Ficorpio
Chapter 1
On the thirty-seventh floor of the Ocean Star Hotel, in room 3726, Jason Mercer sat sunk deep into a massive black fabric sofa, gripping the temporary script pages so tightly they had started to wrinkle.
It was a suite. A semicircular sitting room opened into a bedroom divided by a folding screen, and in the east corner of the bedroom there was a small study. During pre-production, film crews often colonized places like this for days or even weeks at a time. The director and assistant director would stay holed up there, auditioning actors, discussing rewrites, arranging schedules, and sometimes playing a few hands of cards to unwind.
Jason was there for an audition. More precisely, he was there to read chemistry.
Casting for the role had wrapped a month ago, and the director had been happy with his performance. When the assistant director called yesterday, Jason had assumed it was the start-date notice. Instead, the man on the other end had said, “Jason, do you have time tomorrow? We need you to fly to Shanghai. There’s still one more test.”
Jason lived in Guangzhou, not for any career reason, but because his girlfriend was from there. He thought it over for only a moment before realizing something had changed.
“Sure,” he had said. “I’ve got time. What scene are we doing? I’ll prepare.”
“A scene with your co-star,” the assistant director, Nathan Brooks, a man in his forties, had said with careful diplomacy. “You know this project is… a little unusual.”
That much was true.
It was a gay film.
When the script had first landed in his hands, Jason had been standing in his kitchen cooking noodles for his girlfriend, holding a pair of bamboo chopsticks. The script had only been a treatment. He’d finished it in ten minutes, swept the too-long fringe out of his eyes, and asked his assistant Dylan Parker, “A movie like this… can they even make it now?”
“No idea.” Dylan had been wearing an apron. He’d lifted the chopsticks out of the pot and leaned his head out from the kitchen. “I heard the financing’s locked in. Anyway, weren’t you the one who said you wanted to do an arthouse film?”
He did want that.
Jason had come up as an action actor. He had been grinding in the industry for more than ten years. He’d worked as a stunt double, done fight choreography, even headlined low-budget films, but he’d never quite broken through. He was pushing forty now. It was time, he thought, to make one real piece of work. Something with depth. Something that demanded acting. Something good enough that people would remember his name with it.
“The subject’s risky, though,” Danielle Hayes had said, carrying over a glass of milk and curling into his arms. “Forget whether it even gets approved. Even if it does make it into theaters, one wrong move with something like this and you lose fans.”
She had a delicate kind of prettiness, small and lively and bright. She had started out as an actress too, then moved behind the scenes as she got older. They had been together three years now. The relationship was steady. Give it another year or two of settling in, and they were planning to get married.
From the kitchen, Dylan had called out in a teasing voice, “Danielle, you’re just scared he’ll do the movie and run off with a man, aren’t you?”
Danielle had turned Jason’s face toward her and studied him. “Oh please, like you have that kind of power,” she said, then raised her voice toward the kitchen. “Other men don’t worry me. The two of you are weirdly close, though. Tell me the truth. Have you already done something to my boyfriend?”
She set down the milk and ran into the kitchen to laugh and shove at Dylan.
Jason sat there rubbing the thin stack of pages between his fingers. He didn’t know much about being gay or not gay. What he did know was that he liked this story, and he was interested in these two characters.
And now he was here in this hotel suite, still rubbing the script treatment between his fingers, waiting for fate with a mix of tension, anticipation, and a faint, private shame.
The sound of a keycard unlocking the door came from behind him.
Jason turned and stood.
The director walked in first, wearing a white T-shirt, jeans, and a beat-up baseball cap, all of it looking artfully worn. He nodded at Jason. “Sorry to keep you waiting.”
Two or three other people trailed behind him, still chatting cheerfully in the doorway. Jason guessed one was Nathan, one was a production hand, and the last one had to be the actor he was reading with.
“Jason, you really don’t look thirty-seven or thirty-eight,” the director said, studying him like a painting. “Face like you could fit it in one hand. Still got that boyish look.”
Jason gave an embarrassed laugh. “Victor, I’d love to look more mature. A face like this doesn’t exactly land the big roles.”
The director lit a cigar and said with complete certainty, “You’re right for this part.”
Jason had beautiful eyes, large and bright, with lashes that curved upward. In the light they looked almost hazy, almost drunk. He really did have a small face, a pointed chin, thin lips. Years of martial training had given him a lean, flexible body. If you asked anyone who knew him what his best feature was, they might very well say the back of his neck, especially when his hair was clipped clean and neat. The line of it was soft in a way that made people want to close a hand around it.
