Whenever he stares at the words on the screen of his phone or the laptop, there's one part anger and two parts lies spreading in front of him.
He always knew people can be true monsters, no claws or spikes required. There's the worst of the worst bottling in the small cone of interests.
There's a lot of nasty stuff about Barrow or Farley. Even some sort of mugshots from their faces, hair dirty and smeared with ashes and blood.
Mostly Barrow though, because the girl is born and raised in this city and it makes digging up dirt much easier. And also she's in the sights of another person altogether.
Oh, pretty boy, Thomas thinks, repeating the disappointment experience tour cause it's so much fun.
He can imagine the voice perfectly fine when he reads the words. They are crafted with the same careful intention as the flattery the night they broke things once and for all. They are rational and diplomatic, plugging a string and poking just right.
That's when he knows he's looked at too many things and turns down the internet for the rest of the night to catch at least some sleep.
It's not like he sleeps much anyway, not at night at least. Once upon a time, mere weeks ago he stayed up at night to be there for someone he loved. Now he stays up because he likes to be alone. He was never much of a crowd person, sure he went somewhere like concerts and stuff, but mostly because other people wanted or just to spite and show that he would. Younger Thomas was an idiot. Well, he still is an idiot. At least he knows it now.
There are two or three hours in the early morning, with the sun still down, when the world seems to stand still. It's like everyone takes a last deep breath, bracing themselves for another cruel business day.
Sometimes all Thomas does is sit on the tiny windowsill, little squashed, long limbs pulled up and crossed to fit.
He doesn't listen to music. He doesn't do a dramatic smoke in the dark. He just sits and stares, sorting through his head. Because despite whatever daylight Thomas says or how he smiles, there's a hole in his chest and it's hurting.
On some rare occasions, he's outside, tagging along with the people that use their spray bottles to leave messages and pictures over the city.
But those guys and gals are fast and climbing like monkeys. They are nice enough, and they clearly have some respect because they like his works. He rarely sees a face behind a scarf pulled over a nose or a hood deep in a face, but he knows them by now. You remember the way someone moves, especially when that's all you really can rely on. They are like a flock of crows, all dressed black, flying over roofs and down alleys.
He likes the way the wind flows around their heads and the city pulses when they run. He likes the feeling of being alive. But he's still not sure he could do it every night. He is only weight on their ankles.
"Hey Inky, " one of the says, because of the flames and the steel that blink through whenever his sleeves get pushed up a little. For a second Thomas sees a small stripe of dark skin and hair when his hood is pushed back. "Need to be careful now. Tower territory isn't safe since that night."
"Yeah, I know. Was on the streets." He says, checking his boot. Thomas has the agile gracefulness of a giraffe sliding over ice most times. Another reason he isn't tagging along too often. Not that he couldn't run or climb. Street rat days still stick, but he's gotten lazier since he can spend his day in bed. And he just doesn't look parcoury or cool while doing it. Just like the rabbit he is he dashes away.
"And got out? Had a friend, still in prison."
"Sucks," Thomas answers remembering the stench and the full cell.
There's the faintest glimmering of a headlight in the distance. If you break curfew there's a big chance you get hurt badly. They don't really care about excuses.
Last years living on the street was beefy. Nowadays the nights are even crueler. At least he knows Cameron has a place to stay.
"Move move," someone whispers. And they do it. Fast.
Some very rare times he gets calls at night. Never from one person in particular. But more of a mixed bag. Whenever he gets the urge to reach out and destroy his fragile balance he puts the phone away and stares at it like it's a bomb that needs to be defused.
"I thought about calling." He tells Cameron the next day. "Because it freaking hurts. Maybe..."
" Maybe you are a moron." She just scowls.
Sometimes she hits him. He wants to hug her. The days she stays are the least lonely.
He's a little surprised, but in a positive way when a certain sparky girl calls him.
"Changed your mind about talking it out, did you, Lightning?" He says, sitting in his usual spot, hugging his blanket because it's turning autumn and 'his skinny ass' as Cameron likes to say, gets cold fast.
"Not really. Not like you want to. What IS there to say we both don't know?"
"As someone being royally screwed by him, in more than one way, I'd say there's a lot more you can spill."
"And what? Cry? Do you want us to sit on a bed the whole night and talk about all the ways he mistreated you?"
Talk about attitude, Thomas thinks but smiles into the darkness. "Nah, not really. I have sisters. Been there done that. No fun, really. And I suck at braids. Just well, you let it go. Told you, being bottled up is no good."
