Big load of drugs and alcohol warnings for this 'en

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He's a nervous wreck on the bathroom floor, wondering how long he's going to have to wait before the people outside finish doing whatever the fuck it is that they're doing. He thought it was sex, at first, but the grunts and groans hadn't lasted all that long and they've been at whatever the fuck it is they're at for a good twenty minutes since. At least four pairs of feet are visible under the door, the noises out of their mouths rarely dissolving into anything that could be called words but the blabber an insistent part of the furniture. Drugs, perhaps. Probably. Everyone likes drugs.

The floor tips dangerously underneath him and Freddy tries to remember if he's taken anything tonight. Today. Fuck, he has no idea what time it is. There's a graze on his knee pressing up underneath his jeans and it hurts when his leg moves, but he's not making his leg move.

There had been a guy. Tall, good looking in a bland sort of way. He had taken Freddy aside and tried to kiss him, which is weird because they almost never want to kiss him. Hadn't known what to do with it, gone missing.

Gone missing is run away, if you think about it. Someone bangs on the door to the stall. "You ok in there?"

"Yeah!" Freddy replies, and it comes out as three drawn out syllables. He's totally fucking fucked.

-----------------------------------------------------

"You alright there, baby?"

Freddy blinks, back on the main floor and sat up at the same table as Sport, who has a hand on his knee but it's discrete, tucked away under the table where no one else can see.

No hands on the stock, don't get high on your own supply. Only they don't deal.

But Sport does. Freddy thinks, with a bracing clarity that he wishes he could posses when he's sober. Sex and drugs, the guy just needs to get into music and then he's got the rock and roll covered.

The band plays on behind them, veering wildly between the more danceable psychadelica and disco tunes. He sort of wants to dance.

"So, tell us about yourself." Someone prompts Freddy. He can barely see their faces over the expanse of the table.

Sport leans in, to give him a hint. He's not supposed to talk about himself at all. "Tell 'em the commode story"

Aside from 'I got trapped in a bathroom by a bunch of people fucking and they may not actually have been people and they probably weren't fucking' Freddy doesn't have a commode story to tell.

Aside from 'me and some guys went to a porn theatre together and I followed one of them out to listen to him jack it from the other side of the bathroom door' Freddy doesn't have a commode story.

Aside from 'the streets ran brown with shit' Freddy doesn't have a commode story.

So he opens his mouth and he tells the commode story.

------------------------------------------------

"Panic hits me like a bucket of water."

Good line

--------------------------------------------------------

Iris's hand feels small and fragile in his as she drags him to the dance floor, laughing. "Let's give them a show."

Freddy shakes his head, trying to pull away. "Sport says you're not supposed to."

"Fuck Sport." And she's close, and it's awful, her hands guiding his to her waist. The music is irrelevant, their bodies moving to a tempo of their own devising, of whatever substance is keeping them both awake. Could have been days, or hours, he doesn't know. People cheer at them, crowing like they are the jesters in the town square.

He leans in, to tell her how easy it would be for them to leave, how no one would notice they were gone for at least half an hour. By that point they could be across town at the bus station, picking out someplace new to start a life. Somewhere different from this, better than here.

She reads him wrong. Iris matches him, leaning forward to press her lips to his. It's awful and amazing and Freddy wants to die.

-------------------------------------------------

Nice Guy is here with a real big smile on his face that wavers whenever Freddy gets too close. He's new to this operation, some of the older guys are peering down their nose at him like he don't deserve too be here. Freddy doesn't understand the politics of it all, he just knows that he's causing some sort of problem.

And his brain won't shut up about it, once he latches on. So he goes over to sort shit out.

"Hey, Nice Guy." Does it sound like he's flirting? It definitely sounds like he's flirting. He's grinning like he's flirting too. All wrong.

Nice Guy jumps when he sees him. He looks wrong, dressed up for the night with an open necked shirt and a pair of trousers that look like they came off a suit. He's still got his medallion, the rings on his thick fingers shining in the modulated light. Strange fucking thing, that Freddy knows what he looks like naked.

"What are you doing here?" Nice Guy hisses.

Freddy shrugs. "It's a party. I'm invited."

"What, you know the birthday girl or somethin'?"

"I'm her best friend." Freddy smiles and doesn't mean it. It's true and he hates it.

Nice Guy doesn't let up his squinting, distrustful and worm like. "Yeah, I bet you are. That was you all up on her on the dance floor, right?"

Silence is all he can give. He doesn't have to answer these questions.

"Eddie, Sammy wants a word with you." A huge figure of a man hustles into Freddy's view. Big, broad shoulders enough to leave him weak at the knees, if he were that kind of boy, and he absolutely is.

Tall, dark and handsome turns to face Freddy and he's sharply familiar. The sad pinch of his brow, the slight hunch to his shoulders. They each take a second to place the other and it's fucking painful watching the panic crossing Nice Guys face.

He'd said his boyfriend was locked up, Freddy dimly remembers. And Sport said some guys were getting out tonight. It all comes together.

"Orange?" Vic Vega's mouth quirks in amusement. "I didn't know you worked for the Poles."