“There’s something about you I need,” the director said, shifting naturally from small talk into work. “I need you beautiful, restrained, a little neurotic. In this film, you’re the kind of man who wears tailored suits and drives a good car. You need pride. A little obsession with cleanliness.”
Jason listened intently, his expression focused, even while panic flickered under the surface as he tried to memorize every word. At this stage, directors usually didn’t waste time dissecting a character in detail. Sure enough, Victor moved quickly to the point.
“We’ll have the two of you run a scene together. If the feeling is right, we start shooting.”
Meaning: if it wasn’t right, they could still replace him.
Jason couldn’t help glancing toward the door.
Following his line of sight, Victor called out, “Adrian, stop chatting. I’ve been waiting so long the flowers are dying out here.”
He gave the final word a playful drawn-out lilt, and amusingly, the reply from outside came back in a just as soft, buoyant accent.
“Director, I haven’t even seen the final script yet.”
A tall man stepped in, smiling in that shifting way some people did, as if amusement moved through them in waves. His hair was short, dark, and glossy, permed into loose volume. Beneath the curls, part of his nose bridge showed clean and sharp. His lips were thin and tilted upward, and there was a trace of stubble along his jaw. When he turned and saw Jason standing by the sofa, his big eyes narrowed slowly into slits.
Then he said Jason’s name like he was tasting it.
“Jason… Mercer?”
Of course Jason recognized him too.
He stood and reached out a hand. “Adrian.”
Adrian Vale. Former child star from Taiwan. Handsome, gifted, and even more gifted with luck. At a young age he had already done every kind of role, won every kind of award, and wherever he went, he seemed to carry his own light with him.
The director patted Adrian’s shoulder with one hand and motioned Jason back down with the other. “You two know each other already. North Summit, right? That Liu Pangzi film. Good stuff.”
Jason nodded. Adrian nodded too.
North Summit. A film by director Liu Jianwei. They had both played supporting roles in it. By all rights, they should have known each other well enough.
In reality, they had never exchanged a single word on that set.
“And Galloping Through,” Nathan added as he and the production assistant came in and started setting up the camera. “Seven, eight years ago now. That thing was huge.”
Jason gave an awkward smile.
In that one, Adrian had been the male lead. Jason had only been the stunt double for the female lead. Seven or eight years later, people remembered he had been part of that production, but no one remembered that he hadn’t actually appeared on camera.
Adrian, though, probably did remember.
He shot Jason a quiet glance, then chose a sofa that was neither too close nor too far. “So what’s the plan today, Director?”
Victor stubbed out his cigar, lowering his head in the process as if the gesture itself might make this less embarrassing. “The two of you run a scene and see if there’s chemistry.”
Adrian let out a sudden laugh. It was the laugh of someone asking a question he already knew the answer to.
“What kind of scene?”
Victor looked mildly awkward. “What kind? An intimate one.”
Then no one spoke.
The huge suite seemed to shrink all at once until it felt no bigger than a palm.
Jason quietly clenched his fists.
He had imagined all kinds of possibilities before coming here, good ones, bad ones, middling ones. But he had never expected it would be Adrian Vale. He had seen the guy act. Adrian was a monster. The kind who could strip his scene partners down to the bone and devour them alive.
Adrian was weighing Jason too.
They had crossed paths before, but they’d never acted opposite each other. His gaze was sharp as he scanned Jason from top to bottom. Jason obviously felt it. He loosened his fists and rubbed his hands together.
“Director, maybe…” He made a slight arc with two long fingers between himself and Adrian. “Maybe we should get familiar first?”
Victor checked his watch and sighed. “Ten minutes.”
The equipment stayed where it was.
Chapter 2
The two of them went into the bedroom and sat side by side on the big bed, facing a folding screen painted with white cranes over a gold-dusted background. One crane stood on a cliff with its wings ready to spread; another turned its head back in mid-flight.
Jason said quietly, “Feels like we really never talked much.”
Adrian glanced at him and smiled. “Never had the chance.” He pulled out a pack of cigarettes. “You smoke?”
Jason turned his face slightly and nodded.
Adrian lit two and passed one over. “I’ve done this kind of thing before.”
Jason took a drag. The tobacco hit hard, enough to make him cough.