The long boiling pause speaks for itself. "He pretended to be my friend. He was considerate and nice and he listened to everything."
Thomas doesn't dare to say anything. Not when he was the one walking away when Maven was considerate of him. Oh boy, he thinks, what if? Always what if.
"And then I took him with me and he played me."
"Don't sweat it, " Thomas stares out of the window into the light polluted sky. Smog and no stars. Then he shifts on the small windowsill, long legs drawn up to his chest. "He was kinda lonely. So I think at least some parts were true. And I...he said he was in love with you."
"He told you that?"
"So you know."
She doesn't answer his assumption. "But you two have history."
"Oh girl," Thomas chuckles to cloak his hoarse voice. "Do we have history. Told you. Royally screwed. Can't say I did nothing wrong tho. Tried to come back and at least be a friend."
"Risky guess," she sounds just as dark and dry as he feels. "It did not work."
"You know it," Thomas says. " Remember? I'm in too deep. Whatever was going on never really hit it off. I mean, there was some truth. Just not big enough."
Static noise and her footsteps. He looks out of the window again and wonders where she is. If she's alone. Probably, she wouldn't talk to him about something so deep and personal if someone was watching. She's hard on the outside, not letting it show. Thomas pushes himself into functioning normally enough every day to notice everyone likes to pretend they are better or stronger than they truly are.
That's the deal. You get over it or get eaten.
"You don't wanna lie down on my couch and want to be emotional, you don't."
"Appreciated."
"Cool. So you don't want to talk it out," Thomas says, leaning back. "And we are no besties. So why call in the dead of night?"
"You've known him for a while."
"Yeah, so? What's that matter?" he snorts. " I did think I know him. Not sure anymore. "
"Look, you said we were on the same side, Thomas. And I don't think he is done. So why don't you use-"
"That's why you call? To ask me for a little dirt?" He sighs. "Lightning, I admire you, you're cool. I love my friends and I hate how this is going. But no."
He doesn't even know why. Maybe it's just idiot Thomas doing his thing. Maybe it's just stuck under his skin. In fact, I consider you the only remotely trustworthy person around me at the moment.
Not like he'd deserve Thomas acting like the gate keeper to the hell of his secrets and attitudes. He wishes he could be angry instead of stupid sad. Channel a bit of that Cookie Cameron, he thinks. Or a little Lightning. They aren't shy to let it go and tell people off.
Instead, he laughs it off like always until no one is watching.
Time has a very strange effect. Especially when the rest of the world moves along without caring much about the things that go on in your head. Some things get hazy, better than they really were. Sometimes he wonders about all the what ifs. Of course that is fruitless.
The hollow hole stays in his chest. He gets along somehow. Just as the world.
At least his friends are relatively safe compared to the big bang. There's some sort of collective sigh, a preparation for the next big battle. And oh, the battle will come. As someone standing on the sidelines he's not sure what to make of it. Technically it's his fight too. It's not like he doesn't want to.
He feels like a spectator. Doesn't sit so right. Like he's floating over his body watching the room.
Maybe that's why he tries to hang out with Barrow again. Or maybe it's just to soothe his guilty conscience because he thought some mean shit when he was jealous.
She picks him up one evening . They don't talk. Walking in silence alongside, hands in pockets, kicking pebbles. Keeping an eye out for trouble.
The house is more like a creepy cabin at the outskirts of the city. Creaking door and dark hall and all. But it's not so bad compared to anything Thomas has ever lived in.
"Nice hideout." Thomas whistles through his teeth. "Nicer than my place."
Mare throws her bag at the couch. "It's temporary. But yeah."
When Thomas turns around, he's faced with someone he's been rather actively avoiding.
Thomas stares at Cal in rabbit heart terror.
For the longest of moments, none of them move.
"Lightning," Thomas says. "Didn't tell me you had a visitor. I can go if you don't-eh."
" No ill feelings, Thomas." Cal answers. "In fact, I live here."
"Oh." There's a very strong indication behind that words. Not living at home. Instead of hiding with the poster girl of rebellion. "Oooh. He shit on you too?"
"On everything by now." Cal answers. " He and his mother seized control. And they didn't wait before our father's body was cold."
"Sorry to hear. And sorry cause.. y'know. Your father. And... Liking someone who's hurting you is always shitty."
Cal looks like he bites on granite the way his teeth are grinding behind his closed mouth.
