Title: How the Other Half Lives (Young Men's Fancies #9)
Author: Jane (jat_sapphire)
Contact: jat_sapphire@yahoo.com
Series: pre-TOS
Parts: 1/2
Rating: [PG]
Codes: K/Mitchell, Mitchell/OMCSummary: Kirk's adventures, senior year at Starfleet Academy. The next morning after YMF7, Almost Honest.
Archive: Yes, please. Keep headings and disclaimers and what-not.
Disclaimer: Star Trek and most of the characters here are Paramount's. I invented the specific contents of this story and a somewhat grim take on Federation social services. I don't make money at this.
Series Notes:
This is a series of stories about Kirk's early sexual and emotional life. Both he and Mitchell are portrayed as bisexual, just in case you want to bail now. Previous installments are "That Fairness Thing," "Rain Check," "Party Like It's '99," "The Trouble With Gary," "The No-Win Scenario," "Flowers for Ruth," "Almost Honest," and "Morning Has Broken."
Young Men's Fancies
#9: How the Other Half Lives
*****
Still May, Jim's Senior Year
***They got out of the muni at a stop that had been newly built, on a clean, sharp-cornered slab of concrete. At its edge were flower boxes planted with petunias in glaring colors and strewn with little bits of paper and other small debris. The buildings on this street were similarly bright-colored but not completely cared for: the grass in front of one too high; the new paint on another not quite matching the old.
Gary walked briskly and with assurance down the block, Jim following with the bag Gary had asked him to carry over his shoulder; it was lumpy, but not heavy. Gary's own similar bag swung and thumped softly as he strode. Gary pushed impatiently at the sleeves of the sweater Jim had lent him, greyed and stretched out in the laundry freshman year, and resettled the bag, still walking. Then, suddenly, he darted across the street, seizing the moment when no vehicles were in sight, and went between two ancient storefronts, through a tiny alley like a burrow. Jim thought of a rabbit hole. They emerged into a small parking lot where the paving was cracked and small, sticklike weeds straggled onto the old concrete; there was only one flitter parked there, but five or six more or less rusty bicycles. A wider alley beyond led them to a steeper, and considerably less busy, street.
Here everything looked patchworked, concrete and stone and sheet-metal and brick and plastiform all jumbled together, from the walks underfoot up the sides of the buildings. People sat on stairs and in the shade, and walked at various speeds along the pavement or in the street. There were practically no flying vehicles, and not even many wheeled ones; that--plus the broken-out windows Jim saw from time to time--gave the scene a weirdly deserted air in spite of the pedestrians. Sometimes voices called out, perhaps to Jim and Gary, but Jim couldn't really understand what they said and Gary didn't respond.
Gary turned again, and they climbed in a new direction, then went down, then up again. He didn't seem to need the street-signs, which was fortunate: not many were intact. Eventually they went up a steep, narrow stair between cracked brick walls and arrived on a kind of plateau, like nothing Jim had expected.
In a large, clear, paved space was a building complex made of metal, like a vast sculpture installation. It looked almost lacy and gleamed a pale cream color. Accents of gilt and purple and red were picked out behind the elaborate superstructure, interspersed with ebony-black panels. When Jim looked more closely he saw that the lace was made of pipes and the panels were solar-power catchers. The other dark patches were windows. It was an odd design, but eye-catching and cheerful.
The paving around it dipped near the building walls, as if they had moats, though the spaces were dry; other parts of the paved yard rose into curved seats and tables. There were trees in pots, though they didn't seem to be growing very well. All this open space, however, was full of activity and mess - mattresses, blankets and rugs rolled up or spread out, furniture stacked and draped with clothes or topped with boxes, people everywhere, more than Jim had seen on the whole way from the muni stop, talking and running and carrying and arguing.
Suddenly a huge voice came from the buildings, obviously some sort of loudspeaker. People yelled back and covered their ears and generally acted as though they had often heard it before and did not want to hear it now. "RESIDENTS VACATE IMMEDIATELY," it said. "CLEANING PROCEDURE WILL BEGIN IN ONE HOUR. CLEANING FLUID IS TOXIC. REPEAT. CLEANING FLUID IS TOXIC. RESIDENTS VACATE IMMEDIATELY. REMOVE ALL POSSESSIONS. CLEANING FLUID WILL DAMAGE YOUR THINGS. CLEANING FLUID WILL HURT YOU. LEAVE NOW."
