We Are Bulletproof

"Shit! Take it easy!" Jaime dropped his phone onto the bed and threw up his hands in a defensive gesture as a pair of shoes came flying over his head. One of them flew through and grazed his hair, ruffling the nest of curls. He cursed again as Jen stormed out of her walk-in closet with an armload of clothes and dumped them onto him.

"Oregon?!" She screamed as she started stuffing clothes indiscriminately into a massive suitcase. "I can't believe he ran away to Oregon! That fucking bastard, how dare he! It's not even New York or Los Angeles! Oregon?!"

"Are you more upset that he ran away, or that he ran away to Oregon where you can't shop or eat caviar at Michelin-starred restaurants?"

"BOTH!"

"Ah." Jaime shifted the clothes onto the bed beside him when he heard his phone buzzing underneath the pile. He picked it up nonchalantly as Jen continued punishing her suitcase, pummelling clothes into them and stabbing things with the pointed heels of her various shoes. It looked like she was going to ruin most of them, but they both knew what that meant—new clothes. Not in Oregon though. Oregon wasn't known to be the fashion capital of the world.

"It's not confirmed that Cris is there, though. Maybe Edel's going for other reasons." Jaime snuck a glance at her; she was glaring at him like he single-handedly caused the great depression.

"What other reasons? Where would he go without Rey?"

Snorting, Jaime fell back onto her bed. "Maybe he has a lover overseas. Maybe he's living a double life." He flinched when she hit him in the thigh.

"Shut up! Edel's not the type!"

"I'm not sure it's better that he knows where Cris is and didn't tell either of us then..."

"Shut up!" She hefted a shoe and Jaime put up his hands again. "We'll find out when we catch up to him. Ask Rey to come with us. I know you're texting him right now."

"...I'm not." Jaime shifted his phone to the other side of his body where Jen couldn't see it but the jig was up. "I'm texting Mirabelle. She's throwing the party this weekend now."

Jen rolled her eyes as she lifted a gauzy dress up to her body, then apparently decided she didn't like it and threw it off to the side. "You're so stupid and obvious. I know you're only after him because he doesn't like you. Like all those other guys you pissed off and then slept with."

"I'm not after anyone. And if I was, it wouldn't be my best friend's boyfriend. What crazy dramas are you watching lately that you think I'd be that much of an asshole?" He grinned up into her murderous glare. "Besides. If I really wanted him, I could have him. I could have a dozen guys like him."

Jen threw a pair of pants over his grinning face. "No wonder he hates you. Ask him to come along. I don't want to be stuck on a 15-hour flight with only you."

"Well I don't want to be stuck on a flight with you either," Jaime scoffed from under the jeans, not bothering to remove them since Jen was just going to throw more things at him. "I'm not booking first class for him though. He's sitting in economy."

"Don't you dare!" She kicked him in the side of the leg and although he didn't flinch... motherfucker, that hurt! "Book first class! Now!"

Ugh. Spoiled princess much? "Don't you have any other friends we could bring?"

"No. Book the fucking seats!"

"Even if you get him into first class, he's still not sleeping with you—OW! Bitch!" That was almost his dick!

Rey could not state thoroughly enough how much he hated Jaime Garcia. From the moment he met him, he couldn't stand him and his smug face, his hoity-toity tone, and his holier-than-thou gaze. Even knowing that the things Jaime said to him over text were meant to rile him up still riled him up. And he felt like a fool for letting him get under his skin, every fucking time. If it wasn't some dig at his family, at the fact that he'd grown up poor as dirt, or he didn't belong with his best friend, it was always about Edel.

How he wasn't good enough for Edel. How Edel had the hots for their other best friend. No word of a lie, it hurt. Every single time he thought about those two, it hurt. Seeing them together hurt. And he knew part of it was his own insecurity, just like everybody said it was and everybody knew it was. But... he couldn't help but believe there had to be some grain of truth to it. That his loyal, loving boyfriend was actually and had always been in love with somebody else. Somebody he couldn't have, so he settled instead for Rey.

And that hurt. Knowing that hurt. But he kept fighting. For them, for Edel. He loved him so much but sometimes, he didn't really, truly believe that Edel loved him just as much.

So he was fuming and furious, barely able to sleep a wink that night. But he tried to stay calm, to regain his composure. For Izzy.

The nurse Jen found was a nice one. Although he was still wary of leaving his sister with a stranger, Izzy seemed to like her very much and that put some peace in his mind.

Still, as he checked the time on his phone obsessively, waiting for them to arrive the next morning, he felt a growing ball of tension in his stomach. At the thought of what was happening, why his boyfriend outright lied to him over the phone as smoothly as butter. A client in Mexico, he said. Fucking hell. And instead, he was going to Oregon, probably to meet with him. Why lie about it? That made it so much worse.

And why did he agree to this? Why was he going with them?

Too late to back out now.

And there. There he saw it. The car pulling up to his place. Shaking off the nerves, he grabbed his things, kissed Izzy on the cheek, told the nurse to take good care of her, and headed out, brow furrowed, expression serious.

Yes, it was too late to back out now.

"Ew you're a pig," Jen hissed, disgusted, as she caught a glimpse of what Jaime was texting his newest flavor of the week. Sexting. What he was sexting as they lounged in the back of the luxury car smoothly gliding up to what could only be described as the slums. They stood out like a sore thumb but luckily they weren't going to be here for long.

He shrugged an elegant shoulder at his sister, who made a face at him. "What? Don't act like you're so innocent, miss open relationship." Avoiding her slap, he edged to the other end of the seat. The car rolled to a stop and Jaime briefly set down his phone so that he could roll down the windows.

He wore a pair of five hundred dollar sunglasses in the car just so he could roll down the windows, gently tip the glasses down and wink at Rey. Because he knew that would piss Rey off. Purely because it would piss Rey off. "Hola chico."

Then he rolled the windows back up, laughing his heart out, while Jen rolled her eyes and got out to hug Rey. Their driver alighted too, in order to put Rey's luggage into the back with Jen's five suitcases and Jaime's one. Contrary to popular belief, he traveled light. Jen pulled Rey into the car with them and then they were off again, headed towards the highway and then the airport.

"Is Izzy okay with the nurse?" Jen slipped an arm around Rey's, leaning slightly against him. "You look tired. Didn't get much sleep right? Me neither."

Rey glared.

He didn't know how much the stupid sunglasses cost but everything about Jaime screamed Rich Asshole. Flipping him the bird, he didn't even bother gracing him with any words. Instead, he helped the driver with his luggage, which admittedly, wasn't much. He saw six whole bags! And his one, an old bedraggled suitcase that had clearly seen much better days. Embarrassing. His face heated up at the juxtaposition but he tried his best not to let it get to him.

Then he was in the car and it was moving and they were heading to the airport. To fly to Oregon. To find his boyfriend. With another guy. Whose girlfriend was presently sitting beside him with her arm linked around his.

"Izzy loves her," he said with relief. "Thank you. But I slept like shit, yes." Which he loathed admitting with Jaime right there. "It's that obvious?"

He didn't want it to be. He didn't want Edel to see him like that. But he supposed he could say it was just jet lag.

"You look like you slept like shit," Jaime chimed in before Jen could rush to reassure Rey that he looked good. Because he didn't look so good. Dark circles, pale, clearly angry. The last one was his default expression around Jaime so he was used to it but the other two, not so much. Hard to be pissed off and also bone-tired and vampire-white. Yet somehow in this car Rey managed to be all three.

"Shut up! Go back to whatever the hell you were doing." Jen snapped, digging an elbow into his side.

"Sexting." Jaime grinned and he grinned right at Rey. And he held it for one... two... three beats too long and too awkwardly before resuming riling up his newest form of entertainment, at least until they got to the airport. Then Rey would have to be entertainment for the 15 hour flight.

"Disgusting." Jen rubbed her temples. "But I'm glad she likes the nurse! I told her that if anything happened to Izzy, we were going to bankrupt her whole family."

Ah. The tried and true tactic—the Garcia family way. Jaime was almost proud.

His expression was flat and irritated as he regarded Jaime. No fucking shit. He hadn't slept well so he looked it. Fuck him. Fuck him and his shit eating grin. As if Rey cared that he was sexting. Why the fuck was he staring and grinning like that? If Jen hadn't been between them, Rey might have shoved the phone right out of his hands and into his smug ass face.

"What?" Rey blinked, not expecting the poor woman to be threatened! But he should have been. This was the Garcia family, after all... "You didn't have to do that. Or say that. I'm sure she'll be fine." She was awfully sweet to Izzy but... now he wasn't sure if it was genuine sweetness or fear for her family.

"I'm joking!" Jen laughed, finding her own joke hilarious. "I paid her a lot. She'll do a good job, don't worry! I mean if I'd threatened her, she might do something crazy right? No it's fine. And I have our doctor checking on Izzy every other day, just to make sure nothing's wrong while you're gone. He'll text us if he thinks something's up."

Jaime snorted a laugh down at his phone. Throwing money at problems was also another tried and true tactic, he couldn't lie. Jen wasn't opposed to threats but not if money could solve the problem more easily. Something he was sure Rey wouldn't know about.

"You can sleep on the plane." Jaime was talking to pass the time now because sexting was getting boring. Same old, same old. Suck your dick, rim job, bang your head against the wall, blah blah blah. Eventually he tossed his phone onto the seat beside him and leaned his head against Jen's shoulder to rest his eyes.

"Did you hear anything from Edel?" Jen dropped her voice for whatever reason—like Jaime wasn't right beside her.

"Oh..." He laughed but it was slightly nervous. Hopefully she had showered the woman with money; that seemed like a much better incentive to take care of his sister than threatening her. Because yeah, she might do something crazy and his heart couldn't handle another loss in the family. He thanked Jen again, though, glad for the foresight about the doctor and everything else she'd done for him. Lightly, he stroked her arm.

Yes, asshole, he wanted to say, that was the plan. To sleep on the plane. It would be a long flight and he needed the rest. And it would be so boring, he was certain to get in at least a nap. But he said nothing because he hated Jaime and he didn't want to talk to him.

"He texted me when he landed," he said sourly, "in what he still said was Mexico."

Jaime rolled his eyes behind closed lids. God Edel was so hopeless. It made him actually annoyed, like to the core of his being, whenever he saw those two together and that was a genuinely impossible feat. Maybe five people in all the world could get to him on that level of real negative emotion.

"Lying bastard," Jen hissed, rightfully angry if one of her very good friends was heading down to secretly meet her boyfriend.

"It's not like they're going to fuck so I don't know what you two are all in a huff about," Jaime said lazily, cracking open one eye to look at them. "They've had a decade to fuck and they haven't even gotten past the drunk kissing stage. All they'll do is drink, make out and then probably pass out or something."

"Shut up, nobody's even talking to you Jaime!" Jen shrugged his head off her shoulder and turned fully to Rey. "I mean he's probably right but maybe Edel went down there to stop Cris from doing something stupid. He could have told me, Cris' girlfriend, first, but maybe he has a good reason. We shouldn't assume things."

"Hard not to," he said, annoyed by Jaime and everything to do with him. But seriously, it was hard not to assume things. Why the hell was Edel going to meet with Cris privately? Even if he was going to stop him from doing something stupid, shouldn't he have at least told Jen and Rey? Instead, he was lying through his teeth about some fucking client in Mexico.

"Even if he's out there trying to help Cristoval, why the fuck is he keeping it secret from us? It doesn't feel right."

But then, nothing felt right when it came to those two being together. Every fucking time. He knew it irritated Edel's friends that it drove him so insane but how could it not? He saw the way Cristoval looked at Edel and it was not just some friendship shit. Jaime didn't look at either of them like that. And neither of them looked at Jaime that way and they were the unholy trinity together.

No, he knew from the start there was something there and it bothered him. But he was second to Cristoval and that bothered him even more. He was second and would always be second to him. Cristoval had been in Edel's life since he was five years old. Five. Years. Old. There was no competing with that, even if he was a troll in the looks department. That he wasn't made things just that much worse.

"You two are as hopeless as Edel and Cris. I call them Edis. That's their ship name. Like it?" Jaime grinned as he leaned away against the door, looking at them both with the most annoying smug smile he could muster up. They wouldn't like it. Edis was too good for them to like it.