"Thank you, Thomas."
Thomas makes a helpless huff.
He stands still for a moment, unsure if he should follow. But Barrow just sits down on the table. So he just takes the place next to her and is surprised to find himself in the 'Maven tossed us away' sandwich, perched together.
Maybe this will become regular. Like a book club.
There's an as blaring out from the speakers of a laptop on the table.
Thomas doesn't have time to ask what he's watching on a live stream platform.
"We're back from our short break," a pretty girl says and Thomas remembers faintly something about her having some kind of video channel, all fancy and successful. She's some kind of internet celebrity. His sister used to eat her stuff despite her being silver. She's drop-dead gorgeous, of course, with dark skin and long floaty hair, perfect fit. There's something so false and fake about her he never could watch more than a few seconds.
In another life, Thomas would have been worried because Maven looks pale and not really healthy. He would have urged for help or given a hug. All he feels now is a creeping cold, accompanied by an unsettling uncertainty.
He can't follow the words or the very court expression on Maven's face.
It's like someone translated the whole world in klingon and put it upside down.
"But weren't you and your brother friends with Mare Barrow?" the girl asks innocent enough, playing coy. "I think we can agree we're here for that evening at the towers. If you want to talk about it. I know it was bad for me, it was unexpected and frightening when the shots went off."
There's havoc in the chat window next to the stream. He sees some red suns sprinkled in, but it's mostly wild questions by the way question marks and capslock flies by.
"It was a very disturbing evening." Maven says.
"Disturbing?" Barrow asks, hollow.
Cal just breathes very slow, staring at his brother.
Thomas can empathize.
"If people actually believe a word from a terrorist group that makes a mentally unstable and dangerously angry girl their figurehead, a girl that was involved in murder, responsible for all of this destruction, burning a whole tower and planting bombs," Maven says straight into the camera, pausing, and Thomas didn't know he could be so dramatically intense. Well studied act. He thinks about the times Maven internally seemed to freak and overclock in a full room and talked about social calls. How things change. "They are either naive or blind. The riots have proven the that despite their claims, the Scarlet Guard is not fighting for any rights. They are not negotiating. They are not asking. They are demanding. And they just demand death and blood. They don't want anything but cold war and the annihilation of silver blood. They claim to be fighting for freedom. They are not."
People eating him up in the chat. The girl smiles.
"Yeah," Thomas mutters. "Piss in their boots and tell them it's raining, pretty boy."
He's the only one saying a word. Thomas dares to look at the faces next to him.
Barrow looks like she's about to explode. Her face is a mask barely cloaking her anger and hatred, but there's something else and he remembers the way she spoke on the phone and how the energy drained out the first time he tried to talk it out with her.
He does not dare to say anything to her.
"As for my brother-'
To his other side, Cal shifts in his seat.
By the looks of it, he's not as vicious as Barrow, but he's far from calm.
Oh boy, Thomas thinks. Maven better never set a foot close to one of them. He'll be dead in no time.
"My brother chose his side. It pains me to admit that, it really does." Liar, liar, pants on fire, Thomas thinks and feels the need to scrub his skin with bleach.
" But he didn't choose the right one. He had such a promising future. People call him a traitor. And perhaps that is how we should address the issue. Turning on his own people. Who would have thought-'
"Okay," Thomas pushes the button and the laptop dies, with a last white flickering face of Maven's face. "Enough. All in for self-hate and pain. But this is enough."
This is going way too far. Way. This isn't at all the disturbed boy telling him not to leave him alone. This isn't the hands that let him stay when he was homeless and shivering.
It's like needles under his skin. And not the kind Thomas enjoys there.
"Please tell me you have something to drink in your hideout. Cause if I ever wanted to get black drunk and fucked up, it's now."
The club acquires a bottle and Thomas just burns away the very poor rest of his taste buds.
There's a very elaborate boiling silence, hanging over their heads like a dark cloud.
At least Barrow keeps up with drinking.
"He didn't say a word about you." Mare watches Thomas with that clown look again. "He never does, really. He mentioned you once and it wasn't much. If I hadn't known better, I'd have thought you were dead."
Thomas drinks and coughs. "Why would he tho? He always kept me hush hush. No need to pull me out of the closet if no one knows."
"True enough," Cal says, arms crossed, leaning back. " It would hurt him more than help. People could make the wrong.. assumption."