As the blast of sound died down, Jim heard a voice nearer, on a more human scale. "Professor! Professor!"
Gary turned this time, and smiled. A child - or perhaps not a child - ran up to them. Jim could tell neither age nor gender. The arms and legs were thin to fragility, and the face was bony, shadowed by an enormous brimmed hat. The hands which reached out to Gary were large and heavy-knuckled. The whole person, including the hat, stood somewhat below Gary's shoulder-height.
Jim's stomach twisted at the thought of the last time he had seen anyone so thin. But perhaps it was some kind of illness. Something unavoidable. Not hunger.
"Hey," said the waif, "Professor, how you riding?"--hands on Gary's arms below the pushed-up cuffs of the sweater. And even the voice gave no clues --male? female? old? young?
"High, Redeye, riding high," said Gary.
Redeye raised a pointed chin and as daylight got under the hat brim, Jim saw the reason for the nickname: the right eye was so shot with red that it almost glowed. The other, whose iris could be seen, was a pale gray color, limpid and expressionless as water.
"Cutter down in?" Gary asked, standing easily under the clutching hands.
"Nah, up. Cleanin' day, Professor."
"How'd you know?" Gary asked and Redeye laughed, or Jim thought that was the meaning of the thin sound that issued from Redeye's mouth. Now Gary put one hand on the pointed shoulder and moved it back and forth, a movement that would have been shaking if it had not been so slow and, Jim thought, so gentle. "Why don't you move earlier? Why is it like this every damn month?"
Redeye shrugged, thumb moving back and forth on Gary's forearm; looked past Gary at Jim. "Goldilocks gotta name?"
Gary glanced back too, and then his eyes seemed caught by Jim's and he smiled slowly. "Sounds good. Goldilocks."
"Cutter be *hot* now." Redeye's hands dropped away from Gary and the brim of the hat came down again.
"Forget it," Gary looked back at Redeye, "Cut's my deal. OK?"
"OK."
"Where's the equipment?" asked Gary, clearly changing the subject.
"Cutter up with it."
"*Inside*?" Gary positively yelped. "Still *inside*?" He was already peeling the bag from his shoulder as he asked, and hardly looked at Redeye's nod in reply. "Fuck! Jim, leave the bag--Redeye, watch 'em." And he was off toward the nearest doorway. Jim ran after.
Inside, the walls were splashed with color and the staircase was narrow and dark, but Gary went up without pause and Jim followed. On the second floor, Gary turned down one of the side corridors and went past a row of open doors to one that was shut. Casually he palmed the lock, and the door slid open.
Inside was a makeshift lab of some kind--not chemical or medical, that was all Jim could tell. There were three substantial hulks of machinery, sitting on tables, and an assortment of tools and data storage discs, tapes, solids and canisters. Cutter, whoever he or she was, wasn't there. One table was empty, however.
"God *damn*!" Gary shouted, but turned while the shout still hung in the air to open a closet and pull out storage containers, one in each hand. "God damn, goddamn, goddamngoddamn" --he put the containers on the tables, oopened them, and began to scoop tools and data storage into them, and Jim moved forward to help. Gary continued to swear, with a bit more variety, as they worked.
"RESIDENTS VACATE IMMEDIATELY," chanted the loudspeakers, bone-shakingly loud at this distance. "CLEANING PROCEDURE WILL BEGIN IN FIFTY MINUTES ... " and the rest of the warning was unchanged. Gary didn't look up, and judging from the movement of his lips, didn't stop swearing. Jim gritted his teeth, which of course did nothing about the noise.
A movement at the door made Jim look over, and he saw a slim brown man with a thin line of mustache and dramatic cheekbones. He wore odd tubes of fabric on his arms, separate from his T-shirt - sleeves from a missing shirt, or perhaps a sweater - anyway they were pale and covered from the bulge of the biceps to the wrist. The oddity drew Jim's eyes. The man's hands were on the doorframe and he was looking at Gary, just flicking a glance at Jim occasionally as if to make sure he hadn't moved.
The loudspeaker stopped, and at almost the same moment, Gary saw the man in the doorway. "Cutter, you *bastard*!" Gary yelled. "God *damn* it! Why is this stuff still *here*?"
