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Danny sits at the top of the bed, watching as Alex searches the room one inch at a time. If anyone knows where to look they’re already in trouble, but there’s no need to make it easy for them. That’s all he and Alex can do any more: put up a fight, buy themselves some time.
When Alex finishes, he sits on the bed next to Danny. “There’s nothing.”
“I should hope so,” Danny says. “We’ve been in all day.”
He raises his eyes to look at Alex and shares a soft, sad smile. It isn’t like their words have never been used against them before.
“How much longer will we stay?” he asks.
“We won’t stay for much longer.”
“Good.”
“You have a taste for travel.”
Danny nods. “It looks that way. I never had the chance to before.”
When he thought about where he’d want to go, he never thought it would be like this.
“You’re good at it.”
“I didn’t realise it was something I could be good at,” Danny says. He scans Alex’s face, looking for something to hint at what Alex means. Hiding away in their hotel is the furthest Danny has ever been from London, and after two months it’s the longest he’s ever been away from home.
He thinks back to Scottie’s home – his now. What had been done with it, now that he was missing? Who lived there now?
His stomach knotted over himself. He found Alex’s hand on the bed and squeezed, relaxing when Alex did the same.
“We’ll leave as soon as I find more medicine for you,” Alex said. Danny watches as he stands and crosses the room to his laptop, reluctantly grateful that Alex isn’t looking at him and can’t see how his body sinks down through the bed.
He can’t stop himself from saying, “I’m sorry.”
“It isn’t your fault,” Alex says.
“But it is a problem.”
Alex is still not looking at him; Danny can’t decide whether to be angry or relieved, sad or frustrated about Alex not seeming to care that Danny never would have been infected if not for –
He bites down on that thought before he can think it fully, but something is already churning in his stomach.
“It’s because of me that we can’t just leave.” Danny doesn’t – won’t – can’t – acknowledge those thoughts completely, but his feelings push through anyway. “If I weren’t infected, we could just vanish. It wouldn’t be a problem.”
“It wouldn’t be,” Alex says, simultaneously to Danny’s relief and betrayal. At least Alex isn’t lying to him. He can’t stand pitying words that swear he’s not an inconvenience when he knows he is, especially now, with this.
“I can afford the medicine,” Alex goes on. “I have money. There’s a risk it will take time to find. That’s all.”
“How long will it be before we can leave?”
“We won’t stay for longer than we have to. We’ll leave later this week.”
He finishes what he went to do at his computer and puts it away, then climbs into bed beside Danny. All the lights can be turned off with a switch next to Alex’s head, and so he does. Gradually Danny’s eyes adjust to the darkness; as they do he feels Alex relax under his touch. Alex never used to be so tense in the dark before, and for a moment Danny regrets feeling bad about anything.
He folds himself into Alex’s arms and settles against him. His eyes close, but only a moment later he opens them again and look. They’re a tangled mess of limbs when Danny leans back, Alex’s hands following his shoulders.
“You could have stopped,” Danny says. He’s still holding Alex’s arms, unable to let go even when he levels this accusation against him.
“They warned you,” he continues. “You knew what would happen if you didn’t stop.”
“I knew.”
“But you didn’t stop,” Danny says.
“No.”
For a few beats of silence, they lay there. Their breathing fills up the dark room, and for a time it’s all Danny is aware of. Gradually words start clawing at Danny’s stomach and leave him aching to spit something vile at Alex, but when he speaks his voice is soft, and small.
“Did you consider it?”
Alex stays quiet.
“You did,” Danny says. “You must have. They threatened you, didn’t they?”
“I was told to stop,” Alex says. “I knew the algorithm was a threat to them. No one made any explicit threats, but I knew they’d do anything to stop me from finishing it.”
“Anything, including kill you.”
“Yes.”
“Or try,” Danny says. “They didn’t exactly kill you, did they?”
“They didn’t.”
Danny’s lips twitch. His face is warm, and his shoulders shake. Alex moves his hands down to the bed so he’s not touching him; Danny writhes closer across the bed until they’re skin to skin, and Alex puts his arm around his shoulder to pull him close. They will never be close enough.
“Did they threaten me?”
“No.”
“But they knew about me,” Danny says. “You had to have known. They knew about me, and if they wanted to they could hurt me, at any time.”
“They could have,” Alex says. Danny doesn’t add and they did, stopping himself just before the word spits itself out. As if they didn’t hurt Alex, too. As if Alex wanted to see him hurt. “I didn’t think they would. Not if they hadn’t yet.”
“What did you think would happen?”
“I thought they’d kill me.”
“And then me, eventually,” Danny says. “You left the flash drive in my care. Did you think, whatever I did with it, that they’d let me get away with it? Or did you think they’d lock me in a trunk, too, but leave me there until I really died.”
Alex doesn’t flinch at the words; it falls to Danny to shy away instead.
“I didn’t think you’d try to go public with a murder investigation.”
“Right,” Danny agrees. “This is my fault. Of course.”
“Danny.”
“It is,” he says. “That’s why I’m positive now, because I couldn’t keep myself to myself. That was always my problem.”
Alex is still holding Danny. It’s a wonder he’s not crying; it feels like all he’s done since Alex went missing is cry, even when Alex came back. Now everything sits dully in his stomach, a weight pinning him against the bed.
“It isn’t your fault.”
“You don’t think it’s yours, either.”
“It’s theirs,” Alex says. “The people who did this to us are dangerous. That’s why I couldn’t stop working on my algorithm. And that’s why I needed your help to be sure it wasn’t buried.”