"Right dude," Thomas toasts him even if he doesn't feel like it. "Doesn't line up with us poor devils being the problem if people knew he used to smooch one. Also, I'm clearly not some pretty girl. Doesn't help the conservative run." Thomas drinks the rest of the glass and shudders. The taste is mean. But it's allowed if it makes him feel better. He doesn't feel like stopping. " I mean he could pull the mean card on me leaving. But that would be very personal. And good old Mom always wanted me to be gone. So win-win if I stay quiet."
"Good old Mom." Mare takes the bottle out if Thomas' hands.
"I met her once. That's enough for a lifetime." Thomas says, and for the longest while the thought of her on the bench doesn't even make him angry. "Bitch treated me like a rat and told me I would die if I stay with her son."
There's just a snort from Cal's side of the table and Thomas chuckles and drinks.
His phone makes a plopping sound in his pocket.
Maybe his sister is wondering where he's at. It's past curfew. He didn't tell her he would stay away.
It's the unknown number he never even bother to label. There's just one other message from weeks ago, saying it found the cockatrice.
Thomas slides the notification away and doesn't read it. Then he puts his phone down on the table.
"Give the bottle back, Lightning. Sharing is caring." He says instead.
"You lost this fight before it has begun," Cal says from his corner.
"You underestimate me, good sir." Barrow doesn't look too fazed by his half-assed attempt to grab it. "I never know when to stop."
A little tug of war breaks out before Thomas gets to have the bottle and his phone plops again.
"Someone seems eager to talk to you."
"Eh." Thomas is at least glad he never labeled the name to the number. Or this friendly evening would be over NOW. "You know how it is, dude. People always want something. Oh, almost forgot." Thomas leans down to his old trusty bag and pulls a folder out. Thomas has spent some time thinking about the things he read, and wehn he couldn't shake it off, he decided to let it go in the only way he ever learned to cope. Putting her on his skin was out of question. But paper, or at least drawing, that seemed like a good idea.
"Y'know, Lightning, you're all over the place. But those pictures are meh or seriously only meant to be mean. So I thought, if you want, I got something for you. Cause you're cool."
"Thomas, you can stop telling me that," Mare says and gives him the tiniest of huffs.
"Just take it," Cal answers. "He means it."
"Eh, of course I do?" Thomas slides to folder over to her.
"I hope I got you right," he scratches his nose. "I mean, I got it on the laptop, obviously, so I can change stuff, but I grew up on paper, so I..dunno. Wanted to give it to you."
"I knew you were good." Cal says, staring at her face in black and white, illuminated by some sort of high voltage sign in the background.
"That's-" Barrow starts and his phone interupts in a chime now. "Goddamit, Thomas. Answer or turn it off."
Turning it off would be healthy. There was almost something relaxed between them. He almost saw them smile.
"I think I need to step out for a second. Play nice." Thomas swallows hard on a bitter taste in his mouth.
The air kisses his skin in a cool whisper. He just closes the door and answers the call.
Maven doesn't wait for Thomas to say anything. "I don't like being ignored, Thomas."
Thomas only reaction is a deep breath. "Didn't I tell you not to pop up again until you had it under control?"
"I consider myself very much in control."
Thomas makes the loudest fart sound he can muster.
" And I also figured you would still be angry." Maven's voice sounds stiff and cold.
"Nice show," Thomas mocks. "Really, super convincing."
"Thank you, Thomas." Someone says the second time this evening and it could not be more indifferent and in a much more stark contrast to his brother.
"You got some low blows out." Thomas leans against the wall, holding his head not to lose it." Talking trash about Barrow. Seriously. And your brother too? Like.. the only person in your family supportive enough?!"
"I didn't mention you, so don't worry about your reputation."
"Ahahahah. Repuwhat?" Thomas snorts, thinking about how he had the same discussion. " I got nothing you can destroy. Try me, pretty boy."
"Confidence," Maven acknowledges. "You sound drunk."
"Even if I were so drunk I'd dance bare-assed on the moon." Thomas can't stop the irritating feeling creeping up his spine. "I mean it. Stop the smear campaign, silver prince. Or I forget I still like you and join in. Can't imagine you want that."
"You wouldn't."
"Why? Cause I love you? Thanks for reminding me. Almost forgot. Asshole."
The insult goes by uncommented."No, because you are kind, Thomas."
"Fuck being kind. Fight fire with fire or whatever they say." He doesn't bother to ask why Maven even called.
He just hangs up and turns his phone off. Taking deep breaths. Trying not to puke.