"Hadda find somebody to carry it," said Cutter, and stood aside to let in two enormously muscular men, one black and the other pale as sand, who had evidently been behind him in the corridor. "'K, Jer, this one, and Oregon, that one," gesturing to the two biggest pieces of equipment, and the two heaved them up and carried them out without a word. Jim felt about the size of a peanut next to them, and stood hastily out of the way.
"Anyway," Cutter was saying, approaching Gary like a stalking creature, a panther or a wolf, "you wasn't hurryin', was you? Not early? Not checkin'? Just here on a visit, you think? Bringin' Starfleet boy there to show?" He took Gary's head between both hands. There was less than a hand's breadth between their bodies. Cutter just looked for a few seconds, and then said much more softly, "Lookin' pretty, baby," and kissed Gary's forehead.
Gary stepped back, and Cutter let him go, hands slipping to his sides. "Don't call me baby," Gary said, but not heatedly. And then, as if nervous, "Look, there's no time. We gotta get this stuff *out*, Cut."
"I know," said Cutter, and turned back to the nearest table, where Gary had been working, and his gaze crossed Jim's. "Got a name?"
"Jim," said Jim, at the same time that Gary spoke.
"Goldilocks, Redeye called him."
"Red ain't no fool." Cutter's eyes had never left Jim, but they showed no expression, blank and black as wet pebbles. "You in the bear house now, Goldilocks. How you like it?"
Jim felt his eyes narrowing. "I'm holding my own," he said evenly. "Helping out where I can. Like now."
"And we'd better get on with it," said Gary, reaching in front of Cutter to pick up a tester and a disk.
Still looking at Jim, Cutter relaxed just perceptibly, his mouth a little wider in what Jim thought was the beginning of a smile. "Ya," he said, and turned to the closet to get a storage container of his own.
Oregon was back soon, and from his conversation with Cutter, Jim guessed that Jer was guarding the equipment. He could only guess: Oregon's speech was stranger than Redeye's to Jim's ears. He thought there was probably Spanish mixed into it. Maybe a few other things. Cutter gestured and Oregon took the third big machine out of the room. While he was gone, the warning blasted their ears again. Forty minutes now.
By the time Oregon was back again, the three containers were full, and Cutter stacked them in Oregon's arms. Gary pulled out new boxes and they went on working. When the second table was cleared, Jim folded up the legs, then did the same with the one that had been empty when they got there, and Oregon grabbed one with each huge hand and pulled them out of the room. Another warning sounded, and Jim rubbed his abused ears but Oregon, on his way down the corridor, didn't so much as flinch.
The last table was clear and the empty containers pulled out and stacked when Oregon got back the fourth time. Each man grabbed whatever was nearest and left the room. Jim, last to leave, paused at the door, but Gary called back, "Leave it, leave it open," so he did.
Oregon led the way to the edge of the paved area, near the staircase that Jim and Gary had climbed. Jer and the machines and Redeye and the bags and all the storage containers were grouped there. And a woman who looked like an office worker, holding what looked like a specialized-function padd. Gary took a step to the side and stopped, blocking Jim, the containers in their hands bumping.
"Shit." Gary's head was still turned toward the stranger.
"What?" asked Jim.
Gary looked at him searchingly for a moment. "Look, you work for me. A tech literacy program, pilot, privately funded. Got it?"
"I hear," said Jim, unsure how far he wanted to commit himself.
"Good." Gary strode away, and Jim followed again, not liking the pattern of this afternoon at all.
They both put their containers down as the woman watched curiously. "That's all, then," said Gary authoritatively.
"Gary Mitchell?" asked the woman.
"RESIDENTS VACATE ..." began the twenty-minute warning, and Jim saw Gary saying "Yes" to the woman, but she waited for the noise to end before she tried to go on.
"The renter of Block A, Room 254?"
"That's me. Also Room 256." Gary looked the woman up and down, just this side of insolence. "You the rent-collector?"
"I work for the Housing Authority, yes."
"So let me check in and then we can get right back to work after the cleaning sequence." Gary looked around. "Where'd Redeye go? Redeye!"