And yes, he was also horribly teasing his own sister but he knew how Jen operated. She did care; she was hurt by everything Cris did. But he always went back to her in the end and Jaime knew that Cris knew if he ever left her broken-hearted, all of the influence in Jaime's family would go towards destroying him.

Atom by atom.

So a little teasing here and there was cruel, but in the end it would all work out.

Jen turned on him like a tigress and beat him savagely with her hand bag, until he had to start ducking and covering his face. "I. SAID. FUCKING. SHUT. UP." She smacked him hard on the chest one last time then, breathing hard, returned her attention to Rey.

"It's not right. But we'll make it right when we find those two bastards and if anything happened, we're going to castrate them with a rusty spoon." She crossed her arms over her chest and glared. "They're too fucking old to be acting like this!"

"Are we at the airport yet?" Jaime asked painfully, edging away from them both and no longer feeling like being funny with a handbag assault already under the belt--and they hadn't even gotten to the airport yet...

"Seriously," he said after Jen told her brother to shut the fuck up and beat him with her handbag. Good. Because if she didn't do something, Rey was about to fucking slug him. And that might not end well, in a car. With poor Jen in between them.

"Yeah they are," he said, irritated with his boyfriend all over again. He lied to him. How the hell was Rey ever supposed to trust him if he went around lying to him? One minute he was home, the next he wasn't picking up his phone and then he was lying. Fuck. Sometimes he wondered why he let himself go through this. Was it worth it? Was Edel worth it? Fuck.

He turned his gaze out the window, hating himself for feeling emotional about it and hating even more the fact that he could feel an ugly sting behind his eyes. He wasn't going to fucking cry like a bitch, especially not here, not now.

"They're way past the fucking hormone stage," he said. And if they were, then they shouldn't be--wouldn't be--doing anything stupid or crazy together. "They shouldn't even be drunk kissing at this point."

Rusty spoons were in Jaime's immediate future too if he didn't shut the fuck up with his smart ass mouth! Jen glared at him one more time before turning her back to him, while he coughed weakly and slumped against the car door to play dead. Maybe he should be actually dead, if he couldn't even be human for once in his life!

"They--well. Edel shouldn't be doing things like this. Not to you. We won't talk about Cris." She slipped her arms around Rey for a loose hug and rested her chin against his shoulder, staring out of the same window as him. Cris was a whole other problem that she didn't know the solution to.

Not even after all this time.

He loved her and she knew it but... there was a part of him that could never be satisfied by her. Sexually, emotionally, she didn't have whatever he needed. She had most of it, but not all of it and that part really hurt her. Being inadequate wasn't something she was accustomed to.

"It'll be okay." She had to tell him that or else she'd start believing the opposite. That things were falling apart because Cris' life was falling apart and he didn't want her in it. She thought he could trust her with anything--her love was unconditional. Yet, he ran from his problems and he ran from her.

She fell silent for the rest of the ride, while Jaime fell asleep after making a few more dying noises. They pulled up to the airport in short order and Jen sighed. "Come on. Let's just get this flight over with. Everybody got their tickets? Rey? Do you have yours?"

Rey was silent for the duration of the ride as well. As much as Jen was trying to reassure him, he felt like she only half believed her own words. The two of them were in the same place, even if they regarded their relationships in different lights. It still had to hurt Jen to know that there could be something between her boyfriend and his best friend. After all, like Rey, she had to wonder how she could compete with somebody that had been a staple in his life for so long. Rey didn't have friends that he had known that long. It was a rare thing.

And if romantic feelings were entangled in there... unexplored for so long, it just felt like nature was eventually going to take control. All of them were fighting so hard against it but sometimes Rey wondered why. Why did he fight so hard? Because he loved him. And he couldn't bear the thought of the person he loved being in love with somebody else, even if he was in love with him at the same time. Some people could do that. Rey wasn't one of those people.

When they arrived, Rey still had mixed feelings. Whether he was doing the right thing, whether he should say something to Edel, whether he should just go home and let it all go. But he couldn't; that was his problem. He was too stubborn and he couldn't just let go without a fight.

Sighing, he lifted his phone.

"Yep. On here," he said. He slid out of the car and looked around. So here they were. Hours and hours away from the moment of truth.

"Let's go!" Jen headed inside without waiting for her luggage to be brought out, knowing that the driver would do that for her. (Again—perks of being a rich girl.) The plane ride was going to be murder and she didn't need to worry about unnecessary things like bags and suitcases.

At the check-in counter there was a bit of a blow-up, mainly because Jaime actually booked economy (the JERK) and Jen insisted on the ticket being upgraded to first class with them. Names were thrown around. A phone call was made. And then they were shown to the security screening area, where Jaime kept rolling his eyes at her and telling her that she was ruining his fun.

As if it was fun to force someone to fly coach for fifteen hours!

"I swear I don't know how we're related," she muttered fiercely to Rey, arm latched around his as she headed inside to wait for the flight. There was a lot of shopping that went on while she 'waited' at the duty free stores. What? She packed light! And then it was time to board, and Jen settled into the acceptably comfortable pod with the reclining bed while the captain came on with the pre-flight speech.

"Where are we staying?" She asked aloud. Jaime was sitting to her right, scrolling through his phone, and Rey's area was to the left. The remaining area was left empty; Jen had thrown her things onto it.

"With Angel."

"Who?"

"You'll see when we get there. Now shush. I'm planning a party."

Jen shot Rey a disgusted look. "Worst comes to worst, we'll get a hotel room of our own and leave this," she jerked a thumb at her brother, "with whoever the hell Angel is."

"I'd prefer it," he said instantly. No way did he want to stay with some mystery person named Angel. Any friend of Jaime's--well. He couldn't in good conscience talk shit about Jaime's friends because his own boyfriend was his friend... somehow. If he had more money and more say, he would say he'd make arrangements for a hotel right now but he knew he was at their mercy, which only made the whole situation worse.

At least he had Jen. Although she could be overbearing sometimes, she was a damn sight more comfortable to be around than Jaime. And she actually liked him. Maybe too much, he didn't know. Once there'd been an... ahem... moment between them that he'd had to kindly reject, seeing as he wasn't sexually attracted to women. If he was, though... He didn't know. Jen had a boyfriend and Rey was prone to jealousy. He didn't think he and Jen ever would have made a good match, even if he was bisexual or straight.

"Maybe I'll book a room just in case," Jen muttered to herself as the seatbelt sign came on. She pulled it across her lap and reclined to flip through the list of hotels in Portland, frowning at the ones she didn't like. That occupied her for about an hour, and then she tossed the phone aside and settled down to sleep. Nothing really to do while they were up in the skies and she, for one, didn't want to keep talking about her boyfriend running away from home like a stupid adolescent kid.

Jaime seemed preoccupied with his party scheme too but Jen already knew he would try something like that. New places, new faces, plenty of parties to keep him entertained. Boring—didn't he get tired of all that nonsense? He couldn't sustain that kind of lifestyle forever! But he also wouldn't listen to reason and usually it was easier to let him be than to argue with him and have to put up with him being flippant about everything.

She slept for most of the trip, waking up only to stretch her legs, glare at her brother's comments about her bedhead and scroll through social media. By the time they landed Jen was on the verge of murder—long flights didn't do her temper any good. A car was already waiting outside the airport and the driver had a cute American accent. He tried to speak some Spanish, but he sounded vaguely... Mexican. Not pure Spanish. Jen smiled at him as she passed by, sliding into the back seat.

"I need a shower so badly," she confided to Rey as she made eyes at the driver.

Nothing felt right anymore.

Julio didn't understand it.

Didn't they trust one another? Julio kept lifting his phone up, waiting for some kind of text or explanation from Angel. But there was nothing. And he wanted to reach out, to ask what was going on but he was half afraid of the answer. It... it would be better in person, he decided. But then, if he knew what was happening, would he better prepared?

Gathering the usual items for a private show, his heart was heavy as he got into the car with the others. Logan and Sean were horsing around as usual. No surprise there. After their texts, though, Julio thought Sean looked at him as if he had questions. As if he knew everything wasn't okay with him. Logan was completely oblivious. He seemed to be in a great mood but he had always loved his job with unbridled enthusiasm.

Again, Julio looked at his phone, at the half of a message he had started to type but had never sent to Angel. He was nervous. Honestly, he was afraid. But he didn't really know quite how to deal with his feelings on the matter right now. He... trusted Angel, did he not? And so he tried--his hardest--to reserve his worries and concerns for when they met again. Maybe... maybe it wasn't Angel. Maybe it was his family. Although that didn't seem likely...?

Somehow, the past always had a way of catching up to him. Angel didn't know what to do when Jaime messaged him out of the blue to tell him that he, his sister and 'some poor person' were all staying with him. He thought it was a joke and didn't even respond. Why would he? Jaime did nothing but torture him when they went to school together. Why should he acquiesce to the demands of a bully?

But then that familiar face showed up at his door and Jaime waltzed right in and took over--like he always did. Any time Jaime went somewhere, he seemed to act like he owned the place and people like Angel let him. Because they were weak. Because turning them out didn't seem right but letting them stay also didn't feel good.

Yet here they were. Jaime threw a party the next night--at his place. Angel didn't say much. He felt himself sliding back into his old ways, silently letting Jaime walk and talk all over him. Part of him wanted to talk to Julio, to ask his advice, but he knew that Julio wouldn't want to be involved with this bunch. The 'poor person' called Rey didn't seem bad. A little intimidating, but not bad. Jen was just as overbearing as her brother and together the two of them took over.

So there he was at the party, hiding out in a corner while strangers danced and drank and snorted lines on his coffee table. The doorbell rang again; somebody went to get it and the volume in the place ramped up once a bunch of men entered, dressed as firemen. Angel was about to flee to the balcony when he saw Julio...

He swore the world bottomed out from under him. Julio? And--Logan. Other dancers. Here for a private show. But Julio didn't do private shows anymore... Or so he claimed...

He was miserable.

He was unhappy.

And he wasn't doing a killer job of pretending otherwise. Of course he was silent the entire way there; he was always silent. But he was withdrawn in a way that he hadn't been in a while, with these guys, these people who were his friends. Yet he hadn't told them anything about why he stopped with the private shows or his fears and anxiety. Only Angel knew.

So why would he...

Julio didn't understand. Desperately, he tried to. He tried to make some sense of it as they entered the all too familiar penthouse. And he looked. He looked for him. For Angel. With half hope and half fear clutching at his heart. While the others were all loudly chattering and grinning and happily readying for work, Julio was looking for Angel.

Was... he even here? What happened? Did he suddenly move? But no. No... there he was, somehow. In a corner. By himself. Julio felt so many things when he saw him. Angel didn't look at all happy to be here, either. What happened? He kept thinking it, over and over again. Julio tried to make his way over to Angel but Logan slipped his head in a headlock and there was laughter and joking.

While the others readied themselves for the show, this time Julio pulled out his phone and deleted what he had written and instead sent, Angel? What is happening?

It was Julio...

There was Logan creeping up on him but Angel didn't even see him--funny because the only person he used to go to that club to see was Logan. But someone else had taken his place now, someone else had outshone him and all without saying a single word.

Angel felt... confused. Odd. He didn't know what he should think about Julio being here, if he should be angry or suspicious or more trusting. Did Julio have an explanation for this? Jaime didn't mention he hired strippers but this seemed up his alley somehow. Strippers. Hookers. Blow. He had the trifecta.

They made eye contact and Angel's stomach flipped unpleasantly. His heart lurched. He wanted to give Julio the benefit of the doubt, definitely, so he was trying not to jump to any conclusions. Before he could go over to ask Julio what he was doing here--his phone, he realized, wasn't on him and it looked like Julio was texting someone--somebody hooked an arm around him. Angel looked up, startled.

Some random guy with a beer in one hand was grinning at him. "Hola," he said pleasantly. "I've been watching you. You look uncomfortable. Want to go outside?" The music came on and Angel looked up at Julio with panic in his eyes, to see one of the other strippers pulling him away. The show was starting, apparently.

Great. For some damn reason, Jaime decided to call in strippers. Strippers. Rey wanted out. Now. He tried to find Jen to talk to her about that hotel thing but she seemed too absorbed in whatever was happening, in the drinks and the party atmosphere.

