Chapter Text
It takes Matt a few hours to regain his voice. His bones feel heavy, his body slow, and he can feel his heart numbly beating all the way down into his fingertips. He wishes he could close his eyes, give in to the heaviness that threatens to pull him under. It is a fight Matt suspects he might be losing, but he still tries to stay alert, tries to form a plan, tries to draw enough air into his lungs to form a sentence.
The words, when they do leave his mouth, are barely audible in the quiet of the cabin.
“You must think me a fool.”
The man to which the words are addressed, the cabin’s sole other occupant, is sat with his back to him, tending the fire. Matt has tracked the man’s path around the room ever since he entered it, studying him carefully, trying to gauge his mood from his movements, the pitch of his voice, the angle at which he holds his head. The man has yet to return his gaze.
“Hmm?” His hum is a thoughtful little sound, an indication that he is listening to-, rather than agreeing with-, Matt’s words, though you could interpret it to mean anything. The man’s shirt is clean and white, worn thin in several places. Matt watches as he places another log on the fire, coarse fabric shifting with the movement.
“You think me reckless,” Matt insists, “childish too.”
The fire is the only source of light in the room, but it is burning brightly, casting shadows against the fabric of the shirt wherever the linen folds, dark lines that shift with every movement of the muscle underneath. Matt casts his eyes down when the movement stills, looks down at the hands clasped in his lap. The man turns around.
“Are my thoughts no longer safe in my head?” The man asks, his voice low and even. If Matt were to look up, he might interpret the words as friendly. As it is, Matt cannot tell the man's temper from his tone. “Do you read minds as well as hearts, little fool?”
Matt frowns. He picks at the too-long sleeve of the sweater where it has slipped down over his hands. “You are unkind to mock me.”
The man’s shadow reaches all the way to Matt when he rises to his feet, towering over the mattress where Matt is sitting. Matt doesn’t flinch away from him, has taught his body better than that, instead he holds himself very still. Doesn't move. Doesn't breathe.
Some predators, Matt’s brother once told him, are more finely attuned to movement than to silhouettes. If you make yourself small and stay quiet, they will register neither threat nor prey. Matt is under no illusions as to his own appearance, he knows he is too tall, too awkward by half, too long-limbed and uncoordinated to be overlooked for long, but he also knows how to be quiet. Knows when to go still. Knows how to please and when to plead. It is unlike Matt to forget himself, and he silently curses whatever impulse drove him to speak.
The man takes one step in his direction, pauses briefly, almost imperceptibly, then moves to the left - Matt’s left, the man’s right - taking his shadow with him. Matt breathes out slow. Listens to the sound of a drawer being opened, then closed. The sound of footsteps getting closer.
The mattress dips as the man sits down at the foot-end of the bed, keeping a significant amount of space between Matt’s body and his own whilst still using the same - the only, Matt notes, - piece of furniture in the room.
“Un-kind,” the man teases the word apart. The vowel-sounds sound subtly foreign when he speaks them, though it is not an accent Matt is familiar with and not one he is able to place. “Well then, mind reader, what else have I thought - though not yet said - that has been unkind?”
Matt hears the warning in the words, feels his own misstep keenly. He clears his throat. “I only hear my own thoughts.”
A huffed breath, almost a laugh. “And yet you purport to know mine, and echo them back to me with such confidence.” The humour, like the accent, strikes Matt as foreign.
“I only meant to say-”
“-I know what you meant.”
The room goes silent.
Outside it is still storming. Matt can hear the waves crash against the rocks, the rain against the roof, his own heart against the bars of his ribcage. He is breathing too fast again, he can tell, and if Matt can hear it, then surely the stranger can too. He tries to count out his heartbeats, his breaths, tries to slow them both down. Seconds pass. Then minutes. The room stays silent.
Matt chances another glance at the man. He is leaning slightly forward where he is sat, his right ankle resting on top of his left knee, a notebook balanced on his thigh, leather-bound and opened to a page somewhere towards the end. The slope of his shoulders is relaxed, though this fails to relax Matt in turn. The man’s shoulders are broader than Matt’s, though Matt reckons the other man is probably shorter. His forearms are thick, his hands strong and calloused where Matt’s are soft and smooth, and Matt recognises his current situation as more than a little compromised.
When he feels Matt’s eyes on him, the man puts down his pen to meet his gaze. His eyes are green. His voice, when he speaks, is rough but not unkind. “I am no mind reader, master Boldy. If there is something you wish to say to me, speak.”