The waifish person in the big hat materialized like magic - or, perhaps, had been somewhere behind Oregon or Jer all along, and now slipped around them, which Jim thought came to much the same thing - and handed Gary one of the bags withouut being asked. Gary rummaged in it for a moment and brought out a credit chip. "OK."
"Who are you?" the Housing Authority woman asked Redeye, who shrank back, hatbrim down.
"Redeye runs errands for us at the Technical Literacy Program," said Gary, interposing as smoothly as if the question had been directed to him. "She lives in the neighborhood."
"Not here?" The woman's head swung toward Gary, her eyes intent.
"Of course not here. I have single occupancy. A room for me and a separate room for the program. I filled out all the forms; you should have links there." Gary craned his neck as if to get a look at the padd; the woman pulled it in closer to her body. Gary stood back, smiled at the woman, and spoke earnestly. "I think it's so terribly important to live among these people to truly understand them. Of course, I don't live here *full* time."
The woman now looked Gary over, evidently registering his casual but not shabby clothing. Even the mutant sweater, Jim had to admit to himself, looked good on him. "Of course you don't," she said, her tone not quite businesslike but not clearly friendly or amused or even sexy, as far as Jim could tell.
Gary smiled again. Jim recognized it as the expression Gary had used in the Ethics class. Jim wondered if Gary would say it had worked better on him than it evidently did on this woman, who went on without changing expression, "You have the rent."
"Right here," Gary said, offering the chip. She took it and passed it through the reader on her padd, then gave it back so daintily that Jim thought her fingers never touched Gary's. Then she tapped a few commands into the padd, then turned it toward Gary, who picked a stylus out of the side of the thing somewhere, and signed it. He tried the smile again, and now she unbent very slightly, the lines of her mouth a little less stern.
"It's a good thing you're doing here," she said.
"They do the work," Gary said earnestly, with a gesture at the ragtag group behind him. Jim caught a sardonic glance from Oregon to Jer. "Well, next month, then," Gary said, and the woman nodded and moved away.
Jim waited until the ten-minute warning had sounded, when the Housing Authority person was well away, had collected several rents and was engaged in argument with someone swathed in shawls and scarves, waving as he or she gestured. Then he came up behind Gary, who was seated on the concrete talking to Redeye in a low voice.
"--don't think so, Red, I think he borrowed that idea from one of the guys he'd been reading himself, you know? I haven't looked it up, though. 'F I find the book, send it to Cut, say next week--"
"Gary," Jim said, not thinking much about how he felt about any of this, so he hardly registered that there was some kind of actual tutoring going on here.
Gary looked up, then got up, moved the both of them back among the storage containers before he said, "What's the matter, Jim?"
"Could you *tell* me something?" His voice was louder than he thought he'd intended, so he cleared his throat and tried again. "Where *are* we?"
"This is my permanent address. You know, everybody at the Academy has to have one." Gary paused, then opened his mouth, but didn't speak for a moment too long--the loudspeaker started up again, and a loud honking horn, too. "ATTENTION RESIDENTS: CLEANING PROCEDURE WILL BEGIN IN SIXTY SECONDS." Four honks, at second intervals, then the speaker, "FIFTY-FIVE SECONDS." Jim stared, and Gary was as motionless though he must have seen all this before. The honking went on; the loudspeaker counted down.
"FIVE. FOUR. THREE. TWO. ONE. CLEANING PROCEDURE HAS BEGUN." And it was true--there was a gushing noise and liquid of some sort spouted from the lacy web of pipes on the outside of the building. "STAND WELL AWAY FROM THE BUILDING. CLEANING FLUID IS TOXIC." A few children dashed forward and skipped back, and adults hauled a couple of them away. Fluid also streamed down the wall, then spurted unevenly from what must be drainage holes, and then pumped steadily for about a minute, as the speakers roared, "THE HOUSING AUTHORITY IS NOT RESPONSIBLE OR LEGALLY LIABLE FOR INJURIES, ILLNESS, BIRTH DEFECTS OR DEATH THAT MAY RESULT FROM BEHAVIOR THAT THESE ANNOUNCEMENTS FORBID. ALLOW FIVE MINUTES TO PASS FOR EVAPORATION OF REMAINING FLUID AND AERATING BY BUILDING FANS BEFORE ENTERING BUILDING. THANK YOU FOR ACTING AS RESPONSIBLE TENANTS."