"How the fuck do you know him?" Nice Guy snarls. "You only been out since Friday."

So it ain't Friday anymore. Good to know.

Vic Vega cocks and eyebrow. "Used to work at that comic shop on sixty fourth. You remember Brown?"

Nice Guy does remember Brown. Interesting. He's a hang over from the Cabots.

Which ain't none of Freddy's business, and yet...

"Thought you guys were working for other employers." He says, casually.

"Maybe I was. Maybe I saw an opportunity not to spend the rest of my life behind bars." Vic replies before Nice Guy can aduquately elbow his gut into silence.

"Leave it, Vic. He's just a fucking whore."

At this point all the attention should be on Freddy, but Vic turns to Nice Guy, all his edges sharpening in silhouette. "How would you know a thing like that?"

------------------------------------------

"Daddy, daddy...please!"

"I know baby, I know. I'm sorry, not tonight."

"But I wanna...I wanna..."

They're in a back room and Freddy is shoving his jeans down his legs. He's got a rager burrowed into his skull like a bullet. Sex. Now. The only option.

Sport takes a step back, looking him over apologetically. "You gotta go find some other guy out there to help you out. You're here to work, Freddy."

"They're all fucking cowards." Freddy spits. "Don't wanna look like fags in front of their friends."

Hands steady themselves on his shoulders and then they steady him. "I know, baby. I know. You just gotta be better, you gotta work for it. You gotta make 'em forget what pussy tastes like. Think about how good that's gonna feel, when you've got some chump who don't even think he's a faggot giving it to you."

Freddy's dick jerks and he tries to grind forward against Sport. That sounds incredible. He wants-

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Someone pushes a glass of water in his hands and he thinks he might puke it straight back up again but instinct takes over and has him glugging the whole thing before he can breathe. He needs more, so much more.

Things take shape in front of his eyes, like the bucket and the nice girl who's sorting him out, helping him see straight. She keeps asking if he needs to go to the doctor, like he's never whited out before.

"Water." He rasps. More comes.

More and more. Freddy keeps drinking till he can feel the pricking in his fingers and the banging in his head. He keeps drinking till he can smell the combined force of all that sex and sweat and booze and vomit and human excess. He gags and nothing comes up.

He needs to go home.

Sport waves him out with casual indifference and Freddy makes for the front door alone. The dreamy blue of just before sunset is dripping through the streets. Four in the morning on a Sunday, way past any curfew his parents ever set for him. He is gloriously, wondrously alone and he could go fucking anywhere. Walk the streets, head to the bus station, the Bronx. Hit up the sea front and wait for the first ferry out to Ellis Island or the Statue of Liberty.

It's hard to see either from ninety second street.

He fumbles his way out onto the main drag and by force of habit more than choice, straight into a nudey cinema. The film that's showing is too good for the kind of clientele these places attract, all in black and white and with meditation on the human condition thrown in amongst shots of a guy threatening to nail his girlfriend and never quite making it due to misplaced Catholic guilt. When the sex hits, it's not shot to be erotic so much as raw, real. Freddy's never seen anything that looks so much like his experience of sex.

Then he stays for the next feature and the screen goes blurry and mottled and all he has to work with are the vague shape of some tits and a poor imitation of what it sounds like when a woman gets fucked.

Not that Freddy has a fucking clue what a woman sounds like when she gets fucked. It's no longer horrifying, exciting or boring. The pictures just show him some small part of life, and if his body doesn't engage today then it'll engage some other time.

Outside the streets are bright and bustling with people on their way to work, even on a Sunday. That happens in a place with so many Jews, they don't keep the same sabbath.

Freddy stumbles up to the nearest taxi rank, thinking about how bad he needs to piss and how little he cares if he wets himself all over the back of some schmucks car. He doesn't bother checking if they head up North, any pussy who won't go to ninety second's too chicken to be driving in this city anyway.

He's about to bark out an address when the driver draws in a gasp like he's been stung. "Freddy?"

Of course it's fucking Larry. Freddy falls back against the seat, laughing. "Hey man, how you been?"

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The end of this hideously long thing is in sight - I promise

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"What now?"

"I gotta go to bed, man. I'm dead on my feet here."

"You ain't on your feet."

"Yeah, well, you ain't as comfy as my mattress."

"Jesus..."

"Forreal, Larry, I gotta go."

"Ok. Ok. Shit."

"What's wrong?"

"Nuthin'. I just...I'm just thinkin' maybe I shouldn't have done that."

"Done what?"

"You know."

"Hey, cut that shit out. If the cops wanna ask you about it you can tell 'em it was all my idea."

"That's not fuckin' funny."

"It's kinda funny. C'mon, I gotta go."

"Let me walk you up."

"I ain't a teenage girl, I can get myself home."

"No, you're a teenage boy."

"Allegedly. Anyway, you can't come up unless you pay."

"I got money."

"For fuck's sake, Larry. You ain't one of my Johns."

"Jesus."

"Aw, man, please don't start freaking out on me."

"I'm not! I'm not. Jus'...you sure you won't come back with me?"

