Reaper's Lullaby

Gus: Hey

"But I won't cry for yesterday. There's an ordinary world somehow I have to find."
- Duran Duran, "Ordinary World"

Gus couldn't remember much about that night. Things had been blurry for the few days leading up to it too. He remembered Hex and Ember locking him in the bedroom while he kicked the splintery door and screamed and screamed. He had tried to climb out the window but it was iced over and too small even if he could budge it.

If he closed his eyes and thought really hard he could feel cold, wet concrete pressed against his cheek and hear the clicking sound the metal cuffs made as his hands were secured behind his back. He thought maybe his mind just wouldn't let him remember the reason he'd ended up in jail that night. The humongous, horrible, monstrous, soul crushing reason. And he was happy his mind wouldn't let him think about it.

He did wonder who had snitched on him. Probably Ember. She was always the kind one in their group, the one with the most heart, the one who cared for everybody and wanted to see them succeed. If it was, he couldn't really blame her. She probably knew he was trying to die from all the crazy stuff he was smoking and snorting and shooting into his veins. She was probably just trying to help him. Nobody could help him now.

Gus was back in Cali, a lifetime away from that cold night in Chicago, even though it was only three days ago. It was warm here. He hadn't been warm in a long time and it felt nice, he had to admit. They had been squatting in old houses all winter, and there was never any heat and they were weighed down with a thousand layers of clothes. It was hard to move in all those clothes. That's probably why he was naked when they arrested him, but he didn't remember stripping.

Now he was basking in the warmth of the sun-flooded backseat of a black Toyota on his way to a new foster home. He was already planning to run away again and calculating how much money it would take to get back to Chicago so he could be with his friends. Ember and Hex would probably forgive him considering the awful thing that had happened four days before the night of his arrest. He would apologize to them for screaming and pounding on the door too.

"I think you'll like the Wiggins," said his caseworker, Margaret, from the driver's seat. She was a pretty, dark-haired woman he'd known since he was twelve.

"Wiggins? What the hell kinda name is that? They wiggin' out all the time or what?" he said.

"Gus," she said flatly. "Be nice."

"Stupidest fuckin' name I ever heard," he grumbled, staring out the window at the brown desert.

"What if they want to adopt you?"

Gus scoffed, knowing that no one, ever, in any world, in any dimension, would want to adopt him. But he talked back anyway. "No thanks. Then I'd be Gus Wiggins. Sounds like somebody's nerdy-ass grandpa, the kind that yells at the TV and only eats Lifesavers and smells like piss."

"You really don't have the best attitude right now," Margaret said gently

"Why should I? I don't wanna be here! I wanna go back to Chicago!"

"You weren't safe in Chicago."

"What do you care?" he snapped. "I'm one less case for you. Less work."

"I do care, Gus."

"Please, I'll quit the crank, I swear! I'll go to rehab or somethin'. Just let me go home," Gus pleaded, and he cursed himself when he felt tears stinging his eyes. He cried too much. Everyone always said that. Everyone always called him a baby.

"Let me go home," he whispered again, this time to himself, and a tear fell on his hand. He played with it for a second, turning his hand and letting it slowly roll around on his skin and leave a glistening wet line like a snail does. Then it dissolved.

"Hey," he heard a voice whisper in his ear. He also felt the breath of whoever said it move his hair for a split second.

"What the fuck!" Gus exclaimed, shocked and jumping to the other side of the backseat.

"What? I didn't say anything," Margaret replied.

Gus's heart was racing. Maybe it was just the sound of the road under the tires. Maybe it was the wind. Maybe he was still tweaking. But he'd felt breath...

Was it possible?

He had to try.

"Adam?" he whispered hopefully, desperately.

There was only silence.