And then, at long last, it fell silent. A foul, cutting, chemical stench wafted from the building as the cleaning fluid sat in the little moat surrounding the outer walls. For a moment, everything seemed drowned and muted by the smell and the lack of that outrageously noisy voice. Jim sat down on a storage container, and looked up at Gary without speaking.
"It's a long story," Gary said at last. "I'm gonna tell you, Jim, I brought you here to show you and then I was going to tell you everything. I still will. But I can't now. I've got to get all this stuff back inside, or see that it gets in. And ... well ... but later, Jim, honestly, I will, really I will."
As far as Jim could tell, looking into the brown eyes, this was a sincere, though nervously repetitive, statement. He stood, put one hand and then the other on Gary's face, low, little fingers straying onto the warm neck. He leaned forward, still slowly, but Gary didn't pull away even though his eyes shifted back and forth a little. Jim kissed him, slowly, opening his mouth and fucking in and out with his tongue in case Gary needed a reminder or what side they were both on. Gary tilted his head a little backward but Jim went on kissing until Gary made a little sound in his throat that somehow made the rest of the day's mystery less important.
Then Jim eased away, enjoying the blurred look of Gary's eyes and mouth.
"Better get this stuff upstairs again, then," he said, and stepped sideways as though to get over to one of the folded tables.
Gary reached for his waist, pulled him close again. "We've got a few minutes before we can go in."
"Well, then ..." but Jim had a mischievous, perverse feeling under his ribs, and instead of moving closer, he said, "... you could finish whatever you were talking to Redeye about."
Gary's eyes narrowed. It was hard to tell how serious the expression was.
"All right, then," he said, and walked away without a glance over his shoulder.
Jim shook his head. *Be careful what you ask for.*
Eventually the lab stuff, tech stuff--whatever--and Gary still hadn't explained it--was back in the rooms, and Jim shook out his arms and tried to roll the stiffness out of his shoulders. "Work hard, huh, Goldilocks?" Gary teased him. The huge guys had gone, Redeye had slipped off, and Cutter was still in the room putting things back in the chaotic working state they'd found them in.
"Watch out. Next time you're in Iowa I'll show you what hard work is."
They walked about halfway down the corridor to the stairs, seemingly on their way out, but Gary paused suddenly, and looked away when Jim stopped too. "Gotta tell Cut something," he mumbled.
"OK," said Jim as patiently as he could, turning back too.
Gary's hand caught Jim's arm. "No," he said, "wait."
"I'm not waiting around in the hallway." Jim was tired of being ordered around and of feeling out of place.
Gary's hand tightened, and he stared as hard as if he'd never seen Jim before. A long silence dragged by before he said, "Please," for the first time since they had left the dorm. He put his free hand on Jim's cheek, and said slowly, "I'm asking ... if I ask you, please, will you wait? Outside?"
"No," said Jim.
Gary's hand brushed back into Jim's hair and his fingers moved slowly, massaging Jim's scalp; Gary's expression was totally absorbed, intent, the muscles of his face sorting into a blank tension that Jim took a moment to recognize. He hadn't seen anyone in that gutwrenching fear since Tarsus.
"Who *is* Cutter?" Jim asked. "What can he do to you?"
Gary's other hand slid up Jim's arm, brushed into his neck, around his throat, up around his ear, Gary seemed unable touch Jim's skin enough. "I was a fool to bring you."
"Gary." Jim moved his head to one side as if trying to see around a barrier. "What are you afraid of?"
"You."
"You can't be," said Jim. "What do you mean?"
"You," Gary repeated, pulling Jim closer, kissed his forehead slowly, almost reverently, and then put his cheek on Jim's head. "Damn," he said, "*such* a fool," still gathering Jim into his body, tighter, moving his hands up and down Jim's stiff back. "Just let me ... just this time ... " and he nuzzled into Jim's neck, put his fingers through Jim's hair, touched him all over, held him as close as if he were never going to touch Jim again.
Jim felt an impulse to say, 'I'll protect you, I'll help you, I won't let go,' but held back. If he had learned anything lately it was not to assume he understood what was going on. He put his arms around Gary but said nothing.