"Larry, if I don't get to bed in the next ten minutes I'm gonna expire on you. C'mon, let me go."

"I'm still gonna kill that bastard."

"Larry..."

"I fuckin' mean it."

"Just don't. Ok? Please?"

"I'm not about to make a promise like that."

"God fucking dammit. Alright, I'm going. Here's the money for the ride."

"You don't gotta-"

"Yes I do gotta fucking pay. Take my money."

"Shit. Ok. When can I see you again?"

"Whatchu doin' Wednesday morning?"

"What time?"

"Like, ten."

"I could do ten."

"Meet me for breakfast at the place just round the corner. Jeannie's."

"Sure, kid. It's a date."

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By the time Freddy wakes, the sun is setting and the dull glow of recently ignited street lamps casts his room in eerie shadows. He stretches out, yawning, trying not to open his eyes any more than necessary. He could sleep for another hour or two, he's sure of it, just so long as he doesn't let himself wake up.

The floorboards outside creak under the weight of warm bodies, someone carrying Iris back to bed. It's gotta be seven or later, they really went all out on that fucking party.

Through the walls, Freddy can just about catch the steady rumble of Sport's voice, coaxing her to drink some water and crawl into bed. If there's anything left to crawl. Poor kid, she's gonna feel all kinds of rough in the morning.

It doesn't take long after Sport finishes up down the hall for a soft knock to come through Freddy's door.

He could lie, and pretend to be asleep, and Sport would probably come in anyway just to check up on him. "Come in."

The door slides open almost soundlessly and Sport comes in after it. His shirt is stained with spilled drinks and sweat, and something that may or may not be puke. Freddy wrinkles his nose and Sport laughs.

"How ta doing, princess?"

"Better." Freddy leans up on his elbows. "Could use some coffee."

"I got it."

Sport hustles through to the kitchen and mercifully doesn't turn any lights on. He returns with two cups of coffee, passing one to Freddy and perching on the end of the bed. "You been awake long?"

Freddy shakes his head. "Slept all day."

"Poor baby. You musta really needed it."

"I guess."

The choker Sport wore to the party is lined with shark's teeth. In the muddles light it looks like a lace ruff, carefully separating his head from the rest of him. He reaches out and sets a hand on Freddy's knee through the duvet, rubbing his thumb gently over the bottom of Freddy's thigh.

He smiles, and Freddy can see how dog tired he is. "You mind if I stay here tonight?"

"No." With Sport here, Freddy won't have to work. He can't imagine anything worse than having to work right now. Here, in bed, the precise repercussions of his debauchery feel far off, but he knows as soon as he tries to move, to do anything, it's all going to come crashing down. The headache he doesn't have just yet is a disaster waiting to happen.

He takes a sip of his coffee and both loves and hates how much more alive it makes him feel. He has a stack of new comics he picked up the week before that he hasn't had time to work through just yet, and taking the rest of the evening, for however long he feels like being awake, to just read through those sounds amazing.

So he gets the comics, and Sport strips down and crawls into the other side of the bed. Table lamp on and the guy's asleep in five minutes, an arm slung loosely over Freddy's waist. Dead weight, pinning him down. It's not like he has anywhere else to be.

The deep red walls of Freddy's room echo the light from the streetlamps and the light from Freddy's bedside. The deep mat red of Daredevil, of Superman's cape. Sport's hair fans out on the pillow, his mouth hanging open and his face perfectly relaxed. To his credit, he's a graceful sleeper.

All painted red. Freddy blinks and sees his corpse on the inside of his eyelids. Put there by Larry, he can only imagine, and oh what a picture that would make.

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To no one's surprise, Iris is off the books on Monday. Freddy wakes up early and eats his breakfast sat on the stoop. Over-rested and underfed, everything looks hyper real, the sharp edges of a pavement he's spent hours staring at suddenly unfamiliar and in need of remapping.

The work comes and goes steadily throughout the day. Sometime between Freddy waking up and his first customer, Sport vanishes into Iris's room and he hears not a peep out of them for the rest of the day. Just how it's supposed to be.

"You have a good time this weekend?" Gemima asks. It's closing in on lunch time and the two of them are scanning for a good opening to duck out and find themselves something to eat. They've been playing pimp for each other for most of the morning, trying their luck and trying to wrack up each other's prices to ridiculous heights.

She's jealous, clearly. Even if she would have fucking hated the party, and Freddy doubts she would have, it's a nice change of scenery. And most of the people coming back from it have gotten a day off, which is something of a luxury in their profession.

Freddy shrugs. "Yeah. Don't remember most of it though."

"Musta been pretty epic."

The day draws on and on, slow to finish, but ain't that always the way with Mondays? Freddy keeps catching himself staring up at Iris's bedroom window, dark and lifeless, and he wishes she were down here with them. The desperation catches him off guard, like they're on a timer here and she needs to get down here before the rest of their lives run out.

The rest of their fucking lives.

"What did you wanna be when you grew up?" Dolores needles Gemima.

Gemima wrinkles her nose. "When I was real little I wanted to be a mom. Can you imagine?"