Music started playing and the strippers started doing their thing. Rey frowned mightily and turned away, about to leave the party and find something to occupy himself with when he saw one of Jaime's pervy friends making moves on an obviously uncomfortable Angel.

Rey noticed when they barged in that Angel seemed less than thrilled with Jaime crashing his place. Another reason to leave; they weren't wanted here. But now he was glad he hadn't left because Angel looked like he was ready to be accosted. Rey moved in between the pervert and Angel.

"Is this guy bothering you, Angel?"

"No I'm fine... no I don't want..."

The guy was trying very hard to lead him outside where there were fewer people clustered together. Some were enjoying the pool but most were here, watching the show. Apparently everyone knew about the strippers except the person who owned the suite.

Angel kept an eye on Julio--or tried to--while resisting the overly friendly guy. He smelled like liquor and the way he smiled made Angel's skin crawl. The look in his eyes was too familiar. The way he rubbed Angel's arm was very much unwelcomed.

"Rey..." He turned again to see where Julio was and caught a movement. Costumes were coming off now, flesh was exposed. Something heavy landed in his chest and he quickly looked away, back to Rey. He was the only nice one of the group, really. Angel nodded slightly and hugged himself. "I want to... to leave," he said quietly.

"Hey what the fuck! Who the fuck are you?!" The drunk guy shoved at Rey aggressively.

Julio fought against the hand on his arm, dragging him over to the others. He hadn't come here for this. He never wanted to do this again. Just being here made his head swim and his throat close up with anxiety and visions of aggressive partiers with their hands where he didn't want them. Drugs. Helpless to do anything. His heart beat frantically.

And not just for himself.

Somebody was bothering Angel and Julio didn't even have a voice to shout, to be heard. His phone had been useless. And now Angel was looking at him with eyes that could have broken a stone cold heart. It shattered Julio's.

Luckily, somebody stepped in, somebody closer, somebody able to use his voice. But that didn't stop Julio from moving away from the others and pushing his way through people trying to touch him, to pull his clothes off. He wasn't a person when he came to these things, he was nothing but entertainment, theirs to do with as they pleased. The richer the client, the worse the behavior.

Julio saw the creep push the person who stepped in on Angel's behalf and he was almost there when the guy unexpectedly hauled back and punched the drunk man with a hard right hook that sent the guy reeling backward and over a table nearby.

"Are you okay?" the other guy asked Angel. Julio hovered close by, eyes only on Angel. The other guy didn't even seem aware of his presence.

The punch startled them both—Angel and the guy trying to hit on him. While the drunk guy fell over backwards with a loud shout and a string of curses, Angel hugged himself tighter and tighter and tighter, feeling that horrible iron band crushing around his chest. He started to shake; the breaths came in small but violent bursts as air ran out in his lungs.

All around him was the noise and the music and voices, laughter and shouting, a wall of stimulus. It was too much. It was all too much for him, when he had been living in silence for so long all on his own. Even when the guy fell over, nobody noticed. They were all drunk or high; the ones around them seemed to find it funny, even, pointing and laughing like hyenas.

But Angel didn't think it was funny. A loud ringing started up in his ears again and his vision tunnelled into the past, to another party just like this one, also hosted by Jaime. But back then he had been fifteen, young and impressionable and eager to fit in. He went to the party alone where another older guy tried to be friendly and he bought it. They went upstairs; Angel didn't know what that really meant at the time. He thought... they would talk. Someone older paying him attention was flattering.

"I can't..." He looked up at Rey finally with desperate eyes. "Please get—get me out... I have to get out..." And then his gaze started to dart around, looking for a way out. Looking for an exit. The door was blocked; there were too many people thronging around the strippers. Angel's eyes skimmed over Julio but he didn't even see him. He didn't see anything except his desire to get away from the noise and the laughter and the music—and the ringing in his ears.

Then suddenly, Angel ran. He bolted for the open door to the balcony, clipping people as he passed them by. He ran... he ran to the edge of the balcony, right to the ledge and he stood there teetering over the brink, looking down at the expanse of open air and freedom. The wind buffeted his hair as he leaned forward, steeling himself for the jump.

He had to get out.

"Yeah, okay, I'll--" The guy called Rey reached out as if to take Angel's hand or arm but Angel panicked. Something inside him seemed to go off, at all the people, at the music, the laughter, the shouting. Julio understood. He understood. But when Angel looked right through him, his heart dropped. And then it beat impossibly fast when Angel took off like a skittish animal.

"Hey--!" Rey said, looking like he was going to give chase but Julio put his hand on his chest to stop him, then ran after Angel himself. It wasn't easy. Angel ran like he didn't see anything in front of him and Julio was trying to run around people, keeping his eyes on Angel as he did.

All he could see was Angel.

And then they were out, out on the balcony. Up, up, up. Too high. So high. And Angel looked like he was going to do it; he was going to jump. Julio, frightened that he was going to send Angel over the edge, slowed and moved around Angel. As much as he wanted to grab him and pull him in close, and away, he was so so scared that if he did... if he did... Angel might just do it. Jump.

So he put out his hand slowly before Angel, so that he could see it, in front of him, where he could hopefully see it and not through it. Slowly, he touched his face, as he had done many times before. Gently, gingerly, carefully.

One step forward, two steps back. That was how it always went. He took one step towards the ledge and then two back, never quite making that final plunge. Tonight, everything around him drove him to the brink. Two steps forward, zero steps back.

Angel couldn't breathe. The night air sliced through his lungs like a knife, cutting him deep, cutting him down to the core. He wanted so badly to jump. Somebody screamed behind him and he heard a commotion, as if people were finally noticing him dancing at the ledge, prepared to end it all. And he was. If Julio wasn't who he thought he was—if he maybe lied, if he was only here because Angel was stupid enough to think that he could draw Julio's attention—then there wasn't much to hang around for. As sad as that was. There wasn't much to live for.

Someone came up beside him and he skittered away, startled and defensive and frightened. Another creep? At first he still didn't see Julio. Just another person, another reason to jump. Angel even started to put his foot out, looking right through Julio, but then... Then the hand touched his face. He knew that touch.

"Julio?" He asked in a scared whisper, finally looking at him instead of past him. Was that him? In that silly outfit? Julio looked scared too; it was in his eyes, the way he looked at Angel. Was Julio scared of him? Angel reached up to touch his hand, still breathing erratically. "Julio... I have to-to get—to go." His eyes flicked away again, to the vast space off the side of the balcony. "I have to..."

Julio shook his head. No. No. He didn't have to go. He didn't have to jump. Gently, he turned Angel's face toward him, in a bid to keep his gaze from going back to that vast nothingness beyond the balcony. If Angel jumped... if he jumped... Julio couldn't. He couldn't let him. He couldn't watch him kill himself.

"Please," he signed. "Don't. Don't jump."

Slowly, he took a single step closer to Angel, half afraid that if he got too close he would send him flying off that balcony but half afraid that if he didn't get close enough, he was going to lose him anyway.

Gently, he caressed Angel's face with his fingertips. His other hand rose to the other side of his face. How he wished he could speak with his mouth, with his actual words, with a voice. It had never been more frustrating than in this moment, when he couldn't say anything, to be heard over the cacophony of the rowdy party-goers and music.

No? Don't jump? But... But he was finally here. He was finally at the edge, ready and willing to take the plunge down into darkness. He could close his eyes and fly and all of his troubles would be gone, right? No more nightmares, no more looking into the mirror to see his own darkness staring back at him, no more cold nights and frigid hearts. No more... nothingness...

Julio's hands though, they were warm, both of them. Angel kept getting distracted by different things. The noises around them one second, the whistle of the wind past his ears, Julio's hands, the ledge. "Julio..." Julio couldn't speak but at that moment Angel didn't need more noise adding confusion to his brain. And Julio never needed to talk to be expressive. His eyes, his expression, the tension in his body and his hands, those all spoke on his behalf.

Angel took an unsteady step closer to him, drawn in by his touch and his eyes. The sadness in them, he knew it. It was his own sadness. He... had been prepared to share his story with Julio before all of this happened. He thought Julio wouldn't judge him; Julio had been through the same thing. Then his plans were derailed and...

All of a sudden the world came crashing down over his ears. The noises increased tenfold, driving him to the brink of madness. He threw himself into Julio's arms and clung to him tight and buried his face against Julio's chest to try and block out the sounds around him. Then suddenly somebody yanked hard on him—and on Julio—to pull them back down onto the balcony, off the ledge. Angel fell awkwardly, banging his elbow. The pain brought him back to the present, where a furious-looking Jaime was standing over them and yelling at them for being stupid assholes and almost falling over the edge...

For some reason, Angel laughed.

Ah. Julio's arms immediately wrapped safely around Angel, thankful for how tightly Angel clung to him. He turned his head into him, breathing him in, lips gently brushing his temple, the tip of his ear. He wished again he could speak but nothing could slip past his lips. All he could do was hold him close and keep him there. Relief had just washed over him when fear jolted unpleasantly through him as they were both jerked away from the ledge.

His heart thudded so hard that he felt its pounding in his ears. Stubbornly, he held onto Angel, half afraid he was going to be shaken from his grasp and fall back and down, down, down... Inside, he shivered. His heart shivered at the idea.

Even as they were on the ground together, his heart still beat hard, his arms still held Angel. Slowly, he looked up at one of the party guys and his eyes narrowed. But Angel laughed. Startled, Julio looked over at him. Why was he laughing?

"You could have died you sons of bitches!" Jaime shouted furiously, and he actually looked scared. For once he wasn't glib or flippant. For once he seemed almost human. And Angel laughing didn't make him more inclined to calm down because he looked like he might murder them both.

It was just

He thought they were there by accident. That they didn't know they were on a ledge, about to take the fatal plunge over...? He was so stupid to think that. Angel was going to throw himself off, and here was Jaime thinking they were... what? Fooling around? He was so stupid. Angel stopped laughing finally—it was actually not an amused laugh. It was the delirious laugh of someone driven to the brink of madness.

He clung to Julio again and went silent as Jaime shooed the other party-goers away, telling them everything was fine. Angel closed his eyes and breathed in an unfamiliar scent—the outfit Julio had on—and then a familiar one when his head shifted. Julio's skin. Warmth. "Julio," he said quietly as his breathing finally began to calm. "You're here."

People were leaving. Good. It left the balcony quieter. And Angel stopped with that scary laughter, as if he were about to go mad. Something had snapped inside of him. Something... familiar. Julio sensed it but he didn't want to speculate or ruminate over it unless it was real and true. But he thought it was and it weighed heavy on his heart.

Julio cradled the back of Angel's head, fingertips in his hair, stroking him. Yes, he was here. He didn't know why he had come, not at first. But now it seemed like it was imperative that he be here. If not... He didn't know what would have happened to Angel. Maybe that Rey person would have helped him off the ledge. Maybe not. Maybe that Jaime person would have been too late. Julio's heart didn't want to dwell on those maybes.

Now he felt ashamed for thinking that Angel could possibly have called together strippers for a private show, after knowing what he knew about Julio. It wasn't Angel who put this together. Deep down, he thought he knew that but he was glad still that he had come. He had to make sure. He had to see Angel, to see what it was that he was doing.

For a long moment, he just held Angel and then he slid his hand over Angel's and signed, I'm sorry against his hand, using Angel's hand as the lower hand for the sign.

Angel let himself be held. A step back from the ledge. Then another. The urge to fly faded with each stroke of Julio's hand against his hair and his heart rate calmed as the noise faded back into his apartment suite. Everyone wanted to watch the strippers; nobody wanted to stand around to look at two people laying on the balcony. There were a few people splashing around in the pool and laughing but they sounded far away to Angel.

Finally he looked up when Julio signed against his hand. It took him a brief moment to realize what it meant, then he shook his head bemusedly. "For what?" Angel shifted his weight; he didn't know if he was making Julio uncomfortable, laying on him like that. But he didn't go far and he held on to Julio still very tightly. If he lost his grasp... he might go back over.

"I thought you stopped doing shows," he said softly, searching Julio's gaze for answers. There had to be an explanation that made sense. Julio didn't lie to him, did he? He couldn't, not if the story he told was true—and not merely a story.

"I did," he signed. He hadn't done a private show since the incident he confided to Angel. Even the time he had come out to see Angel didn't count because he hadn't done a show; he had come to see Angel. If it hadn't been him... There was no way he could have gone through with it. He couldn't; he didn't have it in him to do that anymore.

