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ashintheairlikesnow · 2 years ago

Text

CW: Paranoia, PTSD, reference to drugging, Finn is an unreliable narrator

Death Valley on AO3

Asheville, North Carolina

Present Day

There was a young man with a typewriter and a chair writing poems on the corner for ten dollars apiece. Finn handed over wrinkled cash, so worn it felt like cloth and not paper anymore.

"What's your name?" The young man asked, looking up at him. A chilly breeze toyed with the scarf he'd wrapped around his neck, and he had an endless smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

Finn couldn't remember the name on the driver's license in his wallet. He just shrugged. "It's not for me. Write a poem for my cat."

"Your cat? Sure, no problem." The young man's fingers settled over the typewriter's keys, and then he paused. "Uh, what's his name, then?"

Further down the road, another young man played guitar with his back against a brick wall. Next to him, tourists in coordinated outfits streamed in and out of a store that sold snow globes alongside tshirts and local jewelry. Someone laughed, briefly washing the guitar out entirely.

"Her name. She is a girl. I call her Little Mother." The young man blinked. Finn cleared his throat. "Because she has just had kittens, you see. Two months ago. Two kittens."

Well, three. But only two had been born alive. And all three now made Finn's truck feel more like a home. Or less like a cage, anyway.

"Aw, that's cute. Okay, yeah, I can work with that." The young man paused, and then began to type, fingers clicking in a stuttering rhythm as letters popped up on the slightly yellowed page.

Finn stood in silence and waited, letting his eyes wander. No one looked at him beyond the barest glance, and yet he imagined he could see them pause, take him in. Maybe wonder if he looked like someone who did not belong.

Maybe he fit right in, another scruffy man in an old army jacket barreling towards forty in a city full of people who had found their way here from somewhere else. Not like some cities he'd been to, where the people seemed to radiate determined ambition. No, in Asheville everyone seemed to have come here searching for some place where the downtown had more people playing instruments for money - or writing poems - than it did hurrying men and women in suits. Where ambition was overwhelmed by a moment to sit still.

Did he like it? He didn't know.

He saw too many men here, in the gas stations along the side of the highway, in mechanic shops when his tire went flat or his brakes needed replaced, who looked like Robert. Narrow faces with narrowed eyes. Jovial laughter with something cold behind it.

Maybe he was just paranoid.

Maybe every man who smelled like diesel fuel and had dirty coveralls would always make him think of Robert.

Maybe none of them looked like Robert at all.

"Hey, dude."

Finn blinked out of his thoughts to realize the young man had finished and was holding out the piece of paper to him, even waggling it a little to get his attention.

"Oh-"

"Your poem is ready-"

"Yes, I see-"

They were speaking over each other, and Finn's cheeks colored in vague embarrassment he couldn't easily define. He took the paper maybe more quickly than he needed to, half-ripping it from the young man's hand and turning to walk away.

His heavy boots splashed through a mud puddle leftover from yesterday's rain, but he barely noticed. He skimmed the lines of the poem, trailing down the paper like falling leaves.

Little Mother / like all mothers you make new worlds / held in a single set of eyes / a universe in the flick of a tiny tail / which makes me the man who feeds planets / a little kibble / so that pebbles / become mountains / and galaxies / expand

Well... Not the worst thing he had ever spent ten dollars on.

His phone vibrated in his pocket and he dug it out, walking along the curve of a hill past a group of women, one in a tiara and a Tshirt declaring her The Bride.

"Hallo?"

He winced. No matter how long he lived in this country, his accent always thickened on that first word of every phone call. He saw someone glance at him - probably normal, totally normal - and yet his heart stopped. Then started again as they kept moving.

Every friendly smile seemed like Robert's just before he'd handed Finn the water bottle in the desert.

"Hey there." Noah's voice was warm and friendly, as always. "You good? We were supposed to meet twenty minutes ago."

"What?" He pulled his phone back to check the little clock numbers on the screen, then winced. "I lost track. I'm sorry, Noah."

"No worries. You've always been awful at keeping track of what time it is." Noah laughed, and maybe it meant nothing, but Finn felt like it was mocking, a little cruel. His eyes closed.

"I used to be better at it," He murmured. Barely speaking. Maybe not even out loud.

"Well," Noah continued after a beat of quiet, "Come on. I got us a table. Come sit down with me. We need to talk about your next six months or so."