Everyone laughs, even Freddy. He can't imagine that shit, he never once wanted to be a dad.

Some of the girls wanted to be nurses, or teachers. Once sincerely wanted to be President till she hit high school and worked out she was thick as a plank of wood.

"And you, Orange?"

He had wanted to get out of Bakersfield. So full marks to him, right? Or he had wanted to be a Superhero. He had wanted shit to be easy.

"I wanted to be a cop."

Everyone laughs, loud enough to earn them funny looks from the guys walking by on the other side of the road. Cops ain't good for shit. Who the hell would want to be a cop?

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Tuesday morning and Iris comes down but she's not awake enough to eat breakfast with Freddy. She hides behind her thickest pair of sunglasses and says nothing for more or less the whole day. Freddy leaves her to it and pretends he ain't a little pissy that she doesn't want to talk to him. Fuck it, they all do this job feeling rough sometimes.

She's thirteen years old, he reminds himself. Officially. Sport still sells her like she's twelve though, but her sullen attitude and messy skin tone don't make her much money that day.

Leaving more for Freddy to do. The cloud cover is thick but New York is still hot as hell, raising the stink of the garbage left behind by a union that still refuses to play ball with city hall, leaving the whole place wreaking. Sport's lost his contact with the people who were moving the crap away from ninety second street and everyone is in silent agreement that they're not gonna bother asking about what the fuck that means for the rest of them.

"How you feeling?" Freddy prompts Iris, when it's five pm and she ain't eaten all day.

"I'll be good." She mumbles. "Sport's gotta big client for me to see tonight, just trying to psyche myself up for it."

And she falls silent. There's about fifty questions on the tip of Freddy's tongue, starting with how much she remembers of the party and taking a few detours via what exactly did the two of them wind up doing on the dance floor. They all wind up in her room the day before though, trying to be sure she's ok.

She'll be fine. Sport dismisses her and Freddy early, and she retreats to her room while Freddy decides he's going to go for a stroll. He can do that now, take himself round the block, maybe visit an arcade. See the girls on the other corners round here. Most of them are Sport's, so there's no issue with him trying to be friends with them.

He's seeing Larry in the morning. The thought leaves a happy sort of heat in his chest, he likes it. Likes it a whole lot more than the lukewarm recognition he runs though every time Nice Guy walks through the door.

Nice Guy and Vic Vega, he just about remembers that. He supposes he won't be seeing Nice Guy no more.

As the sunset hits, the bottom layer of clouds burns off, leaving a fiery red strip for the sun to peak up at them from. Two blocks away, Freddy has to catch his breath when he first spots it, heading back home at a pace, to reassure himself that his home isn't on fire all over again.

I do believe all of the nasty stuff that requires warnings is now over. If anyone's reading this...just enjoy the rest of the ride I guess

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There's a trail of bloody footprints leading away from the tenement. Freddy looks down and sees it seeping between his toes. He's not the only one, the girls, in their slippers and trainers, have left a similarly grim streak behind them, like a heard of antelope marking out their path for the incoming lions.

Glancing up, he can see the dim red sheen echoing out from the light in his kitchen and the foggy pink from Iris's. Unthinking, he takes a step back towards the front door.

"What are you doing?" Gemima pulls him back. "We have to get out of here."

"Iris is still up there."

"Iris is gonna be on the cop's most wanted list if she ain't there to tell them exactly what she didn't do when they show up."

"She didn't do nothin'!

"I know that!" Gemima groans in frustration. "C'mon, we need to start walking some place fast."

"All together?" Freddy squints at the gaggle of girls collected behind her, all vaguely trying to shuffle away without losing the immunity of the herd.

"Why not?"

"Nothing looks more suspicious than a big load of people leaving a crime scene all at once. You gotta go in like, twos and threes. All in different directions." As soon as the words are out of his mouth he feels attention shift to him, like he knows what the hell he's talking about. He might just be on to something with this idea, but fucked if he knows where he got it from.

Probably something Blue said, when Freddy wasn't really paying attention. Or something Pink let slip, something Brown monologued about, something one of the guys at the cab company had told him and he had thought he wasn't really paying attention.

"And just where do you think you're going?" Gemima growls as Freddy tries to head back to the tenement. She throws herself between him and the building and her arms stretch just wide enough to stop him ducking through and pushing on without her.

Freddy pinches his lips and tries to do that thing where he looks up through his eyelashes to make himself look smaller than he really is. It would work better if she had more than a couple of inches on him. "We gotta go, right?"

"Right! So go!"

"Well jeez, Gemima, I'd fucking love to!" Freddy grins at her but he's irritated on his way to being pissed. "Tell me, how much cash did you grab on your way out your room?"

She blinks, taken aback. "Just a handful, Freddy. I didn't get everything."

"You know what I got?" Freddy pauses and waits for her to shrug back at him, like it's his fault she dragged him down the stairs without a moment to think about it. "I got nothing! Didn't even get a jacket. Fuck, Gemima, I'm not even wearing shoes right now. So I'm gonna head back inside and grab my shit."