Then he realized that his showing up with the others... did it hurt Angel to see him amongst them? To think he lied about how he didn't do private shows anymore? The way he looked into his eyes, as if pleading for an answer... Julio slowly sat up, eyes still on Angel. It seemed like they had both been hurt by this party.

"I declined until Sean told me it was at your address." He hesitated, glancing at the party within. From here, he could still hear the familiar beat of the music. Sean was probably annoyed as hell with him. But he wouldn't take any payment for this job; he had never intended to actually go through with it, anyway.

"I needed to see you."

Angel sat up too, rubbing his elbow and watching Julio keenly as he tried to explain himself. "This isn't my party..." He glanced back inside; Jaime was nowhere in sight. "It's Jaime's. The one who pulled us down. He's an old high school classmate and he came from Spain, I didn't want to tell him to go stay somewhere else. But I didn't know he called the club. And he... it's hard to say no to him. He doesn't listen..."

Well, it was a long story but the point was, this wasn't Angel's party. He would never do something like this, trash his apartment and then order strippers on top of it, one of whom was Julio. Of all people, Julio. Angel sighed and turned back.

"Did you think I made the request?" Scooting closer he took Julio's hand, as it was a rhetorical question. Clearly Julio thought he did—it was his address. He didn't know what name Jaime gave them but it didn't look good either way. "I wouldn't do that to you, Julio. Why didn't you text me? I would have told you..."

No, this wasn't his party. He could see that plainly now. He had seen it when they arrived and he caught sight of Angel, clearly not enjoying himself. And... and Julio felt like an ass for assuming that it was ever his party. Angel would never do that to him. He knew that. He just... He looked down, feeling ashamed. He stared at their hands, at Angel's hand in his as he turned his into Angel's to thread their fingers.

He used his free hand to pull out his phone to text out, I had to see you in person. But I did text you when I got here. You didn't answer.

Now he thought it was because Angel must not have heard it over how loud everything was. That and maybe he just didn't have it on him. Julio took in a breath and he let it out slowly, the adrenaline that had been pumping through his veins still making him feel jittery.

He didn't know how to say it with just signs and text, that it wasn't as easy for him to express himself through just words in a text alone. He needed to see Angel, to see his face, to be able to show his face. There was so much of his communication that came through facial expressions and gestures outside of signing that it felt like a part of him wasn't coming through accurately.

Angel nodded his understanding, not very good at expressing himself either in so many words. Funny... kind of, that he had all the words in the world at his disposal and couldn't use them. Meanwhile, poor Julio was restricted to texting—also, all the words in the world—and still, somehow, they didn't quite get there.

"I don't have my phone on me." Now it was Angel's turn to be shame-faced. He probably left it in his bedroom. In the rush of the party and just... hating how loud everything was, how confusing—how triggering—the last thing on his mind was his phone. But he ought to have had it, just so he could text Julio. He really thought about it, and he wanted to, but that thought was chased out of his mind by his own nerves and anxiety every time it surfaced.

"I want to get out of here, Julio." Angel didn't look at the balcony again. He fixed his eyes on Julio instead, shifting even closer to him and gripping his hand tight. "I want to go back to your place. Can we please?" He liked it there last time. It wasn't like his apartment, sterile and cold and white. It was lived-in, everything there screamed Julio and it had memories of one of the best nights of his life—movies, Steven Seagull, making dinner together.

He didn't even hesitate. He nodded and signed yes at the same time. All he wanted to do was get away from this place, with Angel and he was more than a little relieved that they were on the same page. With a small smile he gently touched Angel's face again, meant to be reassuring. Some part of him had an inkling now what Angel wanted to speak to him about and he wished that they didn't share a similar kind of trauma. And at the same time, he understood now why Angel was understanding.

No. He shouldn't assume. But at the very least, parties like this weren't good for him. Not for Angel. Not for Julio, either. Using the hand that gripped his so tightly, with their fingers wound and twined together like a knot, he got up and tugged Angel up with him.

"Let's go," he signed.

Nobody really seemed to notice them leaving, which was a good thing for Angel—his head was still spinning from what happened. What almost happened. One of the other strippers did try briefly to stop Julio before they got out the door, but he stopped once he noticed them holding hands. A kind of knowing smile crept over his lips; he patted Julio on the back and then turned away into a group of women clustered nearby.

Angel didn't really have many words left in him and trying to think of things to say was exhausting, so he let the silence dominate. Down the elevator, out into the glitzy, glamorous lobby, then outside into cold air. His shoes scuffed the pavement that his body would have splattered onto had he leapt and even in that moment, he still thought about it. Flying.

He was about to call a cab when he realized that he didn't have his phone on him, and finally broke his silence. "Can you get a cab, Julio? I don't have my phone. I can pay for it."

Ah. Fresh air. It was quieter down here, out here. The tension hadn't yet left Julio's muscles but he did relax at least slightly. He nodded at Angel and used an app for impaired people to call them a cab. The world they lived in at least was much friendlier to people like himself, especially with all these advancements in technology.

Afterward, there was silence. Taking Angel's hand, he walked slowly over toward one of the benches outside. If that was all they ever did, he thought it would be fine. They could just... sit together like this, hand in hand forever. He turned his gaze toward Angel and half smiled at him. Then he looked downward as he typed furiously.

I wanted out, too. I don't like these things. I can handle it at the club just fine, when it's us guys on a stage. But when the people have access to us, it really gets to me.

It was a lot colder out here without a jacket; upstairs with so many bodies crowding around it had been stifling, which didn't help his anxiety one little bit. Angel huddled on the bench beside Julio, glad for his warmth. But only on one side. The other side just had to freeze, there was nothing to be done about it.

Angel watched him typing away, studying his face by the light of the screen. He felt as if he hadn't seen Julio for weeks, but it had been days. Mere days. They talked all the time; in the morning as soon as he woke up he would check his phone. Out of the shower, the first thing he reached for was his phone. Every time the screen lit up with a message, his eyes lit up too and he would smile to himself. At night laying in bed, he would try to stay up as late as he could, catching messages between shows. Julio still had to work, after all. But more often than not he fell asleep clutching his phone, usually mid-message.

And he couldn't get Julio out of his head. Not only in thought, but his image, his profile, his smile and laugh. His eyes. His light. Where once Angel's sketchbooks were filled with Logan, now it was all Julio. He painted him and sketched him and sculpted him. There were a lot of half-finished busts that he kept hidden, not knowing if Julio would think it creepy that he was forming him out of clay. None of the pictures completely captured the real Julio though. There was a good likeness but his light couldn't be so easily portrayed.

"I'm sorry you had to come here." Angel slid a hand over Julio's, head on his shoulder and eyes on the screen. "I'm sorry. Next time don't come, even if it's my address. Especially if it's my address." He felt like Julio had been tricked—someone used his address and Julio had to come see what was going on. Jaime didn't do it to lure him out but it still felt horrible to know that he had exposed Julio to something like this.

Despite himself, Julio couldn't help smiling softly at Angel at his words. Apparently, he wasn't aware of how Julio was beginning to feel. There was no way that he would see Angel's address on something like that and not show up. Whether it was bad or good, he had to know. There wasn't an ounce of regret in showing up, either, because if he hadn't... if he hadn't... what would have happened to Angel?

Slowly, he typed, trying to take care with his words before he showed the phone's screen to Angel.

I'll always come when it's your address. And I'm not sorry I was here. Because if he wasn't, all he could imagine was somebody literally driving Angel off the edge of the building. The thought alone brought with it a heavy feeling in his chest, a fear that if he had stayed home and found out later that Angel had killed himself...

Hesitating, he added with trepidation, I like you a lot, Angel. And I don't know what I would do if I didn't come and something happened to you. I want you to know, whenever, you can contact me and you can come to my place any time you want. I'll give you a key. Okay?

There it was again, muddying the waters of their strange relationship: I like you, Angel. What did they have? Friendship? Acquaintanceship? Angel didn't have a name for what they were except maybe involved. They were involved with each other; Julio was involved in his life, weaving himself into every moment of Angel's day.

He kept his gaze on the screen, re-reading the words. Julio being here was a godsend because Angel would have jumped had it not been for him. But having him here and forcing him to play superhero, just like last time, didn't sit well with Angel at all. Julio was already a hero—the foes he battled were inner demons. And he won. That was what made him a hero in Angel's eyes.

But what did he say? To the fact that Julio liked him? To his insistence on being here for Angel, who only seemed to get himself into situations where he needed saving? He didn't want that—for himself or for Julio. He wanted to be strong, too, but he didn't quite know where to start.

Slowly, he nodded, encompassing everything in the motion. Maybe it started with being honest, like Julio had been with him about the private shows and about them making him uncomfortable. Angel took a deep breath and turned into him, feeling the chill all over just at the thought of revisiting what happened to him all those years ago. Not yet. Not out here, exposed, in the open. Luckily the cab rolled up and beeped at them and he looked up quickly at the sound.

"Let's go." He held Julio's hand tight as he stood and waved to let the taxi driver know they were here.

As they got into the back of the cab, Julio wondered how well his words came off. The way Angel had gone so silent on him worried him. But he didn't get up and walk away. Maybe because he felt he had little choice? It was either go with Julio or go back home, where that party was taking place... and it could trigger another violently mindless action like the one before. Julio had felt the fear in such a wild, animalistic way himself, although he hadn't ever nearly thrown himself off a very high building.

But he understood, at the very least. So he hoped that Angel knew that he could trust him. Julio had no ulterior motives; he was just... he wasn't sure what he was doing. Following his instincts. Being there for somebody in a similar bad situation that he had been in before. Angel could use the support and Julio could, too. It wasn't even that he didn't have friends in the others... it was just they weren't...

He didn't have words for it. The feeling inside. Even with just the knowledge he had of Angel, he still felt like he had known him for much longer than he really had. He trusted him enough with information he never shared with anybody else.

In the cab, he sat close but not too close. He didn't touch Angel, either, sensing that it was best to let Angel show him when it was okay.

After a moment, with streetlights passing by and the lullaby of the car's quiet engine, Julio opened up his gallery on his phone and scrolled to a picture he'd taken, meaning to send it to Angel earlier but... also feeling awkward as hell about it. He had drawn and redrawn it, his version of Angel the hero. In his mind, they were rather partners than hero and sidekick, though. Shyly, he set the phone down in Angel's lap.

Angel didn't know what to say to anything Julio typed out. There was so much pressure to say something—because he could, because he had the words inside but the problem was, they wouldn't come out. It wasn't the right place, outside in the blustery streets with so much noise wrapping around him. He found it hard to focus on any one thing, much less his own chaotic thoughts at the moment.

Once he stepped into the taxi it was better, but he didn't feel completely safe. Yet. Julio sitting beside him was already a great sense of relief, though they didn't touch. Angel glanced at him briefly when the cab rolled off, back to Hazleton and back to Julio's apartment. Unexpectedly in the town where he was attacked, a safe haven opened up. Kind of ironic, though—in the place he felt the least safe, he found refuge as well.

Angel didn't say anything and he kept his eyes on the window, idly watching scenery flashing past, until something landed in his lap. He picked it up and was briefly confused but that was him all right. Blue hair, blue eyes, dressed like a superhero. And again it was rough in the way that amateur art tended to be, but there was still something intriguing in it that transcended the sketchy lines. There was... emotion behind it. A strong emotion.

"Is this me?" He asked, slowly beginning to smile as he looked up at Julio. Then he looked back at the drawing again and gently ran a thumb over it, taking it all in, in its entirety. The figure in the drawing had much more strength than he felt he had in that moment. It was someone he hoped to be, though. Julio somehow had seen straight through into his heart, into his deepest desires, as if he had a direct line to Angel's thoughts.

He'd said too much; it was too much and he had overwhelmed poor Angel into silence. Julio shouldn't have told him he'd give him a key so he could come anytime. That was awfully bold of him to even presume that Angel wanted it. And... and saying he liked him... was that too much? It was all too much. He could tell.

So he left out the words. A picture was supposed to be worth a thousand, right? But it was embarrassing. So many attempts to get it right and even this one made him feel an abashed heat up his neck and his ears. Showing a real artist his amateur attempts was... well, unnerving. Would he like it? Or think it was bad? Or even worse... presumptuous? Julio was really starting to second guess himself now.

