Way Down I'll Go

Flutter, Float, and Change to Butterflies

He focused on Frank's voice, calm and steady. Slowly, the room began to fade, and Frank's face came back into view.

Frank smiled tightly. 

"You back with me, kid?"

Jo nodded, jerking his head down to the floor in shame. 

" 'M sorry," he murmured.

"You got nothing to be sorry for, kid. That was my fault. Should'a known better."

Neither moved for a bit, Frank's eyes boring into Jo, and Jo's eyes boring into the floor. Then, with slow, purposeful movements, Frank offered the shirt out in front of him.

"Take your time, then get changed." 

His voice sounded strangled, but Jo didn't look at his face as he nodded and took the shirt from his hand.

After Frank left, he let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. Once again, he felt mortified that Frank knew as much of his past as he did. Slipping into the shirt, uninvited memories surfaced of the night Frank got a glimpse of just how disgusting that past was.

Jo knew him the second he stepped through the door, and from the look on his face, he remembered Jo just as well. 

He was Frank's newest sous chef, but Jo knew him as "sir." One of many in a long line of sir's from a time Jo tried his best to never recall. This one had been a regular, though. A regular who brought his own knives. The same knives he'd just laid out at his work station. Jo shuddered, remembering how those knives had been dragged across his skin. Remembering how he'd begged "sir" to stop. Remembering how he'd been too weak to resist when "sir" took what he wanted.

He was on edge the entire evening, jumping at every little sound, dropping things, and shaking like a leaf. Frank had yelled at him twice for making mistakes, and it took everything in Jo not to huddle up in a ball behind the sink. He could feel "sir's" eyes on him at every turn, so when Frank ordered him to pull himself together and take out the trash, he obeyed eagerly.

Slamming the dumpster's lid shut, he leaned against it and took slow, deep breaths.

"You've grown."

Jo whirled toward the all-too-familiar voice.

"Damn, you must be, what, 13 now? God, you're just as pretty as you were then."

Jo couldn't control the trembling. He shook like a person seizing.

"What dumb, fuckin' luck. Never thought my new job would come with my favorite little whore on the side." 

He chuckled as if they were sharing an inside joke. 

"I sure missed you, boy."

The door slammed open suddenly.

"Kid, quick dicking around with the trash and get your ass back to the kitchen," Frank yelled. 

He turned to his sous chef. 

"And you! You've been here a full two hours and you already need a smoke break?! We're fucking slammed in there and I'm out here micromanaging your lazy asses. Get the fuck back in the kitchen! Both of you!"

Jo kept his head down the rest of the night, counting down the seconds until he could leave. He could feel two sets of eyes on him now, and several times he caught Frank staring at him from across the kitchen, his expression the wary one he usual wore when Jo came in with a busted face. Each time, Jo would quickly look away and work faster.