"The police are coming." Gemima says, enunciating every word overmuch like he's stupid. She jabs a finger skywards, like she's pointing at the sirens that they can all hear, creeping closer by the minute.

What are they gonna do, the fucking cops? Look around and see some gang shit that they don't want no part of. Squirrel Iris away, put her in some foster home. He can't picture it. Iris, who's walked the streets f New York City for God knows how long, dumped down in a normal house and expected to be a normal kid. To go to school to fight with her parents, to not go out at night to drink and dance and fuck and get high till she can't remember herself any more.

Gemima lets him pass. "I'm sending the others away but I'm gonna be right here waiting for you, Freddy Orange, you hear? If the cops get you that's on me."

"Whatever, Mom." Freddy calls back, flipping her the bird as he hops up the steps to the front door.

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He doesn't let anything in the hallway distract him, or anything on the way up the stairs. The third floor feels a mighty long way away, hovering too far out of reach to touch. In the however many months since Freddy moved in, he's adapted, his legs more than strong enough to carry him up with barely a whimper of protest. But now it feels like a chore, time closing in on him till every step is monumental and he is forever sliding back to something out of reach and awful.

There's no fucking blood pouring out through Iris's door if he doesn't look at it. There's no Travis. Someone, somewhere, maybe groans, but that's to be expected in a whore house. He slips into his bedroom and takes the trouble to twitch the curtains enough to see the girls peeling off in small groups, and Gemima staring determinedly at the pavement as she smoked a cigarette from a stiff hand.

There's a bag under the bed, as always. Freddy grabs his box of cash, safe in the knowledge that Sport won't be after him for the proceeds, a couple of clean pairs of underwear and the closest stack of comics to him. His hand is on the doorknob when he hears the shouts from the police outside and he freezes up long enough for them to bust down the front door.

From here, you gotta move fast, think fast, weigh up your options. Iris is gonna look good coming out of all this. even if they did think she killed those Johns, everyone will think she's in the right. Cute kid kills rapists or some shit, the headlines will love her. If he gets caught here, that don't look so good. The cops don't look to kindly on whores and they don't look too kindly on fairies and as for fairy whores...

Freddy's never really thought of himself as a fairy before. He opens the door to his old apartment and decides that he doesn't want to do it again.

There's a bathroom on the floor below, a shared situation that they all partake in. It's unassuming, out of the way and if the worst comes to the worst, there's a tiny little window that wouldn't give him more than a six foot drop to the fire escape. He takes the stairs two at a time, not pausing to think about how much noise he's making as he ducks into the bathroom just in time to catch the upper end of a beam of light trailing off someone's flashlight.

"He's dead." Someone says. The voice is rich and thick and male and not Sport's and Freddy feels the same tight reluctance he always gets hearing a John make his way up the stairs to see him.

Not Sport's voice, but talking about the guy all the same.

It can't take them longer than two minutes to sweep the area before they make their way up to the third floor landing but it feels like an age. Freddy holds his breath and lets it out in increments, like that's gonna make a bit of difference. He fiddles with the catch on the window, theorising that he can probably get his head through if he stands on the back of the toilet.

When they find the bodies, and Iris, and Travis, there's cursing and yelling and someone complaining that the sight's enough to make them want to puke. Travis is, by some buttfuck miracle, still alive. The guy doesn't think to scream, he's barely even groaning when they carry him downstairs.

Apparently they got an ambulance outside. Someone called one, though Freddy's fucked if he could tell you he heard that conversation play out.

"Is...is she ok?" Travis asks in a voice that would be perfectly relaxed if it weren't for how thin it comes out.

Freddy slides towards the door when he passes, laying a hand flat against the wood, then letting ring and little finger curl in, holding index and middle up to the space where Travis must surely be, keeping him at gunpoint.

Iris passes soon after, completely silent despite the barrage of questions that she's being asked. So fucking out of character. She wasn't expecting this shit. She wasn't expecting to be dragged away from everything she's built here in the blink of an eye.

And really, fuck Travis.

It takes hours. The time to clear away Sport's body, and the bodies of the guys upstairs. The time taken to organise the shifts that the fuzz are supposed to run around here in the morning. Freddy sits on the lid of the toilet, desperate for a piss and unable to go, feeling stupid. Who needs a pair of shoes, who needs money? What's all that compared to your liberty?

On the night the Cabots had been brought in, Larry had said the streets were filled with people on the move. He gets that. He can't stop his body jerking and figetting, leg bounding like it's gonna save him when what he really wants to do is run a mile.

The sun is well on its way up by the time the last of the night crew leave, and if Freddy's been paying attention, that means that are a couple of guys stationed at the top of the stairs and a couple of guys with a car out front, till the morning shifters arrive.

Nowhere to go but down, realistically speaking. It sounds better than braining himself on a metal staircase and being found two week's later by a traumatised neighbour.

He slips the door open as quietly as he is able, and is thankful that he hasn't yet put his shoes on as he creeps across the landing. Down one flight of stairs, and another. The hallway comes up on him sharper than he was expecting, and he has to move fast to make it to the shadows before the cops outside catch wind of him.