The fact that Angel asked if it was him only made Julio heat up all the more. He nodded. Was it so bad that it didn't bear a likeness to him? But he'd painstakingly taken care with his features as he saw them. But no, he seemed more... confused than anything. It was hard to really read his expression in the darkness, but in the flash of lights as they passed streetlamps, he thought Angel's eyes looked soft.

He knew it was him but he didn't know why he asked. Why he doubted Julio's sincerity, his feelings. There were feelings; Julio was baring his own heart to Angel, he could tell. How could he miss it? The signs were there and Julio even put it into words, black and white and plain as day. No one would come this far for him, offer to give him a key, tell him that they would always come for him, solely out of friendship.

But again, there was pressure to reciprocate and Angel wasn't ready for it. Julio wasn't pushing for anything, he knew that, but still, the knowledge weighed on him. It was just a picture though. It wasn't a marriage proposal or anything. It said a lot about Julio's sensitivity, really, and about his bravery. Putting himself out there, showing him this, it couldn't have been easy. Angel didn't show him any of the sketches or paintings or sculptures he did, after all—he wasn't brave.

The more he looked at it, the heavier his heart felt. There was joy and happiness mixed in with his pain and sadness. Angel's eyes were misty as he sat there taking it all in, not only the picture but Julio's feelings too, his heroic effort, his kindness and his heart. "I love it." He didn't just like it. Like wasn't a strong enough word for how he felt about it, and how much he needed something like this to take away that horrible voice inside, at the back of his mind, telling him to fly. To jump.

Angel didn't let go of the phone as he turned and slid his arms around Julio's shoulders, hugging him tight. "I love it," he whispered into Julio's shoulder. "Thank you."

The more he watched Angel, the more he fretted. He hated it. He was trying to find words to gently put things right. Not just about the picture but everything. Why... why did he think it was a good idea to show him the picture? It was too much, too. All of it, too much. Right after all that overwhelming torture back at the party. Why didn't he think before he--

What? The sign was an automatic response rendered out of shock. He loved it? Angel didn't hate it? He loved it? Finally, he could breathe again and he smiled with relief. Good. He hadn't made things irreparably awkward between them. That was one of the last things he wanted. To be awkward when he felt so comfortable... to make Angel anything but comfortable, too.

He might have moved his hand to sign again--but it was useless in the dark, anyway--and besides that, Angel was suddenly embracing him. Hugging him. Julio blinked, then slowly--in case it was also too much--slid his arms gently around Angel. So then he liked it? Loved it, even? Julio briefly closed his eyes.

After their conversation about sidekicks and being useless and cowardly, Julio felt a deep need to change that. Angel, to him, was not useless or cowardly, nor was he weak. But Julio knew those feelings very well. He had grown up feeling that way. Useless and weak. Perhaps not cowardly. Julio still had a temper and when he was pushed hard enough, he pushed back. But he had dealt with the same issues of feeling like he wasn't enough.

He would probably never meet someone like Julio again. Somehow this level of understanding, their unexpected connection, happened like a miracle. At his lowest point Julio found him, picked him up, rescued him. And now he was saving Angel from his own tortured thoughts, the way superheroes did. They never did what they did to be praised or rewarded—not the good ones, anyway. The good ones saved people out of the kindness and goodness of their hearts. And Julio, his heart was kind and good.

Angel didn't say anything more, he didn't move. He just hugged Julio and let his thoughts wander away into the ether. It was nice to be held, not too tight, not too loosely. Julio had a knack for knowing what he needed to feel comfortable. Did he ever need someone to do this for him? Was that how he knew? Because Angel still felt jittery and skittish, buzzing from the nasty shock of the party, and silence, a soft touch, was helping him calm down. He didn't need someone asking him a million questions or pushing him for answers.

It wasn't until the cab slowed to a stop in front of Julio's apartment that Angel pulled back, realizing that he was still holding Julio's phone. He smiled at the picture again before handing the phone back. "I want the real thing," he said as he reached back into his pocket for his credit card, to pay the expectant driver. "It'll look nice beside the other one you drew."

There were no complaints from Julio. As long as Angel wanted to be held, Julio was content to do just that. Comfort came from being close to somebody, physically, emotionally, mentally. It was rare to connect on such a base level with somebody. Julio wasn't even sure he could say that he ever had in the past. Friends came and went through life, most the fair weather variety. As for lovers... It wasn't easy to find anybody who wanted more than sex when it came to Julio. His line of work didn't help his reputation and he knew that but it paid the bills.

And yet, he dreamed sometimes of doing something else with his life. He didn't see himself as the artist type like Angel. Sharing art with him was sort of their thing, that was what it had become, unbeknownst to him. An alternative way to connect and communicate in ways that were new and... oddly, more accurate than any hand sign or typed out word.

Julio sighed when they finally parted, not out of sorrow but just a feeling of letting go of that awful ball of tension that had settled in his stomach from the moment he learned of the job at Angel's address. Honestly, it had only grown worse during the ride there and his time there, especially when it culminated in that moment where he thought Angel was really going to do it. Fly. But the problem was, he could only fly temporarily and then he would be gone forever, before Julio ever had time to properly know him.

He smiled slightly when Angel moved back and looked down at the photo on Julio's phone. His smile when he looked down at his work. It made his heart do a little flip inside his chest. Taking his phone back, he glanced at it, wishing he could see it the way Angel did. But then... he thought maybe it was the same as people. When he looked in the mirror, he didn't see himself the way Angel might. He knew instinctively that what he saw in Angel was a far cry from whatever Angel saw when he looked at himself. Angel's self esteem was so low, somehow.

Nodding, he slid out of the car and stretched his arms over his head. The ride had been almost an hour long! Slipping his phone into his pocket, he traded it for his keys. Once Angel was done with the payment--Julio felt guilty for not contributing--he led Angel to the familiar building and his apartment. At least this time, it was under... well, less traumatizing reasons. Less. But they were still there, the points of trauma.

Inside, he set his keys and phone on the counter before turning toward Angel and signing hungry?

"...no... I'm not hungry."

Angel stood slightly inside the doorway for a minute hugging himself before he worked up enough courage to fully enter the apartment. The setting was familiar—even if he'd only been here once—because Julio was here and his presence was soothing, but being back in Hazleton again brought with it a prickle of discomfort. He was running out of places to run to; Portland wasn't safe and Hazleton had traumatic memories of its own.

But Julio... He was a comfort. Angel made a beeline for him and hugged Julio tightly. He buried his face into Julio's shoulder for a moment and closed his eyes. Silence. Except for street noises and the hum of appliances, there was finally blessed silence.

"Can we go to bed? Please?" He just wanted to curl up somewhere warm and feel safe, to shed that jittery sensation that had taken over and refused to let go.

He seemed so small in the doorway. It didn't matter if he was physically tall; there was something small about Angel. Like he was trying to be small, to be left unnoticed. So strange, when he had that bright blue hair and he dressed the way he did. But Julio understood. The desire to be noticed but also to be left alone. Waiting for the right person to see him. Not the thugs, not the friends that used him.

Slowly, Julio nodded, although he didn't immediately move. Angel really seemed to need a hug. A thousand hugs. A million. Julio understood that, too. Sometimes, it was all a person really wanted and it was the one thing they couldn't have.

Julio gently slid a hand over Angel's, taking it in his before he moved down the hall to the bedroom. Shoes came off and he switched on the small side table lamp, rather than the overhead light. He didn't know about Angel but he didn't want the light to flood over them but he also didn't want to be left in the total darkness, either.

He pointed to top of his bureau where a small scattered stack of images were. The picture was on top of a few half-finished sketches he had given up on. Dropping onto his bed, he rolled over onto the other side to give Angel ample space.

Shoes, coat, wallet, keys—things that weren't important left a trail from the living room to the bedroom. It wasn't a long walk because Julio's apartment was so much smaller than his own, but he was glad for that. He didn't have to feel like he needed to run a half-marathon just to get from the kitchen to the bed.

Inside the bedroom again he paused at the door, swallowing hard. Angel was guarded; he knew it must have shown on his face and he couldn't help it. This wasn't his bedroom. Everything was in a different place and the newness and strangeness of his surroundings made his anxiety ramp up. Eventually, though, curiosity took over—after Julio pointed out the stack of papers. Drawings.

He ventured inside and took the topmost drawing, the one Julio showed him earlier on his phone. Angel couldn't help but smile. His drawing. There was something appealing in its roughness. There were others too, that he glanced through—some good, some... less so. Some mere outlines, others in advanced stages. One scratched out.

And all the time he looked through them he was aware that Julio was on the bed, waiting. The room was dimly lit—as though he knew that Angel hated to be in the dark. He knew. Or he felt things. Julio was sensitive like that. Angel glanced over his shoulder at him for a long moment; there was a lot of room on the bed for him.

He walked over and slid onto the mattress, holding the drawing close. "...about what happened at the party..." It was kind of a relief to say the words, and it was terrifying. Though he asked to go to bed, he sat there at the edge of it, holding the drawing to his chest like a shield.

"I'm sorry. I must have scared you."

Julio sat up, one foot tucked beneath a knee, since it felt strange to be lying down while Angel was sitting up. He was suddenly self conscious; the last time that Angel stayed with him, he slept in the living room. If he slept at all. But this was the first time Angel had been in his room. It was small, hence why the bed was crushed against a wall. Since it was just him, the bed was mostly made, but the blankets were folded back where Angel was sitting, for quick sliding into bed most nights.

The bureau with the drawings set on it was an old one, with a couple of marks and scuffs on it. He bought it from a thrift store for a steal. On the side table next to the bed was the small lamp and a handful of items, a bottle of sleeping pills, a couple of library books, his phone charger, a handful of plain printer pages for drawing, along with some pencils.

For a beat, Julio considered shaking his head but after a moment, he nodded. Yes. Angel scared him. He looked up at him, waiting. It felt like Angel wanted to share with him. He said that he wanted to but maybe he was afraid. No, not afraid. Angel wouldn't be in his room with him right now if he was scared. But what he had to say was... unpleasant and sometimes, it was hard to share those things.

Angel was silent for far too long, holding the picture and staring off at the edge of the dresser. When he spoke, he spoke to the dresser and with his head turned. It had been years since he revisited those memories; honestly he wished he didn't have to but Julio deserved an explanation after saving his life. Twice.

He spoke haltingly, stopping and starting at odd moments. But once he started, it felt like he couldn't stop, as if he had been waiting all this time for this very moment, to be able to tell someone. "When I was fifteen, my family moved to Barcelona and my father enrolled me in a private school. The person who threw the party tonight is someone I knew from back then.

There was another party... back when I first joined the school. He invited me and I was curious about it, so I went. Alone. I didn't know anyone. There were a lot of older kids there. University students. One of them came up to talk to me and I thought...

He was nice. He had a nice smile. And he said all the right things and I don't know... I thought he liked me. I liked him. So when he suggested that we go upstairs, I... I thought maybe he just wanted to talk where it was quiet. But...

He said it was my fault. He said... I led him on. So I didn't tell anyone and... parties like that, with all the noise and the music, it all just... I only wanted to get away, Julio. I didn't mean to scare you but I couldn't stay there."

The silence gave way to a confession. A story. Angel's truth. Angel couldn't even look at him but Julio was watching him, although it hurt his heart to hear his truth. It was the same as his own and yet different. Statistically speaking, they were both abuse victims. But their stories were still their own and so personal.

Hearing it made Julio... angry, though. If he had been there...

But he wasn't. He didn't even know Angel then. But if he had...

After the words were out, the silence hung in the air, so heavy that it was nearly palpable. Julio agreed. Parties like that made him feel... unsafe as well. For a while afterward, Julio refused to even work anywhere other than the club itself. The club had bouncers and security measures in place for them. There were laws and cameras and a safety net. He still felt safe there.

But when it came to private parties, off the premises... It took a while for Julio to go back. And he most certainly never went alone. Except for Angel.

Taking in a breath, he gently reached out and touched Angel's cheek. Without a voice, Julio couldn't say anything. It was his way of gaining attention. Lowering his hand, he shook his head, then signed "I didn't want to stay either."