Adrian said, “Back then… I was sixteen, maybe seventeen. Another Liu Jianwei film. Tiny supporting role. One kissing scene, one bed scene.”
He paused.
Jason had the uneasy sense he was supposed to say something.
Instead, Adrian planted one hand beside him on the bed and leaned closer, fixing him with that mischievous look so familiar from magazine covers.
“Honestly? What’s there to talk about? We could just kiss.”
For a full minute Jason’s mind went blank.
He held the cigarette frozen near his mouth and watched the smoke drift across Adrian’s dark, beautiful eyes.
“Well? Want to try it?” Adrian sounded faintly irritated by the smoke now, but his gaze had settled on Jason’s narrow lips. Old man’s mouth, he thought. Jason was only two years older than him, but when it came to dropping into emotion, Jason was obviously nowhere near as comfortable.
Jason blinked once, then turned his head away as if dodging the blow.
In a voice so low it was almost impossible to hear, he said, “We don’t have to kiss, do we? A hug could work too.”
“Director!” Adrian called over the screen. “Can we just hug?”
Victor shouted back, irritation clear in his voice. “There are at least three bed scenes and two full-nude scenes. No closed set. So no, a hug is not enough.”
Jason knew his face had to be burning bright red.
He shot Adrian an exasperated glare, the kind that plainly said, Why would you provoke him like that?
Adrian, on the other hand, looked delighted. He smoked and laughed so hard his shoulders shook, one corner of his mouth higher than the other. It was an infuriatingly good look.
Jason realized then how dangerous Adrian was. What had just happened might only have been part of his acting method. He could pressure you, relax you, control you, draw you out, all on a whim.
Maybe this kiss, with him, was possible after all.
Jason eased up just a little.
And at that exact moment Adrian crushed out his cigarette and called loudly, “Director, we’re ready!”
The string that had only just slackened snapped tight again.
Jason stared at him in disbelief and grabbed his arm, mouthing, You’re messing with me. You’re ready, I’m not.
Adrian only gave him a crooked, shameless grin and slung an arm over his shoulders, hauling him back out.
Victor and Nathan were smoking. The production assistant had just twisted off the lens cap. For some reason, Jason found himself less nervous than before. When Adrian shifted that arm-over-the-shoulders posture into a hug from behind, Jason even struggled on instinct in a way that felt natural.
Adrian was more than half a head taller. He buried the tip of his nose in Jason’s hair and murmured, “Why are you fighting it? We’re shooting.”
The red recording light wasn’t on.
Jason turned his head, ready to expose the lie, but a spill of curled hair brushed over his cheek, and then wet lips landed clumsily on his eyelid. They lingered there for a beat, then dragged heavily down past the side of his nose and fastened onto the corner of his mouth.
Only then did the director shout, “Action!”
Jason was stunned.
His eyes stayed open while Adrian sucked at his lips like he was worrying at some small animal. From the hollow of his throat down to his chest, his whole body had gone numb. By the time he realized he was supposed to respond, a warm hand had already slipped up beneath the hem of his jacket.
“Mm…”
He gasped in surprise, but the sound that came out through his nose meant something entirely different.
That startled him even more.
He tried to lean back, and in the process kicked the coffee table where Victor had left his cigar. Something crashed. The lighter and a full ashtray tipped over together and spilled across the carpet.
Using Jason’s movement, Adrian drove him backward toward the floor-to-ceiling windows.
Jason was mortified. He was pinned tight in another man’s arms, and even the whites of his eyes had gone pink. The camera followed close behind. Victor rolled up the script in one hand and shouted, “More!”
They both knew exactly what he meant.
Jason stole a glance at Adrian. There was sweat on his forehead. He was frowning. He wasn’t taking this lightly either.
In that electric, impossible moment, Adrian’s tongue traced softly along the line of Jason’s lips, then pushed inside in one decisive motion.
Jason shut his eyes and endured it.
In the darkness behind his lids, he tried to imagine it was Danielle’s tongue.
But it wasn’t.
She didn’t taste like smoke, and she had never kissed him with this kind of burning invasion.
Jason gave in too easily, and not even through acting.
That irritated Adrian.
It made it seem as though he were the only one putting himself into this kiss for real.
Adrian knew how to make a kiss look heated and hungry, or sticky with sex. But with Jason, those tricks seemed unnecessary, because the thing itself was already there in him, in his half-lowered lashes, in the disorder of his hair, in the flush burning across his cheekbones.