"Sweet," said Cutter's voice, and Gary let go and turned back to the doorway where the older man stood. Jim followed back to the lab, and after a moment's hesitation, into it.
"You show off too much," said Cutter dispassionately. "Now you got somethin' for me or not?"
Gary took some disks from his bag. Cutter held out his hand but Gary jerked the disks up, then said, "Special job."
"Ya?"
Gary shrugged. "Use for whatever's up, but do me a composite--linear, flat, real-time, no-blur, no animation. Not a sim. You'll need to bring up the light and the sound. The yellow one's the best pickup, I think. Edit for--" he faltered, swallowed, "Mick, and anything about Mick, about being taped."
"You on it," said Cutter, not a question.
"Yeah. Sure."
"Goldilocks too."
For two seconds the room was totally motionless, silent. Even Cutter seemed not to breathe.
"Yeah," said Gary then, and he never looked toward Jim, but the muscles at his jaw twitched and his hands closed into fists and then opened.
Now Jim knew.
Cutter took the disks from Gary and put them on the table without looking at them. "One copy?" he asked.
"Yeah," said Gary, his voice small and tired.
"When Mick comes?"
"Tell him you've got it already."
"Pay'im?"
"No." Gary paused, then shrugged. "Whatever. You decide."
Jim unclenched his teeth with an effort. "What," he said, slowly and carefully. "Is. This. For."
"Later," said Gary, still looking at Cutter.
"Now!" Jim took a step forward, but Gary didn't turn. "*Now,* Gary!"
Gary began to shake his head; Jim reached for his shoulder and spun him, the other hand closing hard before he'd really decided, so it was with a kind of surprise that Jim saw his own fist connect, saw Gary's chin snapping up and Gary staggering back. But it felt good, in that moment, almost as good as fucking him, so Jim meant the second punch completely, the one that doubled Gary over and made him choke. Then Gary's fists clenched too, came up to hit back but just grazed Jim's cheekbone, and then Cutter was out from behind the table, catching Gary's arms and pulling him back around the corner, so the table and the editing machine and Cutter's wiry shoulder all stood between Jim and Gary.
Jim dropped his hands. Cutter, eyeing him, relaxed. Gary wheezed, bracing himself against the edge of the table.
Cutter looked at his bent head. "Baby," he said, "you gotta learn to brief y' boys."
Jim didn't stay to hear Gary's response.
He ran down the stairs, narrowly missing someone on the landing--shadowy figure, long dark hair, a voice calling after him without the words registering--by the time he stood in the doorway looking out at the concrete yard, there was a reason for the pounding blood in his head and throat. But ordinarily a few breaths would settle it and this time it kept on. He stared across the yard at children in a remote corner, on their knees on the ground, perhaps drawing on the pavement or taking something apart. He heard Cutter's and Gary's voices so clearly that he almost turned to look: *'Goldilocks on it.' 'Yeah.'*
Jim walked to the nearest of the concrete tables and sat down, his eyes still turned idly toward the children. He kept on seeing images, hearing voices, memories like flares of static breaking the blank silence of his present mind. *'We're not doing this for Mick.'* Gary's face so close he could see the pores of his skin. *'Don't let go. Don't.'* The way he'd grabbed the desk-leg. *'Use for whatever's up.'* Cutter's face when he first looked at Gary.
His own voice again: *'How can I trust you, baby?'*
The children were sitting up, standing; they were yelling; one struck out at another, who ran away, around the side of the building.
It had been a stupid thing to do, Jim realized, but couldn't see himself going back into the building, climbing to the lab, trying to find something to say. He stood, leaning on the table, hands flat on its sandy-rough surface. Looked at the door. Walked away, across the yard, down the narrow stair to the street.
As he walked down the slope, he heard footfalls behind him. While the street was by no means deserted, he thought he was being followed, and so he crossed the street on a diagonal, passing a group of people cooking meat over a raised metal pot of coals. The smell of the smoke and the roasting meat followed him down the block as persistently as the footsteps. Jim picked up speed, still walking, weaving past pedestrians and a child on a bicycle, but never lost the steady tread that matched his own.
He turned an unnecessary corner because the old storefront there came all the way out to the sidewalk and made good cover. Spinning on his feet, he reached out and caught hold of his stalker, anger still balancing him on the edge of violence. He wanted to deck the person, especially if it were Gary; grabbing was reckless, but not as stupid as hitting out.