It stayed with him because he couldn't tell anyone about what happened. All the memories stayed with no outlet, no closure; he was trapped in his truth and bound by his shame to silence. If the kids at the school found out, he would have been bullied. He saw what they did, what people like Jaime and Jen did. To them, finding out a story like his would have been 'entertaining.'

And Angel might have learned how to fly far earlier than tonight if they had gotten wind of what happened at the party that night.

He sat in silence until Julio touched his cheek, and almost robotically turned to look at him. "You shouldn't have come. You don't even know me, Julio. Or anything about me. This." Angel lowered the picture into his lap and stared at it again. "This isn't me. You should never have gotten involved with me."

His gaze remained fixed on Angel until he caught the sight of the picture being lowered out of his peripheral vision. Then he was looking at the picture, the one that Angel insisted wasn't him. Julio's heart felt heavy. It felt a lot like a rejection, somehow. But it was a rejection of anything good that somebody might see in Angel, like he denied that he could ever be Julio had depicted him.

He wasn't wrong, though. Julio knew he wasn't wrong. Again he touched Angel's face. "It is," he signed. But the rest, it was too complicated for Angel's loose grasp on sign language. His hand went for his pocket instinctively, but no phone. And when he looked at the bureau, the side table, it wasn't there either. He'd left it out on the kitchen counter.

Taking the only thing he had left, he scooted closer so that he could take one of the library books, the paper, and a pencil. And he wrote, in slightly slanted, blocky letters.

I don't regret knowing you. What do you want me to know? How much does a person need to know about another person before they really know them? You can know somebody for many years and know nothing that matters. And you can know somebody for a day and know everything... that matters. Do you understand? You matter so I went. And if I didn't go, where would that leave you? And if you don't care about that, where would that leave me?

He could only shake his head in silence. Julio thought he knew him. He had an impression of him that translated into the heroic figure on paper but... that was it. An impression. Maybe a hopeful vision of what he thought Angel was capable of being, an equal and a partner.

Even while Julio was writing, Angel was looking at the picture. He wished this could be him. He wished that he could prove Julio right and make him proud, but it was just as he said: Julio didn't know him. And reading what he wrote affirmed that. Slowly Angel shook his head again, closing his eyes to block out the desperation he could almost see in the words and the writing itself. He didn't want to see it in Julio's eyes too.

"Did you know that my father is the Spanish ambassador, Julio? That our family is so rich, he bought his way into the government? If he knew we were even friends, he would have you removed before you could even blink. And."

Angel slipped a hand into his pants pocket, where he always kept a little container of assorted pills, mixed in together. "These. These are more dangerous than my father. I had myself tested... But I went too late. Years later, I went. And these are the reason you need to cut your losses while you can. Because you don't know me. Do you see? You don't know Julio... You don't know how much I... don't want to be..." Alive.

Then by your own words, I'm not a hero either. No Senor Milagros.

Is knowing who your father is and your diagnoses knowing you? Because I don't even know my own father. Does that mean I don't know myself? Does somebody who does known my father somehow known me more than you or me?

I am not a hero either Angel.

He emphatically shook his head and signed the word no. Then turned over his arm. In the soft light of the small lamp, it was barely even visible. But he made it visible by tracing the line of the old scar down his arm. Once it was a bleeding gash, down his entire innermost forearm. It bled fast underwater. In the bath. Five years ago now.

You know who found me? Not family. I don't have family anymore. Not friends. I had none. It was a boy. He helps the old landlady here. I forgot I even reported the leaky faucet with my last rent check. I figured nobody was going to fix it anyway. He is a hero. But if you tell him that then he won't believe you. And he won't accept it. But if he was not here then I would not be. And maybe you would not be. And somebody else would not be. 

The tell-tale line. The scar, shining dimly silver, skin slashed and healed over but--not quite right. Never quite the way it used to be, never able to be mended to blend in seamlessly with the rest of his skin. Angel's breath seemed to stop at the base of his throat, catching there with a small sound of pain.

He turned over his own arm too and pulled his sleeve up. He was so... ashamed of them. His own scars, there on the upper part of his wrist but also all along his inner forearm, up to the crook of his elbow. They were everywhere--on his other arm, on the insides of his thighs, places he could cover with clothing. Places he was terrified of people seeing, and yet desperate for someone to notice.

Angel dyed his hair bright blue and he lived in an ostentatious apartment and lived in luxury, as if those superficial things were what he wanted people to notice. But what he really wanted was someone he could show those scars to--someone who understood. And he knew Julio did, from the moment they locked eyes, but...

"There is no future for... us, Julio. I can't be like you. I don't know how to be... brave like you. If you let me go now, you can still find someone. Someone who deserves you."

Julio stared down at his own words, wondering how they couldn't be comprehended correctly. Balling it up, he tossed it toward the corner of the room. Not out of anger. It wasn't an angry movement, more like a resigned one. He couldn't feel more vulnerable and he still was being misunderstood. Was this because of the key thing? He wasn't asking Angel to move in, he was just giving him options for places to go, if he didn't want to be alone, if he was in town, if he needed a place to go or an ear to listen. It was just... disappointing that he wasn't being heard, too.

Slowly, he took a new sheet of paper.

I'm not holding you down or holding you back. I don't know what you mean by letting you go. I'm not asking for a future for us. Just one for you.

Angel flinched when the paper hit the floor with a tiny smack, not because the act was violent but because of the unexpectedness of it. The fact that Julio's frustration showed through in a physical act wasn't something he necessarily expected from someone who had only been gentle and careful with him.

"There is no future." He pushed the paper away, far away from himself as though the words themselves were poisoned. Julio meant well and Angel knew what he was saying. He did, the message wasn't lost but--Julio didn't know. Angel brought the pills up again to look at the tiny words on the label.

"These don't work, Julio. Nothing's been working. I told you... I got checked too late. The drugs don't work. So... there is no future. You see? Not for me, not for us as... friends or as anything. That's why you should just... let go. Stop coming for me. I know you want what's best for me but there's... nothing in this for either of us. I wish it wasn't like this but you'll just get hurt again. Over me. It's not worth it."

He tucked the pills back into his pocket with a slow, small smile. "You know they used to call me an alien back in high school, because I was weird. Maybe they were right. Maybe I'm just a visitor to this planet..."

Julio frowned as Angel pushed the paper away. Nothing he wrote worked. With his heart slowly sinking, Julio only folded the page over and slid it onto the table. Maybe Angel was right, then. They didn't know each other. Angel certainly didn't know him. Shutting everything down like this... It was like everything he wrote meant nothing. And what did he hope to gain from pushing Julio away? Julio thought they were kindred spirits but he wondered if he had it wrong.

Dropping his gaze, Julio couldn't even look at Angel. Choosing not to look at his words was like somebody talking over him. It was worse than that. It was like being erased. It hurt, even though he didn't want to show it. Why are you here? he wanted to ask. If there was no future and Angel wanted to hold onto his death wish so hard that he refused to even contemplate one... How was Julio even supposed to do anything about it? Julio didn't hold onto people, the way Angel was thinking he did. His arms were there when there was need but he didn't force himself on anybody, especially somebody who didn't want him in their life.

He slid out of the bed, past where Angel sat. And even though he knew Angel wouldn't understand half of the signs, he signed, "You don't get to choose what's worth my time. Just like I don't get to choose what's worth yours. I thought I was worth something to you but I think I was just an escape for you."

Even if Angel could read the signs, he certainly wouldn't catch most of them at the pace he was going, because he wasn't going slowly or patiently. Turning away, he pulled out some pajamas from the bureau and placed them on the bed next to Angel.

"Sleep," he signed. An easy sign to figure out without knowledge--a bent head over a palm to the cheek, the motion for sleep. He heard the alien comments but it was just--to him--a guilty non-sequitur to bury away the sting from his earlier words.

Was it worth it? To be happy for a brief while, and then... And then what? Angel had a year, maybe two. Three or four, to be optimistic. In the advanced stages of illness he would probably only end up being a burden to Julio and for what? A few months of happiness?

He had to weigh the pros and cons and the cons seemed so much heavier. Keeping himself far away from everyone was his way of protecting them, somehow. As though... if they no longer saw him in person, they could erase him from their lives. He wasn't trying to erase Julio—he was trying to get Julio to erase him.

Somehow, in some way, Julio managed to get through the barriers. Almost effortlessly, it seemed, he began to occupy Angel's thoughts. He became his muse. When they were together, Angel almost forgot his death sentence and he started to live again, but he could not in good conscience let Julio do this. Get close. And then lose him.

Better to never have him, right?

He watched the furious signing and while he didn't understand most of what was being conveyed, he understood the body language. The frustration. The hurt. A little hurt now, before they got too close, was better than a lot of hurt later. Angel never meant to do any of this—hurt him, make him run back and forth saving him. He lowered his head in silence; Julio didn't need to hear more from him. Anything he said, any well-intentioned warnings, only hurt him more.

When the clothes were set down, he took them. Sleep. That one was easy. Angel nodded and stood up with them in his arms, awkwardly lingering and wishing that he could make Julio see how futile it all was. He started to apologize, thought better of it and turned away to find the bathroom so that he could change into the clothes offered to him.

He left the bedroom and went to the kitchen, not even sure what he was doing anymore. Inside, he felt oddly hollow, which was the exact opposite of how he used to feel with Angel. Why did he go and share things with him that he never shared with other people? Why did he bother working so hard at a new language--art--just to communicate if he was going to be shut soundly out? That was what it felt like. Like the door had been shut directly in his face.

Mindlessly, he opened the fridge but he wasn't hungry or thirsty. He left the kitchen and sat on the couch. After a moment, he curled up on the couch and turned on the TV. Didn't matter what was on, just something to make noise in the background. All he had was basic cable anyway and he was too drained to get up and mess with the DVD player.

By the time he was out, Angel heard the television going in the living room. He loitered at the bathroom door, uncertain as to how the night would pan out now. Telling Julio everything opened up a world of hurt—for both of them. There was so much tension in the air, he could practically feel it.

Slowly, agonizingly slowly, he made his way out of the bathroom, clutching the clothes that Julio had given him, still wearing the ones he came in with. He didn't change. Inside the bathroom he sat on the toilet and buried his face in his hands and just... did nothing.

How could he stay, after he told Julio to keep away from him? After locking him out of his life—kicking him out, really—he couldn't make himself change into those clothes and then curl up in Julio's bed. Or even on the couch. He couldn't make himself stay just to hurt him more. Seeing Angel would be a constant reminder of the terrible way he rejected any overtures of friendship and help and comfort.

"I..." He held the clothes in his hands, feeling so stupid. So useless and nothing like the heroic figure Julio used to see him as. Right now he felt like nothing and if he felt like this, Julio probably felt so much worse. "I'm... I should go."

Julio looked up when Angel appeared at the edge of the living room. But he sat up when Angel talked about leaving. He shook his head. Was he crazy? It was dark out. It was late by now! This was the worst time to be out and about in this area, especially after what happened to Angel last time he hung around here alone like that.

"It's late," he signed. "At least stay until morning."

The awkwardness wasn't gone and maybe Julio was nursing a heart full of holes but that didn't mean he wanted something shitty to happen to Angel. Part of having a heart full of hurt was because he cared about him, even if he was disappointed.

Angel felt deeply uncomfortable—and deeply guilty. It didn't make him feel good in the least to hurt Julio and he didn't think he deserved to be here, even if Julio was still kind enough to let him stay until the morning. It was true that Angel didn't have anywhere to go. His apartment was taken over by the party; he didn't feel right staying with Julio after what just transpired.

"I can go to a motel."

He looked down at the clothes, which were soft and a little worn, but comfortable. It would have been nice to slip into them. They smelled like Julio—clean, masculine, a scent that was pleasant and natural. It would have been nice to curl up with him in bed and be held. Or maybe... even to hold him. In that moment Julio probably needed someone to comfort him, too.

"I should go," he repeated again, still contemplating the clothes. "I'll be okay. I can get a taxi." He had his wallet and money. For once, having money didn't seem like a bad thing.

Was there no way to fix what had been fractured? Julio didn't feel like anything had been broken yet but there were definitely little cracks in their relationship. It was barely even that--a relationship. A friendship. What was it, then? Julio had imagined that it was a friendship, a two way street. Now he felt like it was only going one way and he was confused on top of everything else. He  just... he didn't understand how Angel could openly need somebody the way he did in the cab. And then just... not.