No wonder the director had chosen him, Adrian thought.
He came with that quality built in.
One had the quality. The other had the technique.
Chemistry sparked naturally on impact.
Victor held his breath. The production assistant stared fixedly through the viewfinder. Nathan, blushing, covered part of his face and turned away, though the two men’s faint, uneven sounds still reached his ears.
The kiss went on for a long time.
Just when the director thought it was probably time to call cut, Adrian suddenly grabbed the heavy curtain beside them and yanked it high, wrapping the two of them in its dark wine-purple shadow.
Inside that dim enclosure, he let go of Jason’s mouth and dropped his forehead wearily against Jason’s shoulder.
They were pressed so close they could hear each other’s heartbeat.
Jason, almost without thinking, brushed his head against Adrian’s curls and stared helplessly into space like a patient just recovering from a high fever.
After a few breaths, Adrian cupped Jason’s face as if he were handling a piece of overripe fruit.
Their eyes met for one brief instant.
Then Adrian released the velvet and bent to kiss him again.
The curtain slid down the line of his back and slowly fell away, swaying once or twice against the window before settling still.
The tension finally loosened from Victor’s hand. The rolled script snapped open with a slap.
“Cut!”
Jason and Adrian heard him.
Neither of them moved.
Their mouths parted little by little, breath spilling hot across each other’s faces. They both wanted to look at the other, and both avoided it at the same time.
Adrian made a small gesture to Jason, signaling for him to take the restroom first.
Jason covered his mouth and crossed through the bedroom. As he closed the restroom door behind him, he heard Victor ask Adrian in high spirits, “Adrian, when you pulled the curtain around you two… what exactly were you doing in there?”
Jason had absolutely no interest in the answer.
He shut the door with a click, turned on the faucet, and the rushing water filled his ears.
After that came cleanup, compliments, and small talk.
Victor looked very pleased with Jason’s performance. Adrian, after washing up, sat silently on the sofa smoking. When Jason left, Adrian didn’t say a word. He didn’t even look at him.
On the plane back to Guangzhou, Jason thought there might still be other actors coming in to audition. Adrian hadn’t looked like he was planning to leave. Maybe…
Maybe whatever Adrian had done to him in that room, he would have to do it two more times, three more times, smiling at different faces, whispering the same charged little lines.
The moment Jason got off the plane, Danielle called.
“You there yet? How’d it go?”
“Not bad…” Guilt flickered through him like he’d done something he shouldn’t have. “I might not be the only option. Sounds like I’ll have to wait for the result.”
Danielle laughed, light and easy. “Whatever. Honestly, it’d be better if they picked somebody else. I don’t want men taking advantage of you all day.”
Jason couldn’t help laughing. “Who’s interested in this old block of tofu anyway?”
“Whoever’s tasted it would know!”
He had the sudden urge to pinch her nose through the phone. “What do you want for dinner tonight?”
“Croissants and borscht!”
The noise of the arrivals gate slowly swallowed his low voice.
Chapter 3
“I’ll pick some up on the way home…”
Elliot Hart set down the phone and felt a dull pressure in his chest. He took off his glasses, rose from behind his desk, and crossed to the tall south-facing window of the consultation room, pushing it open to let in the cool air.
The call had been from Lindsay Clarke.
She was a ballet dancer, all long limbs and poise, with bright, lively eyes and a dimple that showed whenever she smiled. She was slim and elegant, fair-skinned, her long hair always carrying some faint trace of citrus or mint. They had looked good together.
Elliot frowned.
She was his ex.
They had met in the States and dated for over a year, which for him had practically counted as a marathon. They’d skied in Colorado, sunbathed in Florida, ridden horses in Texas—right up until he’d come back to China for her.
Someone knocked.
His secretary stepped in only after his answer, her voice as gentle as it was detached. “Dr. Hart.”
“Come in.” He turned back from the window.
Miriam Foster opened the door, wearing a pale blue dress. “Your three o’clock appointment is here. Mr. Graham Lawson.”
Elliot nodded. “Have him wait ten minutes.”
He was tired. He shut the window and walked back to his desk. Beside the phone lay a sheet of paper covered in notes from Lindsay’s call. In the center, circled in red ink, was one name:
Gavin Sterling.
Her man now.