Matt blinks. “You cannot kn-" he blurts, then catches himself. “I beg your pardon,” he manages, looking down, then up through his lashes, then down again. He contorts his face into a mask of polite embarrassment. The stranger’s face gives no indication as to whether Matt’s slip-up gave offense, but Matt is prepared to grovel either way. “I fear you have me at a disadvantage,” he tries, his smile feels flat on his face. “You know my name, but I do not know yours.”
“No?” The man muses, lips turning up at the corners. “You did not mean to come here, then?” The man’s gaze drops to Matt’s feet, now sock clad and bandaged, though he had been barefoot when the man had found him. “Though you did mean to run.” His eyes are back on Matt’s face, bright and searching. He did not word it like a question, so Matt does not answer. He looks down at his hands again, notices he has clenched them into fists, and slowly works to relax his grip, one finger at a time. The breath that escapes him sounds shaky even to his own ears.
“I can guess at what you might have been running from,” the man continues, voice low enough that Matt has to listen closely to be able to make out the words. “But I am a simple man; I know no magic, can read no minds, I know only what you have told me,” the man pauses, there is the sound of rustling fabric as he moves. “And you have not told me much.”
He does not sound angry, though Matt knows he may just be better at hiding it. He does not let it lull him into a false sense of security.
The flames crackle as one of the fresh logs splits in two and collapses into flames.
“Am I putting myself in danger, harbouring you?” the man asks, and Matt wishes he hadn't. He does not want to lie. This cabin might be warm, but outside the storm is still raging. Matt knows it will take him a long time to shake the cold that has touched his bones.
“I do not intend to be caught,” he hedges. The man does not look fooled.
“Right,” he drawls, dry as anything. “Forgive me but,” he pauses, looks Matt up and down, “you do not look like you would be able to outrun anyone at the moment.”
If Matt were to close his eyes he could still picture them, behind him, gaining on him. He could still hear the sound of their voices, hear the dogs bark as they were let off their leashes. Matt blinks. Then blinks again. Shakes himself out of it.
“Your name, please, sir.” Matt’s voice sounds like he is begging and he hates himself for it. His throat feels tight, his skin cold and clammy. He tries to steel himself against the shiver that racks through his body, but does not dare move closer to the fire.
The man is quiet for another moment and then says “Ryan.”
Matt nods, an admission of something, though he is unsure what. “Thank you, Ryan,” he says, making sure to keep his voice low, his eyes downcast. Inoffensive, obedient, small. “For your aid. And for lending me these clothes.” Matt does not know what his help will cost him, but until the man asks, Matt will not offer.
The man - Ryan, Matt corrects himself - sighs, then turns back to his notebook. “Try not to die in them.”
Matt attempts another smile he doubts looks in any way convincing. “I am already feeling much improved, thank you,” he says, and then remembers to add, “I promise not to impose on your hospitality for much longer.” The sound of rain striking the window belies his words, but Matt keeps his mask firmly in place. “As soon as the rain lets up, I’ll leave.”
“... right.”
The room goes quiet again, interrupted every once in a while by the sound of thunder, far away. The wind seems to have died down, and something else has taken its place. Matt closes his eyes, strains his ears to listen for it. It takes him too long to arrive at the conclusion that should have been obvious from the beginning. Bells. Church bells. It is the sound of the town alerting its people to some present danger, more than half drowned out by the storm.
That means they have noticed I'm gone, Matt thinks. That means there’s no going back.
The bells keep ringing, the sound reverberating louder in Matt’s head than it does in the room. If Ryan can hear it too, he does not remark on it. Matt fights to keep his breathing even, drawing slow breaths in through his nose, out between clenched teeth. His lip stings, and when he touches his fingers to it, they come away red. Ryan chooses not comment on that either.
Metal clinks against glass as the other man refills the ink, the sound soon followed by the soft scratching of pen put to paper. “Does it matter,” Ryan asks, after several quiet moments, “whether or not I think your attempt at flight was foolish.”
Matt glances out the window, then back towards the flames. “I don’t know,” he admits. He tucks his hands into his armpits, hunches in on himself a little. The fire spits and hisses and he still feels so cold. “I don’t know if it was foolish. I don’t know if it matters.”
Ryan nods. “It will probably rain until morning,” he says, and in the stillness of the room, Matt is able to make out even the words the man does not say: Sleep while you still can.