He wanted to argue. But he also didn't want to keep overstepping his apparent new boundaries. There had always been boundaries and he was okay with that. Now the boundaries were much tighter than he remembered them being. Angel felt... held back by him. Angel was an adult, too. If he didn't want to stay, who was Julio to argue or insist? He already shared his misgivings.

So he just sat stiffly on the edge of the couch. He couldn't sign okay when he didn't think anything here was okay. Go seemed rude and abrupt. Eventually, he just nodded.

It happened again and again and again. Any time someone tried to get close to him, Angel shut them out before anything meaningful could develop. Before the friendship could evolve into a deeper connection, he backed out and turned away, scared of disappointment, of disappointing the other person. Scared of the ticking clock counting down the seconds remaining of his life.

But it never happened like this. He never hurt this badly before. He never... wanted someone like this before and all of it was proving to be too much. Angel was so overwhelmed, by the party, by his brush with death, by Julio's well-intentioned attempts to help him. That made it worse, somehow, that Julio wanted to help him so much. So badly.

Overwhelmed didn't even half cover how Angel felt right now. Overwhelmed and sorry and guilty, which made things that much worse. The emotions were running so high that he felt suffocated by them, and he was already high-strung to begin with.

He walked over to place the clothes down beside Julio, on the couch. Then he straightened and his hand, of its own accord, slid out. Paused. His fingers flexed for a second, a twitch forward then one back. He wished that he could make things better but how could he, when he was the problem? Angel's fingertips touched him, barely, somewhere between neck and shoulder. An awkward place.

He wanted to apologize but again, didn't. So he pulled his hand back and turned away, swallowing all of the useless words that were building up inside his heart.

Slowly, he looked up at him. Accepted his touch. But Angel didn't say anything. Julio didn't even know what he wanted to hear or if it would even make things better if he did hear what he wanted to hear. Not at the expense of somebody else. Never. Julio had never been that person, the one who just grabbed what he wanted when he wanted it. He was glad, now, that he wasn't. His impression of those type of people... weren't exactly cast in a positive light after what happened at that private party.

Nobody could understand the kind of feelings that came from something like that except somebody who had also gone through it. Empathy could only reach so far. Julio didn't understand, though, why Angel didn't want to connect. Even if there were terrible things in the past, those things didn't have to keep defining them.

And Julio didn't quite understand. He didn't understand the pills, what they were meant for, what it meant to be too late. It mattered a great deal to Angel, though. Swiftly, he got to his feet before Angel could get to the door and open it. His expression was pained. Don't go. But he didn't sign it. After a moment, he took Angel's hand and he placed his closed fist over his palm. Then he set a single key there.

Maybe it was the catalyst to all this, his offer. But he still had it. The key. And it was his. Angel could keep the door closed in his face if he wanted... but at least... he still had a choice in opening it back up again.

There was a moment during the evening when he could have saved it. When he could have made a choice, a conscious decision, not to reveal the whole truth, keeping that final secret close to his chest. Then maybe he could have carried on pretending that things weren't falling apart, and he wouldn't have scared himself with the truth.

The truth was that he was scared of happiness. He was scared to find it, to have it, to love and be loved and then to face the reality of his own mortality. He was scared that when the time came for him to leave this Earth, that he wouldn't want to. That it would be so unbearable in his final moments, fighting to keep living but still knowing that his body was incapable of accepting any type of medication needed to keep him alive. Angel wasn't brave; he didn't have that kind of fight in him.

So. It was better to not know anything than to know it all. Angel was sure this was the end, that Julio's nod meant he was giving up. Good. Right? But every step towards the door felt like the wrong direction and he almost didn't clear the doorway. Julio was stopping him anyway, and he turned out of surprise, hand taken, something cool and lightweight and small pressed into his palm.

He stared at it. The last gesture of goodwill. A final plea. He could come back at any time. The key... stupidly it felt like Julio was giving him the key to happiness. In that moment, that was what it represented to him. This place was a place of refuge, a place full of warmth and salvation. And he had the key to it.

"...thank you." Angel didn't know what to do with himself just then. He blanked and his arms were around Julio's shoulders, body pressed to his, cheek touching cheek. "Thank you." Even if he might never use it, he had it, and that in and of itself was a great comfort.

Despite himself, Julio was a little worried that it wouldn't go over well. The key that he promised Angel. He kept thinking it was the reason they were in this awkward mess now. That he had scared Angel by telling him he could come by any time, that he could have this key. It felt like things changed after that.

But he wasn't giving it to Angel in the traditional sense. It wasn't a free pass to come fuck any time or anything like that. It wasn't a sign that he wanted Angel to become a booty call or... for Julio to become one, either.

He hoped... that was evident.

Whatever Angel thought of it before, he seemed at first to be thanking him as a perfunctory courtesy. But then his arms were around Julio and Julio was confused. But he was relieved. And he was happy, a little. The key and the hug meant good things, right? That things weren't permanently done and over. Because before that moment, it felt like Angel was going to walk through that door and Julio would never see or hear from him again.

For the moment, he let Angel embrace him. He held him, too. Just so, the way he always did. Not too tightly. Not too lightly. Maybe it was enough, maybe it wasn't. He couldn't tell whether he was the rope tying Angel down or not but he hoped not.

The key was a sweet gesture but a part of Angel thought... maybe Julio still didn't understand. That maybe he was still trying to keep their relationship—such as it was—alive by giving him a pass back into his apartment. And while Angel was glad to have it, glad that the rifts created this evening weren't irreparable, he was sad, too.

Truly, he didn't wish any kind of unhappiness on Julio. He wished he was better, that he could be the kind of person he knew Julio deserved. Someone happy, someone to take away his pain rather than adding to it. But all Angel did was cause pain and that was why he needed to remove himself now, before it was too late.

All the same, being held by Julio warmed his heart. He pulled back afterwards with a little smile and put the key away, even though he knew he should set it down. Set it down and walk away. Conflicted as he always was between what his head and his heart wanted, he kept it and he made sure it was secure and wouldn't fall out of his pocket.

He left without saying anything more, closing the door lightly behind him. Outside it was cold and dark, and he realized... he didn't have a phone. It was back at his own apartment. Angel breathed out and looked back up towards the building. He could go back and ask Julio for his phone to call a cab but maybe he could walk. It wasn't ideal, though. He might get jumped again, but his head was buzzing with thoughts and a walk might help clear some of them. With another sigh, Angel headed off.

A car glided up to the curb and stopped, its headlights helping shine the way. Angel briefly, idly, glanced into through the window and thought he saw one of the strippers from the party behind the wheel, getting ready to cut the engine. Maybe a friend of Julio's, he thought; someone to keep him company perhaps? He walked off before the man could notice him, turning the corner and making sure to stay on the main street and out of alleyways.

He really hated this. He hated that Angel left. For a long moment, he waited by the door, half waiting for Angel to change his mind and come back. Did he even call that cab? Was he waiting outside for it? Maybe he should go and wait with him. Or was that too close to these weird new boundaries? There was no way of knowing without doing. So he went to the door and he opened it--only to find himself standing face to face with Sean.

Julio blinked in surprise. And then he looked past Sean. No sign of Angel. Maybe he called the cab when he was in the bathroom. But he felt like he was missing something important. Something he should have known but was escaping him for whatever reason.

Stepping back to give Sean room to enter his apartment, he snuck another look out and down the street and up it, too, but nothing. He would have to text-- His eyes widened. Angel didn't have a phone. He used Julio's phone to get here! Moving past Sean, he looked around wildly but he couldn't shout. He turned back to Sean and signed, "Shout Angel!" three times in succession, rattled.

Sean had Julio's bag with his costumes in one hand and in the other a six-pack of beer. He left the party early once he saw that the other guys had it under control, and... he was sorta worried about Julio after he heard what happened out on the balcony. At the time Sean was dancing but later, as he mingled, he heard bits and pieces.

Logan had a private show, so he had to stay but Sean left as soon as he could to check up on his buddy. When the door opened, he expected Julio. He didn't expect Julio to look all down, like somebody had just told him Christmas was cancelled. "Hey bro!" Sean said brightly, stepping in and dropping the bag at the door. "Got your kit. And—this! Thought—"

Annnnd Julio was pushing past him, wild-eyed and frantic. "What?" Sean looked around with him but there was nobody around. "Angel?" Okay... "ANGEL! You religious all of a sudden? What's this about man?"

Nothing. Julio listened keenly but there was no response to Sean's shouting. Inside, his heart kept plummeting. It was probably fine. But it probably wasn't. Although Angel left on a nice note--with an embrace--Julio couldn't help thinking that nothing was fine. And Angel was alone, with all these thoughts and bad feelings...

With a weary exhalation, Julio moved back into the apartment with that heavy feeling still weighing on him.

"My friend was here and he said he called a cab but he didn't have a phone," he signed, frowning. "Last time he was here, he was beaten."

"Blue haired dude? I thought I saw somebody coming out of your apartment just now." Sean reached into his back pocket for his car keys. Muscle car, of course. For a muscley kinda guy--definitely not compensating for anything though!

"C'mon. He couldn't have gone far right?" Obviously Julio was worried and on edge. A new for him, actually, since normally he wasn't this... agitated? Sean didn't know the whole story but if Julio was this unsettled then the guy must've meant something to him.

They'd get around faster on wheels than on foot and the guy didn't look like he'd be able to run far--or fast. "That the guy you left the party with?" he asked with a knowing little half-grin as he set off for the car.

Oh! It wasn't too late? Julio nodded--yes, the blue haired... dude. That was Angel. It couldn't be anybody else, coming from his place. And Sean saw him coming up so he couldn't have gone far. (Not to mention he hadn't left that long ago. Surely they could catch up to him!)

He nodded again as he grabbed his own keys and his phone from the counter, slipped a pair of shoes on and followed Sean hurriedly to his car. Julio didn't know how much Sean knew, if he'd heard about the mishap at the party. And it didn't seem right to divulge any of Angel's personal information so he couldn't express why he was so worried. So he doubled down on the thugs.

"There's a group of guys around here that beat on anybody they think is queer. If they see him..."

"Shit. What? Those assholes? They keep hanging around the club, don't they?" Sean slid into the driver's seat and started up the car, which purred to life like a contented tiger. "The guys were saying some poor kid got kicked around by them a couple weeks ago but... I didn't know it was your friend."

In a small town it was easy to guess who the culprits were though. Sean knew they were a bunch of young ranch hands who thought they were 'the shit,' as they said. But he didn't know them personally. People didn't look at him and think: easy target so he was never jumped.

Or he hadn't been jumped yet.

"I'll drive slow, keep your eyes out for him. Can't really miss that blue hair huh?" Sean glanced over as the car rolled down the street. "He seemed kinda. Off. No offense. But at the party they were saying he tried to jump off the balcony... How'd you get tangled up with a kid like that?"

Again, Julio nodded. Those were the ones. They mostly left him alone and he doubted Sean or Logan or the others had issues, either. Why they hung around a place that was made up of mostly women when they wanted to beat on queer folk, he didn't know. Maybe it was a ploy to prey on the women, too. Just in a different way. The thought of it utterly disgusted Julio.

Sean didn't even have to tell Julio to look because he was looking everywhere, half afraid he was going to find Angel beaten in an alley again. And again, Julio didn't want to share his or Angel's secrets with Sean. They were friends, but they weren't that close. Not close enough for Julio to have told him anything about his past or his problems. Maybe he was like Angel. Pushing away people who only meant well.

He shrugged. The how of it didn't really matter, did it? The two of them weren't so different. Sean thought Angel was off because he met him in a sad state. If he met Julio in his worst moments, he would say the same about him.

"He's not much of a partier."

The strong silent type, that was what most people thought of Julio. It wasn't that he couldn't express himself though—he didn't seem to want to say much. Some might have called him aloof or distant but Sean sorta suspected that he had trust issues. Maybe he'd been burned in the past; Sean knew better than to pry though. He found that when people wanted to talk, they didn't need to be encouraged.

"Huh. So he was gonna take the express route?" I.e. swan dive off the balcony? That didn't seem like a normal reaction to not liking parties. Sean glanced at Julio, noting that he was only answering one out of every three or four questions. Most would have launched into an explanation by now—not so Mister Strong and Silent.

"Is Angel his real name?"