Elliot put his glasses back on and steepled both fists under his chin, replaying her complaints from the call.
“He isn’t like this,” she had said. “He’s very… very gentle. Sensitive. Artistic, even. I mean, he’s refined. He’s—”
“Mhm.” Elliot had had no interest whatsoever in hearing her praise another man. “What exactly do you think is wrong with him?”
“He doesn’t sleep.”
He had torn off a sticky note. “Do you know why?”
“I think he’s afraid of the dark. Sometimes he has nightmares.”
“What else?”
“He stopped driving all of a sudden. He won’t even go into a parking garage.”
Car.
Elliot drew a star beside the word. “Was he in an accident?”
“No. And he won’t go shopping with me, won’t go to the movies. He breaks glasses all the time. He zones out in front of the TV…”
“How long has this been going on?”
“More than a month. Charles, I really didn’t know what else to do, or I wouldn’t have called you…” Her voice had started to shake; she sounded close to tears. “I want to make this work with him. I really do. I’m willing to try anything.”
Elliot had felt his irritation spike. “What else?”
There had been a pause before she said, “He’s drinking. Maybe more than drinking… This morning I found a bottle of sleeping pills in the liquor cabinet. A third of it was gone.”
“He didn’t drink before?”
“A little. Wine, maybe one bottle every couple of months. After I found the pills, I checked the cabinet. It was full. All new bottles.”
Alcohol abuse. Possible medication dependence.
Elliot had stopped writing as a thought flickered through his mind. “How are things between the two of you?”
He asked only to indulge a mean little curiosity of his own.
“In every sense.”
“We’re… okay. He comes straight home after work. We talk. We cook together.” She had hesitated for a while before finally getting to the part that interested him. “I’ve tried to initiate, but… he doesn’t respond.”
Low sexual interest.
Elliot underlined that twice, hard. “What about his friendships?”
“With his job, in his position, he doesn’t really have close friends, but…”
Lindsay told him Gavin had gotten into an ugly confrontation with a colleague two days ago—physical, apparently.
Aggressive behavior?
Elliot had written a question mark. Then he’d asked about family. Gavin had been raised by a single mother. Bright, successful, the sort of life that had gone smoothly from the start.
“Charles, today would be best. I’ll send him to you.”
Elliot had pressed his lips together and pushed a curl back from his forehead. “My last session ends at two-thirty. Tell him to come after four.”
That had been how their first conversation in three years had ended.
And it left a sour taste in him.
Jealousy, he told himself. Unhealthy emotion. He knew that much. This was, after all, what he treated for a living. He was a psychologist with a two-hundred-square-meter practice in one of Shanghai’s busiest districts, complete with a Freudian chaise, an unreadable secretary, and more patients than he could comfortably manage.
Knock knock knock.
Miriam again. “Dr. Hart, shall I send Mr. Lawson in?”
Elliot lifted his gaze from the sticky note, let it sweep over the bright, almost unnervingly white walls, over the slogan mounted there—
Change yourself, change the world.
Then, with his usual cool, appraising expression, he looked slowly toward the door.
“Please.”
Marital problems. Social dysfunction. Depression.
That was his entire day.
By the time his last patient left the consultation room wiping away tears, it was 3:42. Elliot removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes, then glanced at the wall clock. Outside, he heard Miriam’s heels clicking toward the front entrance. Apparently the man had arrived already.
Gavin Sterling.
The man Lindsay had left him for.
More than fifteen minutes early. Conscientious. Detail-oriented. Possibly Type A, Elliot thought.
He jotted down a rough outline of questions. He had reached the fifth when Miriam suddenly laughed outside—a light, genuinely pleased laugh.
She wasn’t married yet, Elliot thought. That was normal enough.
He tried to keep writing, but only managed two more lines before setting his pen down.
The truth was, he had no desire whatsoever to treat this Gavin Sterling. Heavy drinking, insomnia, dissociation—served him right if he was a mess.
He was still trying to get a grip on his mood when Miriam knocked again.
“Dr. Hart, Mr. Sterling is here.”
Elliot’s voice sharpened. “Isn’t it still early?”
Miriam sounded like she was about to explain, but a low, gentle male voice cut in behind her.
“It’s fine, Miss Foster. We said four. I can wait.”
Just like that, Elliot’s temper flared. He crumpled the sheet of questions and threw it into the trash, then slid his glasses back on and looked toward the door.
“Send Mr. Sterling in.”