The person he was holding was Redeye. He had grabbed higher than he meant, the very corners of the bony shoulders. The hat brim tipped up, then down. Jim let go.
"You lost," Redeye muttered, not looking up.
Jim wasn't sure, but if he wasn't lost now he knew it wouldn't take long. "Show me how to get to the muni stop."
Redeye's head turned to one side, then the other, so slowly that Jim didn't realize until the movement stopped that it had meant no.
*****
Interlude: Gary's POV
***Without moving, even looking up, Gary listened to Jim run down the hallway, steps picking up speed as they grew fainter. When he felt the touch of Cutter's hand on his hair, then on his shoulder, he grabbed fiercely and found a bony wrist which he held with no gentleness or gratitude. He was angry, he realized.
Cutter pushed nearer instead of trying to pull away. He hauled Gary away from the table, held him in an iron grip and glared back into his eyes. "*Oh* no," he said. In those two syllables was a whole diatribe about whose fault this really was, and of course Gary already knew it all.
The anger drained away and left Gary feeling empty again. His eyes fell to a spot just below Cutter's collar-bone, and for some period of time Gary could not measure, they stood in silence. Then Cutter's grip shifted just a little on Gary's arms, and Gary knew that if he wanted he could move closer, put his arms around Cut's waist and his head against the dark-clad chest.
But he also knew it wouldn't be any comfort this time.
So he moved back a half step, and Cutter's hands fell away to his sides. Gary still couldn't meet the older man's gaze, so he did the other thing he'd always done after time apart: he reached for Cut's wrist and pushed back the knitted sleeve.
Cutter's forearms were solid, each muscle and tendon distinct, and not very hairy. They were also criss-crossed with scar lines, some so faint they were barely visible, others like cat-scratches, others denting the copper-brown skin, others pale or shiny. And this one, up near the crease of the elbow, this new one red and long and barely not bleeding.
Gary checked the other arm but there was nothing fresh there. Cutter, as always, stood almost docile under the inspection.
It hadn't been so very long ago that Gary had woken in the night to run his fingers over the scars. Not so very long ago that he would bend his head like this, and brush his lips along the new scab. Only two years or so. Only a lifetime away.
Cutter took a long breath and his other hand stroked up the nape of Gary's neck and into his hair. Then, as if Gary's touch against the skin of his arm were too intimate, Cutter's fingers spread and tightened on Gary's scalp and pulled his head up until their eyes met.
In that other life, while they were this close, Cutter used to tell him what his next job would be.
"Baby," Cut said, and troubled expectation shivered along Gary's nerves, "tell him."
"What?" said Gary, jolted back to the present, feeling like he'd lost track of the conversation. "Tell who what?"
Cutter's lips compressed; Gary knew he hated having to explain himself. "Goldilocks. You lookin' at mine. You with him, you show him yours. Yes," because Gary had looked away, at the disks that lay on the table like poison pills, "Yes, you got to. Unless ...."
Gary looked back at Cutter's face, and though it had no more expression than usual, Gary had always known how to read it. Now the longing he saw there made Gary's own throat tighten.
"Unless you don't follow after him." Cutter's voice was so low Gary felt he was just remembering it.
"Can't," he said, "I can't leave him. He has no idea where he is. Anyway .... "
"You can't stay here," Cutter finished Gary's sentence.
"Can't," Gary said, "can't you ... move on?"
Cutter said nothing until Gary realized it was an answer. And then Cutter was the one to step back, eyes on his sleeves as he pulled them down again. Gary watched. Cutter looked up when he was finished, saying quite normally, "Next month."
"Next month," Gary echoed, and then remembered. "I'll come to help you move. But once I, once I have that tape, there won't be any more rent. You should know that."
Cutter's eyebrows raised. After a moment he said, "We manage."
It was a sentence Gary had heard often enough but had never felt it shut him out before. "When I'm earning .... " he began, more to get Cut's response than to make a real offer, and then his apprehensions were confirmed.
"We manage," Cutter repeated flatly.
"OK," Gary said, unable to understand how getting what he wanted and having almost everything work according to plan should have made him feel so miserable.
**end of "How the Other Half Lives"**
To be continued ...