No answer to that one. It wasn't his story to tell. He hadn't even told Sean his own story. If pressed as to why, he didn't really know what made the difference. Sean had been in his life longer than Angel had been. For all he knew, Angel was... he didn't even know. Honestly, he couldn't lump Angel into something negative like a gang or organized crime. He was rich enough to be connected to shit like that but even if he was, Angel himself was, well, an angel.

Glancing over at Sean, he realized that when he'd signed Angel's name, he'd used the term angel. It was a common name where he came from but Sean might not know that. Maybe he just thought Julio was crazy in love. He swallowed hard. Maybe he was.

No, no. It was nothing like that. Quickly, he turned his attention outside, as if staring hard enough in any spot would make Angel appear. A scan of the area still hadn't turned him up yet, though. Did he not go this way? But the motel was this way. So was the bus stop, they'd already passed the bus stop, which was within quick walking distance of Julio's apartment building.

"Yes," he finally signed. His name really was Angel.

"Really?" Angel? The kid had that skittish air about him. Even from a cursory glance Sean had noticed it. He knew people like that, ones who went through life like a shadow. They didn't want to be seen or heard but they all had a story, something that made them that way. It wasn't normal, he didn't think, to be that way; nobody was born looking to dive off a balcony at a party.

"He's cute." He paused. "No homo." Habit. Kind of a dumb joke between him and Logan and it slipped out. Sean grinned at Julio. "No but seriously, he seems like he's got a lot of baggage. Sure you want that in your life right now?"

If he considered himself Julio's friend—and he did—then he had to bring it up, right? Sean wasn't saying Angel was a bad person or anything, but that balcony stunt... It brought up so many red flags. And he felt like he needed to at least say something, before Julio got pulled down with someone he might not be able to save. Some people weren't looking for help, even if they needed it; Angel might even resent him in the end.

He looked over at Sean. Yes, really. What? Did he not believe him? Did he think it was some affectionate nickname? That would be like asking Sean to yell baby down the street. Of course it was his name.

Frowning, Julio crossed his arms. Again with this. Sean might be grinning and joking but seriously remark was jabbing him in an already sore spot. Why did everybody think he was so incapable of making decisions for himself about the people he wanted in his life? What about him made him seem incapable of handling 'baggage'?

"Stop the car," he signed. Now he really was getting angry.

Even without the name—and it did sound like a cutesy nickname, Sean wouldn't lie—he could see how serious Julio was about Angel. In all the time that Sean had known him, he'd never seen Julio get this worked up. Well... maybe after that one private show. The one that caused Julio to stop doing private gigs altogether.

But that look on his face earlier when he frantically told Sean to yell Angel's name down the street... And this look now, stubborn and upset—and Sean wasn't even telling him not to be friends (or more) with the guy! It was that visceral response to someone saying something about his 'Angel' that kinda gave him away.

Sean blinked though, as he signed to stop the car. "Uhh. You gonna try to find him on foot? In the dark, at night? C'mon man, let me help. I'm your buddy right? I gotta look out for you. Let's go down some smaller streets, at least circle around. Then if you want to get out, I'll drop you off."

With his arms still crossed, he stared out of the car window, but he nodded. Fine. Let Sean help since he was offering but he needed to lay off the same shit that he was getting from Angel. Why did everybody else feel the need to interject their doubts about him anyway? What was it about Julio that apparently seemed so unreliable or fragile that he couldn't handle somebody with big problems?

Angel really couldn't have gone that far, but it felt like wherever he'd gone, he was now hiding. Did he realize Julio would remember the lack of a phone and grow concerned enough to go out looking for him? Did he purposely go in a direction that would make finding him all that harder? Or had he taken a wrong turn? Was he lost? Did somebody hurt him--again? Or did Angel do something... to himself?

He wasn't in a good place. Mentally. Emotionally. Julio could have kicked himself for not being more adamant about having him stay. Fuck.

Yeeaahhh... yikes. Sean knew when to shut up—this right here was the time to shut up. He could see that the walls were up and Julio was being defensive, even if he didn't sign anything. The crossed arms? Totally defensive.

Well, he didn't have to explain himself or anything. Sean got it. Sometimes the heart overrode the head and there was nothing to be done about it. He was worried, though; this kid was kind of messing Julio up. Before this, Julio was doing okay. Stable job, his own place, he was paying off his debts all right. Relationships didn't seem to come easily to him but—did it ever for them? In their line of work?

Sean kept his eyes on the road, driving several times around the area. "Shit, where'd he go? I can't imagine he'd have gone far on foot." He cruised by the motel again, the nearest one to Julio's place. "You think maybe he got a cab and went back to Portland?" Taxis did drive around looking for customers too, maybe Angel lucked out and found one.

"I don't think we're gonna find him though. I mean we've been all over town, pretty much. What do you want to do now? Keep searching or go back to your place?"

It felt like hours and miles but it wasn't. Sean was right; they'd looked everywhere and more than once now. Wherever Angel got off to, he wasn't going to be found. His heart hurt as it slowly plummeted down, down, down. Feeling sick to his stomach, he finally shrugged. He had no idea what Angel had done. So this was it, then? He didn't know him.

"Home," he signed.

What else could he do? They weren't even accomplishing anything by doing this. And Angel left for a reason. He wasn't comfortable with Julio. Why did he do what he did, though? He was so hard to work with. One minute he wanted to be close, to be comforted. He took long drives to come home with him and then shortly afterward, left. Just left.

Maybe everybody was right. Maybe he wasn't equipped to handle him.

"All right, let's go home."

It was a shame that they couldn't find Angel but what else could they do at this point? Sean still took the long way home though, in case they just missed the guy, but still nothing. There were barely any people out in the streets at this hour and the ones who were out were drunk or homeless—nothing like that blue-haired guy he saw earlier.

Once the car pulled up to the curb at Greenwood, Sean cut the engine. "C'mon bud. Let's just get inside, crack open a few beers and try to relax. I'm sure tomorrow he'll call you, let you know he's okay. He probably found a cab on his own and went home."

Yeah, yeah... Get inside. Forget everything that happened tonight. He could use a mind wipe. The entire night felt like a sickening rollercoaster ride; the kind that ended in dropping to his knees afterward, and not the kind where he grinned ecstatically with adrenaline pumping through his body.

He nodded glumly and opened the car door, stepping out slowly. Julio still couldn't quite understand where things went wrong and what he could have done differently. But he felt... quite acutely, that it was him that broke things, somehow. He wished... he wished he had just held Angel. None of the rest of it. Just... held him.

Instead, he let himself get upset. He knew rationally part of it was the agitation from the party. But it was also the insult of not knowing Angel and the feeling deep down that maybe he was right. Slipping his keys out of his pocket, he unlocked the door and pushed it open to let Sean in first.

Drinks it was.

"Thanks bud." Sean patted him consolingly on the back as he entered the apartment and picked up the beer he left hastily at the door, in their rush to find Julio's Angel. It was just too bad that they didn't get to him in time and he felt bad for his friend. But... maybe it was for the best this way. Maybe Julio needed some time to think, and come to realize that he didn't need this kind of drama in his life.

He plopped down onto the couch and cracked open a beer straight away. One for him, one for Julio. Sipping it, Sean studied him for a long moment, with a lot to say but knowing that he shouldn't speak his mind on any of it.

"You wanna hear a funny story?" he said instead, patting the space beside him. "Some dude was gonna pay me 2k to have sex with him." Sean threw back his head and laughed. "I didn't know I was worth that much!"

Julio took a beer too, although he looked down at it without yet drinking from it. Obviously, he knew he could trust a beer given to him by a friend. It had nothing to do with that. He just... His mind was still stuck on Angel's face. The warmth of his body when he hugged him. Flaring his nostrils, he lifted the can to his lips.

After gulping down probably half the can in one go, he finally lowered it to the coffee table. He looked over at Sean with some surprise, looking him over. Then he signed, "2k? You have to be joking."

Sure, Sean was a good looking guy but nobody paid that kind of money to sleep with somebody, not even the high end hookers! For a single person? Shit...

"Not sure if agree with you... or mildly insulted you wouldn't pay 2k for this bod..." Sean grinned--obviously not insulted in the least. He wasn't a troll but 2k for one night? Not even the classiest hookers got that much for one evening!

It was a young guy, too. He probably didn't have trouble getting someone to sleep with him because he was quite good looking so... Maybe it was a power trip kind of thing. Knowing he could buy someone with that kind of cash. That or he was into some freaky shit... Most likely the freaky shit.

"I thought about it though. For like five seconds. Then I got the hell outta there." He laughed again and finished off his can. Talking about something else to take Julio's mind off of Angel, that was his not-so-clever plan. Was it working yet? Hmm... maybe not. Julio gulped down his beer like he wished it was something stronger.

"Hey that's new isn't it?" Sean pointed to a painting on the wall of a lady dancing through the air, blue dress floating behind her, not knowing that Angel was the one who painted it. "Where'd you get it?"

Julio half smiled as he regarded Sean. It was a lot of money for a single evening with a stripper. Or more, because the person wanted to sleep with Sean. But Julio didn't like thinking about what it meant when they went beyond stripping because he had done it. And he was one of those, too. Just a stripper... now. But before... He sold his body to the highest bidder. And because he sold his body, for some reason, that made him nothing but goods to certain types of people.

Sean didn't want to go down that road. Julio wished he could convey that but Sean was his own person. He made a choice, anyway, and it was the right one, Julio thought. Such strength, to turn down such an exorbitant price tag! He finally grinned.

"Can't blame you for thinking about it," he signed. But the mood immediately shifted when Sean pointed out Angel's painting. The lump was back in his throat, the knot back in his stomach. He toyed with the tab on his can of beer.

"Angel painted it."

Ah fuck! He had to go and point out the one thing that brought the conversation back to Angel! Sean kicked himself inwardly—even though he couldn't have known who painted the damn thing. But he also studied the portrait with a bit of a critical eye, noting the graceful brush strokes and the way that blue featured prominently in the piece.

Look, just because he was a muscled up male stripper didn't mean that he couldn't enjoy things like art. He didn't go to galleries and pretend he was 'cultured' or anything but even Sean knew a good painting when he saw one. Of course—he also didn't advertise that he enjoyed nice art. Not really his... image.

"An artist, huh?" He smiled as he cracked open another beer, having finished the first. "Somehow always thought you'd end up with like... a nurse or something." No idea why. Maybe he just liked the idea of somebody finally being able to take care of Julio for once, since Julio was so independent. Everybody needed that one person they could lean on, even Sean. But in their line of work, finding someone who was okay with them baring their bodies nightly was difficult.

"Sorry, didn't mean to bring him up. I know it's rough, buddy." Reaching over, he gently patted Julio's forearm. "But it's kinda like they say right. If you guys were meant to be, he'll come back eventually. Sometimes you just gotta let fate do its thing, you know? And... if you ever need somebody to talk to." He grinned again. "I mean—wave your hands around to. You always got me and Logan. We're clowns but we know when to settle down when you need us to."

Julio also looked at the painting, but just looking at it made his heart ache and his chest clench up. It wasn't so long ago that the artist himself was here with him but Julio already missed him. He lowered his gaze, hoping--wishing--that not looking at the painting might help the tumult he felt inside. It didn't.

And Sean, bless his heart, was trying. But it wasn't working. It wasn't enough. Sean was a friend. And he was a good person and he was being a good friend to Julio now in his moment of need. But even his well meant words of advice just twisted the knife in his heart.

"Not much to say," he signed. Because what was there left to say?

"I know, I know. It's okay. I didn't mean right now but whenever you feel like it. If you feel like it."

Things were too raw right now, Sean got that. He was the same way after a break-up, even a good one. Even an amicable one. He didn't want to talk about it in the moment when the emotions were still high but eventually he opened up, if only to Logan and sometimes Julio. It sucked to have a falling out, or to be rejected, or just to drift. He didn't know what happened between Julio and Angel but something drove a wedge between them and it had to hurt. Julio didn't act like this over just anybody.

Reaching over, he patted Julio gently on the shoulder a couple of times and then handed him another beer. "Here drink up! Let's just kick back and watch some dumb shows and try to unwind. Been a long day, huh?" He grabbed the remote and switched on the TV to something mindless, while turning the topic of conversation away to something dumb that happened to him earlier in the week.