Or not. He pauses, blinks, tries to re-calibrate his eyes so that he can actually see in the mismatched light. The cops on duty are leant over the hood of their car, looking at something that they evidently find hilarious if the way their shoulders are shaking is any indication.

Against his better judgement, Freddy glances down to the corner by the door. No more body there, no more dead brown eyes. If anything, the result is all the more shocking, leaving a fan of blood that perfectly marks where the body once was.

The thing about blood is that it dries out fast. Becoming sticky then hard then a stain you'll never quite get out of your clothes. Freddy's been living around women who are all very preoccupied with whether or not their period is still incoming, he knows this shit.

Quietly, quietly, he scampers out of the building once again, barely feeling the difference between the floorboards that are caked in blood and the ones that aren't. Like a rat leaving a sinking ship, he vanishes with as little fanfare as possible. Not running, so as not to attract attention to himself, but moving fast enough that he's not getting caught in the same frame as anything incriminating.

Stopping at the end of the block, Freddy pulls on his shoes and then looks back over his shoulder.

No Gemima. Maybe she was lying, maybe she ran, or maybe the cops got her. Like watching Brown be bundled into the back of a police van, unsure if Pink and Blue were following suit. Freddy blinks at the pale grey skies, soon to turn into a riot of colour as the sunset begins. He's gonna be a few hours early, but he figures he really doesn't have anything better to do than head round the corner to the diner where he can hurry up and wait for Larry.

HERE IS THE END if anyone out there is reading this. Advent starts tomorrow so advent fics start tomorrow and this has just so happened to reach it's conclusion in the nick of time.

I'm planning on getting this properly edited and put up on AO3 at some point so keep a look out. There's a high chance of the structure being very different. I'm not happy with one of the late stage forks in the story that i took - I picked wrong - so some of it will be cut. This last chunk is going to be written in keeping with the fork I should have taken - it just about makes sense with everything that has so far come but if characters seem at all surprised about things that they've already seen happen, this is why.

Some ableist language in this chunk

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Freddy stumbles through the door of Larry's apartment, having snoozed on the back seat most of the way over here. He doesn't know which part of the city they're in, but it seems quieter here that he's used to. His feet scrape against the mat without consulting him as to the best course of action and he goes to toe off his shoes. Larry's shoes are stacked in a neat row against the wall by the door. Work boots, smarts and trainers, while coats are stacked two to a peg overhead.

"C'mon, get yourself inside." Larry ushers him in. "You need a coffee or orange juice or something?"

"Water. Please." Freddy shuffles further into the cramped main corridor. This place ain't big. There are a handful of black and white photos up on the walls, what looks like parents and a brother. Everything's painted pale yellow with mismatched frames and fixings, the carpet thin and grey. It's clean, but he's not houseproud the way Sport is. The door to the living room is open, and in it Freddy can't see much beyond a couch, a television and a coffee table with a neat stack of magazines and old newspapers down one end.

Larry shows him through to the kitchen which is barely big enough for the two of them to stand in. The wooden cupboard fronts look like they've seen better days though the fake tiles in the yellow and orange linoleum floor were probably always ugly.

"I usually eat on the couch or on thee job." Larry explains, sheepish as he passes Freddy a glass of water.

Freddy shrugs and downs it all, letting water drizzle over his chin and catch in the front of his shirt. "It don't matter."

"You need food?"

"I need sleep, man." Freddy laughs, setting down the glass and rubbing at his eyes. "Though I get it if you want me to take a shower first."

"Naw, let's get you to bed."

It takes Larry all of five minutes to show Freddy everything else he needs to know about this place. It's on a sixth floor somewhere and though they came up in the ratty old elevator this is apparently generally regarded as a bad move. Larry's bedroom is wrapped tight around his double bed and on the side of the building with no windows, making it look rather dark and unimpressive. There's barely any colour to it. More yellow walls and a dresser with a single bottle of cologne perched on top. There's a dark wood wardrobe with ornate carvings on it that looks to be antique and Freddy decides that it's got to be a family thing, given how little it has to do with anything else in here. The bathroom is small and white, black mould trying it's luck in the grout though Larry obviously works hard to beat it back when he gets the chance. There's one solitary storage cupboard that houses an immersion heater and the living room.

"You can have my bed if you want." Larry says, carefully not meeting Freddy's eye. "I mean, I should probably go check in and let them know that I gotta take the rest of the day off or something. Not like I'm using it."

Freddy nods. "You can always join me when you get back."

The force with which Larry stares at his hands is damning. "Listen...kid..."

"Don't gimme that shit." Freddy steps in close, slides a hand over his and Larry's eyes immediately dart to the window, like he's scared someone's gonna see them.

"I'm just...I ain't sure we shoulda done that. And I'm definitely not sure we should do it again."

Freddy looks up at him. Larry ain't so tall either, but he's taller than Freddy.

"I am." Freddy breathes. His fingers tighten over the back of Larry's hand and he wants them on him, now. He wants to be held, he wants to be safe.

"Kid." Larry lets out a shaky breath.

