The Good Life ~ Troyler AU

four - troye

"Troye?"

I was a vague shade of lilac on the inside, drifting my thumbs over the backs of my hands. Looking for anything interesting to pierce the fog that surrounded me and not finding much. When Connor came and found me practically comatose, he took me by the collar and dragged me to the shower, turning it on cold. I didn't resist as he guided me into it, but when the freezing water hit my skin I flinched back.

"I didn't OD, Connor," I muttered, and he sighed, quickly turning it off.

"Then what the hell is wrong? Troye, you have to stop zoning out like this. I had to cover for you all day - do you want to get called to headquarters?" His face was pale and drawn. "The Family isn't going to let you keep missing jobs."

The word family felt like an insult. "I know." I said, gingerly pulling away from him, still shivering as my wet clothes clung to me.

"Okay, Troye, just - just go get your gun, okay? They need you."

I juddered awake as cold as I had been that day, my muscles jumping and trembling until I realised where I was. Tyler and I must have fallen asleep on the bathroom floor - he was half lying on me, his arm flung around my neck, fingers curled loosely on the back of my neck. I didn't realise my grip had tightened until he stirred, reaching up sleepily to fix his glasses.

"Hmm," he grumbled,"Why are we on the floor?" He curled further onto me, and then paused when recalled last night.

"Tyler -"

"Troye -"

I kissed him, more desperately than anything else, full to the brim with helplessness frustration and love with nowhere to put it. I was shaking, I could feel it, and after only a few seconds Tyler broke away."It's okay," he told me, but it wasn't.

I imagined what would happen to him - to both of us - if the Family found us. I'd get a telling-off, probably a beating, and then get forced back into my old life but Tyler - they might kill him. They might lock him away somewhere where no one would ever find him again. But what I knew was most likely was that they would keep him, torture him, as a way of making me behave. I knew because I'd seen it before, and I'd seen the aftermath.

No matter what they did, they would never ever let him go, and I had been a fool to think I could ever leave them behind.

"'Family before blood'." I muttered bitterly, and Tyler's eyes searched mine.

"Our flight is tonight." he reminded me, but I just shook my head.

"Too late." I told him, feeling there was a heavy stone in my gut. "I saw one of them at the club and he recognised me, and saw you."

"How would they know where we're staying?"

"They know everything." I brushed over his wrist absentmindedly, over the spiderweb of blue veins, felt his pulse against my fingertips to remind me that right now he was here and alive, and shut my eyes.

Like I'd cued them, something slammed into the front door; a knock too hard to be room service, and suddenly everything was moving too fast and I was shoving Tyler into the corner, shouting at him to look the bathroom door as I left and he was yelling at me to come back as I ran into the hallway - but there was no intruder. Just a little tiny note someone had slipped under the door, messy handwriting like inky blood.

I'm afraid your flight has been cancelled, boys. We'll be seeing you very, very soon.