Finn nodded before he remembered Noah couldn't see him through the phone, muttered an assent, and hung up. He walked past an empty storefront with papers taped, tattered and torn. Some advertised live music that had happened long ago. One was for a rally occurring next week. Three identical posters asked Finn to vote no on a proposition.

Not that Finn could vote.

Not that he could even have said no anyway.

The restaurant was takeout only, but when Finn stepped inside a sour-faced woman took him by the arm with fingers that felt like bear traps and pulled him behind a curtain, past the busy kitchen and into a room in the back.

Dimly lit only by lamps in the corners, it had four tables. Three were empty. One held a familiar face. "Hey, you," Noah said brightly. He looked Finn over-

Up and down-

Finn shuddered as the woman let go of his arm. He still held the paper with the poem in his left hand, wrinkled from his grip, slowly crumbling.

Maybe he didn't look at Finn that way at all.

"Hallo, Noah," Finn said, and moved on shaking legs to sit at the other seat at the table. "Why am I in Asheville?"

"Oh, just a town I like." Noah leaned forward. A little older than Finn, he smiled broadly. A friendly man, when he wanted to be. The table was so small their knees nearly touched beneath it. Steaming coffee was set out in mugs in front of them by the same woman. "Have some friends here, long-time friends. I wanted to talk to you about the last job getting botched. Well, not botched. You just didn't show up for it at all, did you?"

Finn swallowed. His throat felt suddenly tight, as if a belt had been wrapped around it and pulled hard. Weight on his hips and a smile like a skull grinning pale...

He took a breath. "I-... asked someone else to do it. Was it not done?"

"No, no, it was. But not by you." Noah leaned forward, resting his weight on his forearms on the table. His knees nudged firmly into Finn's. "I asked you to do the job, Finn. The more people we bring into each job, the higher the risk. I asked you, and you said yes."

You did not ask. You told. But Finn didn't dare say the words. He only stared at Noah, heart pounding. "I'm sorry," He managed, voice thin. "I didn't mean to disappoint you."

"I'm not disappointed."

"You're not?' Finn's fingers curled around the handle of his mug. Coffee tasted bitterly dark. Bitter to hide something dissolved in it? No, Noah wouldn't do that.

Or would he?

"Then... why did you ask to meet me here?"

Noah frowned, tipping his head to the side. "Because I'm... worried."

Finn blinked. "Worried?"

"Yes. I've known you a long time. Not like you to skip out on jobs, sit in one place for a week at a time like you have been... You were searching for the name last week."

Finn thought he had disabled Noah's ability to read his search history. He thought-

"... Do you have a keylogger on my computer-"

"Finn. Why are you thinking about Robert Weber again?"

Finn's breath caught. "Please don't say his name-"

"Tell me why you want to look him up again and why you're avoiding me and I won't. Why is Robert Weber on your mind?"

Every repetition felt like Bloody Mary. Three times in the mirror and Robert might appear, grab him by the throat and snarl, how dare you, little Mouse...

"Stop-"

His hand shook so badly he dropped the mug, coffee splashing across the table. His poem and his cats forgotten as he stared at the tinted liquid across the table. Noah swore and grabbed napkins to wipe it up. Finn was too frozen to move.

Noah left a pile of soaked napkins to one side and grabbed Finn's trembling hand so tightly it hurt. "Finn, please, talk to me. Why? Just tell me why."

Was it concern in his eyes and voice?

Or jealousy?

Worry, or anger?

"I-I don't know," He whispered, and slowly raised his eyes without moving anything else. Noah was slightly blurred through his eyelashes. "Why are you watching everything I do?"

Noah sighed. "You know why, Finn."

Because you own me, your very own Mouse.

"Do I?" His lips barely moved.

Noah's own lips pressed together in a line. His eyes were dark. "Do I need to say it again?"

Because you're mine. Finn tensed, waiting for it, to hear the words out loud. Because you belong to me.

All Noah said was, "Shit. It's because I care about you." Then he slid his own mug across the table. "Here. Drink mine. I'll order some more."

Finn nodded, taking the mug in both hands and lifting it to his lips to sip.

Noah believed the spill was an accident, and Finn felt himself relax. This way, he knew there wouldn't be anything in it to make him easier to hurt.

Not that Noah ever had.

Maybe Finn saw Robert everywhere. Maybe Noah didn't deserve this. But maybe he did. Maybe Noah was just another tool in the box, to him. You always lock the tool back alone in the darkness.

"I wish you'd just trust me," Noah said, and leaned his cheek against one hand, tone full of sadness and regret.

Finn kept his eyes on the coffee.

What would you do to me if I did?

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