Freddy plants a kiss on his nose, tilting his head till he can read Larry's lips. Larry doesn't kiss back, but he does flip his hand over to link his fingers with Freddy's.

"Don't fuckin' lie to me about what you want." Freddy tells him.

Larry nods. "Okay." Eyes flick up to meet his. "Okay. Jesus Christ on a pogo stick, fine. Just...there's a lot of tension here, we gotta let it cool off. I think it would be best if I took the couch for a while."

"Bullshit." Freddy snaps, and when Larry opens his mouth to protest he holds up a finger to stop him. "This is your place. I get the couch."

Larry laughs, and the first shred of that tension burns off. "Okay, sure. Whatever you want. But this afternoon, you're in my bed."

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Freddy dreams of Iris. Her face emerging in and out of the crowds and him forever unable to reach her. He dreams of a snake, writhing in his arms. He dreams of pink lights and smiling eyes. He dreams of the sun, of high heeled pumps, and the space she always left empty at his left hand side.

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No more nights spend wide awake, waiting for the next John, no more lie ins till well after lunch. The first afternoon Freddy sinks into sleep like a stone and when he wakes up, it's more or less the next morning and Larry is asleep on the couch despite himself. Freddy waits up, resisting the urge to snoop, to uncover the personality that he's sure must be nestled just below the surface of this place. He knows there must be coffee available, because Larry offered it when he first got here, but after five minutes searching he can't for the life of him work out where it might be, so he returns to Larry's bed to re-read comics with blank, hungover eyes.

When Larry wakes up, he's fine about it, telling Freddy to stop apologising for stealing his bed. He makes them both breakfast, eggs and beans that come pre-slathered in hot sauce and his coffee's not half bad.

It's not till Tuesday morning, when Freddy's waking up on the sofa to the tune of Larry shaking him awake, that he starts to worry that he's being desperately stupid.

"Can't have you laying in bed all day." Larry says with mock sternness. He sounds just like someone's dad.

He hasn't got a wife, he hasn't got any kids. He doesn't even have a niece or nephew that are all that important to him as far as Freddy can tell. Must be lonely, living out here all alone. He wants to ask about it but he's not sure they're there yet.

Larry seats himself at the far end of the couch and lights up a cigarette while Freddy slowly folds up the duvet he sleeps under. Like being back on sixty fourth street all over again, only this couch don't sag the way that used to.

"You still going to work?" Freddy asks, quietly.

"Sure I am. Gotta make money somehow."

Freddy thinks about the box of money wedged under the bed he had on ninety second street. Whether or not Sport is worried about him or angry, if he's taken the money or left it there for when Freddy comes home.

When. Freddy is so fucking stupid. "He's gonna find you."

"How's he gonna find me? Who saw me take you?"

"I can't stay locked up in this apartment forever, Larry. Sooner or later, he's gonna find me."

"Hey!" Larry grabs Freddy by the shoulder to get his attention. "You know how big this city is? You know how many people live here? I know these gangsters talk a big game, but if you're willing to put a little work into it you really can disappear in this city. Okay? Sure, you're gonna lie low for a while. But you're gonna be fine. I promise you. Scouts's honour."

He holds up a lazy three fingers and Freddy snorts. "You were never a scout."

"And I ain't got much honour." Larry follows up, smiling. "You want a cigarette."

Freddy shakes his head. "You got plenty of honour, I reckon."

He sidles up to Larry, till he gets an arm around his shoulder and they sit in easy silence while the smoke curls up towards the grubby yellow ceiling.

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On Tuesday, Larry wakes him with fresh bread from some place down the street and the morning newspaper. His shifts are coming regular and always in the evenings, so Freddy knows he's agreed to do some bullshit for Joe that lets him spend the days at home. The shifts at the cab company are long, ten hours or more, and the guy barely seems to sleep, catching a few hours here and there in between shooting the shit with Freddy.

"You should come out to get the paper with me tomorrow morning. Bit of fresh air would do you good." Larry insists, waving the newspaper under Freddy's nose. "And keeping up with current affairs wouldn't hurt either."

Freddy begrudgingly takes the paper and makes a show of not packing up his duvet before he lets it fall into his lap. The front page has some shit to day about gang violence up in the Bronx, and a sideline on the state of the run up to the Presidential election. Palantine's still running, still pushing on.

In some parts of the city, Palantine isn't going to stop running for President. Freddy skips through the cover story and the run down of national events, everything from military parades in Texas to wildfires in Northern California, till he reaches page five. There's a potential scandal floating - some local politician who may or may not have been taking bribes, so what else is new? And a note about vigilante justice bringing a teenage girl out of a whorehouse.

Freddy reads the article, then he stops and reads it again.

And again.

"What the fuck?" He hisses.

"Everything alright?" Larry asks, arriving with plates and jam to go with the bread.

Distantly, Freddy registers that the address on the paper bag that the bread is in is somewhere in midtown, but away from Central Park. Not too bad.

"Yeah...no...I..." Freddy clears his throat, shakes his head and sits up straight. "Sport is dead."

"What?"

"Sport. He's dead."

