.
Harley couldn't help but think of Alec while this nightmare was unveiling itself. Warm amber eyes and gentle touches, chaste, loving kisses being pressed to his face in the safety of the night. It was a biting snap back into reality.
Barely able to tell shapes from colors, Harley was barely aware of the burning pain that ebbed up his lower spine, and he was scarcely conscious when his knees gave and he dropped down, alone, on the tile floor. So many thoughts were wrestling in his mind, but none made any sense to him. The wrecked teenager had half a mind to pull himself into one of the stalls, a pitiful half-crawl that normally would have shattered his dignity. But he didn't have much of that left.
He drifted in and out of consciousness, muffling his own distant cries in the stained sleeve of his hoodie. He felt numb, and everything was spinning. There was a moment when Harley managed a tiny, wet chuckle, brows pulling together in a terse expression of mixed emotions.
By the time the restroom door creaked open again, any human thought in his mind was voided.
"You always wanted to meet your father. Beggars can't be choosers."