"Bullshit."

"Swear to God. It's right here in the paper. He caught a bullet sometime last night, early enough to make the morning run."

Larry sets down the coffee and then stands up very straight, his shoulders straining under the self imposed tension and his brow curled in, pretending this is a problem. "Well...shit. They catch the guy that did it?"

"Sure did. He went in trying to save some girl and...Oh." Freddy pauses, letting the names mean something to him for all of five seconds. "Iris. He went to save Iris. She's gonna be reunited with her parents."

"Well that's good, right?" Larry asks. "I mean, shit! A good for nothing pimp is dead and his girls are getting sent home. Sounds good to me."

"Yeah." It's Freddy's turn to frown. He can't imagine it, what his parents would say if they knew where he'd been. If they knew what he'd been doing. He doesn't know if he would survive in Bakersfield anymore, and Iris sure didn't sound like she was at all local.

He reads the article three more times while Larry tidies away the duvet around him. He takes in the injuries the guy suffered shooting down not just Sport but the two Johns Iris had been seeing to at the time, the hospital he's been sent to. There are no pictures.

"Oh shit." Freddy blinks, finally letting the name of the shooter make sense to him.

Larry looks up from the crossword in yesterday's paper, his glasses resting on the tip of his nose. "What?"

"The guy who shot Sport." Freddy holds up the paper, shoves it right in his face. "It was Travis fucking Bickle."

It takes Sport a minute, and Freddy has to remind himself that Travis stopped working at the same joint as him months back. Hell, for all Freddy knows, Travis hasn't properly worked in a long ass time.

"You mean that spiccy weirdo who used to work driving a cab?"

"Yeah."

"Jeez. It's a small fucking world."

"Yeah." Freddy stares down at the paper, grabs himself a slice of bread. It's good, thick and spongey, clinging to the insides of his teeth.

The hospital address is right there, staring up at him.

And he's free.

"I can do whatever I fucking want." Freddy breathes.

Larry breaks into a slow smile. "Guess you can, kid. Still, take it slow for a minute why don't you? I know that guy had superiors. Someone could still come after you."

"Yeah but I never met 'em. They don't know who I am."

"But still..."

"But nothing! Sport gave some weird extra shit about me that he didn't give about the rest of his girls. No one else cares. I'm telling you, I'm good." And because he's good, and because Larry is good, and because everything is gonna be ok, Freddy leans in to kiss Larry and doesn't need to be surprised when the guy opens up his mouth to meet him.

And they kiss, and they kiss.

"So." Larry's cheeks are flushed and his hands keep darting back and forth from Freddy's body like his head and his dick are still playing musical chairs over what they want to do about him. "What do you wanna do with this newfound freedom."

"I wanna go see him." Freddy says, without pausing to think. "Travis. I wanna go see him in hospital, say thanks."

"Okay."

"This afternoon."

"Okay."

Okay. It's all okay. Freddy guides Larry's hands to his hips and holds him there. Because the afternoon is hours off, and there are things he can do with himself before then.

Truth be told, his body misses it, the constant movement, the fucking. So maybe that's why he keeps going, when Larry pleads with him to think twice, to let this all happen naturally. Fuck natural, fuck slow. This is all their time, running through their fingers, begging to be used before it morphs, splutters and dies out on them without grace or bargaining.

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The high ceilings and stained tiles of the hospital have Freddy thinking of British war hospitals crammed into stately homes. They learned about that shit in history, right alongside the death tolls from the battlefields of the Great War. Visiting hours are short for ICU patients, but when Freddy arrives he's the only person to be lead through to where Travis is laid up.

"He's sleeping quite a lot, but you can still talk to him." The nurses urges Freddy as he pulls up a stool next to what would appear to be an unconscious Travis. He's surrounded by flowers, and Freddy wonders if he should have brought something other than himself.

Larry offered to come with him, but he had been waning, in need of a proper day's sleep. Freddy figures he can come see Travis some other time if he really cares.

Freddy's still not hot on the details of exactly what happened to Travis. He knows there was a run in with a bullet, though not enough to kill him. As soon as he sits down, he sees it though. The thick gauze patch on his neck. Nicked the jugular. Freddy winces, that's a nasty injury to survive.

As soon as the nurse is out of earshot, Travis's eyes fly open and he turns to look at Freddy.

Freddy nearly jumps out of his skin. "Jesus! What the shit, man. I thought you were asleep."

Travis stares at him like he hasn't heard. His hair, typically soft and long enough to fall into his eyes, has been shaved into a rough approximation of a mohawk and Freddy decides that he was better to look at when it was longer and dark.

Holding up two fingers in the shape of a gun, Travis levels the barrel at Freddy. "Freddy, right?"

"Yeah."

"What're you doin' here?" His voice is fuzzy with painkillers. Guy must be on cloud nine.

Hey, I just spent the past couple days reading this whole thing and damn, it was so well written, the way you tied to two movies together, how you personalised all the characters in Res Dogs to a different environment, and also Freddy's sorta stockholm syndrome after Sport's grooming, how he still hates Sport but wants his attention at the same time.