The door opened. Miriam’s blue dress flashed past, and a man in an impeccably tailored suit stepped inside.
He wasn’t tall—half a head shorter than Elliot, if anything. His short hair was styled with almost excessive care, lending him a certain delicacy. The suit was expensive, the waist cut close enough to border on provocative. Yes, Elliot thought, provocative was the word. His tie was Hermès, a limited-edition piece. Clearly, he made very good money.
“Hello,” Gavin said first.
His face was striking in a way that stayed with you: large eyes that might have looked almost feminine on someone else, a narrow mouth, a sharply held jaw tucked against the collar of his shirt. There was tension in all of him, a sense of strain pulled tight beneath the surface.
“Hello.” Elliot smiled; it was professional reflex, the instinct to establish rapport. “Mr. Sterling, have a seat.”
Two black chairs sat angled toward each other in the middle of the room. Elliot came around from behind his desk. On his third step, he noticed Gavin’s expression.
He was staring at the door as it swung slowly shut, and there was something close to panic in his face.
“Mr. Sterling?” Elliot said, testing the waters.
Gavin startled visibly and took a step back as if shocked.
That single step told Elliot everything.
This man definitely had a problem.
“Please, sit.” Elliot took his notebook and pen and sat down first, suddenly far more interested. He watched Gavin lower himself stiffly into the chair and hook a vintage leather briefcase against one chair leg. “Is this your first time seeing a therapist?”
The door clicked shut.
Gavin swallowed, but didn’t answer. He was wearing cologne—something subtle and expensive. Up close, Elliot studied him with clinical interest. Good taste. Good breeding. At least on the surface, he seemed immaculate.
“Mr. Sterling, it’s our first meeting. We can just talk casually. There’s no pressure.”
“All right.” Gavin answered gently. He lifted his eyes toward Elliot for the briefest moment, then looked away almost at once.
“What kind of work do you do?”
“I invest in art.”
“What does that involve, exactly?”
“For anything within a certain range of the market, I have pricing authority over the art and design pieces.”
“You studied art in college?”
“Art management. I did printmaking for a while.”
Talking about work and education seemed to loosen him up a little. It was his area of competence, his ground. But Elliot caught something else too: Gavin kept checking the door, subtly, from the corners of his eyes.
Claustrophobia?
Elliot wrote it down.
“You and Lindsay are together?”
Gavin paused, surprised, though his expression stayed fairly neutral. “She’s my fiancée.”
The word fiancée hit Elliot like a needle under the skin.
He nodded. Apparently Gavin had no idea what history existed between him and Lindsay. She hadn’t told him.
“She asked you to come see me, and you weren’t resistant at all?” Elliot smiled against his own mood, layering charm over irritation. “Most people don’t exactly enjoy seeing a psychologist.”
Gavin didn’t absorb the emotional cue at all. He rubbed the side of his nose with his right index finger. “She cares about me. She said the two of you were friends. I thought it might be good to meet you.”
Some people did that when they were hesitating. Elliot watched him with the absurd intensity of a teenager studying a crush. He knew Gavin had just lied.
“Lindsay mentioned you’ve been having trouble sleeping.”
To Elliot’s surprise, Gavin’s tone changed. It came out sharper now, edged with challenge.
“Dr. Hart never has trouble sleeping?”
Defensive posture.
Elliot smiled. “Of course I do. When I can’t sleep, I usually listen to music or watch TV. What about you?”
Gavin’s face stiffened. His thin lips parted. A narrow red tongue flicked out to wet one corner of his mouth.
“I… have a drink sometimes. In my line of work, I can’t afford to stay up all night.”
“Oh?” Elliot dragged out the sound deliberately. “Have you tried sleeping pills?”
He didn’t look at Gavin, but he could feel the other man staring at him.
The air thickened into stillness, the kind of silent contest Elliot knew how to use well. He was never afraid of silence. Gavin, on the other hand, clearly was. Those beautiful eyes darted away, left, right, searching for an exit. At last he gave in under the pressure.
He drew a deep breath, let his lashes fall, then lifted them again.
“Do you have any water?”
Elliot set down his pen and notebook and rose to get it. The moment he pressed the dispenser lever, Gavin said quietly behind him,
“I have.”
Elliot seized the opening immediately. “For how long?”
He handed over the cup. Gavin wrapped his fingers around it but didn’t drink.
“About a month.”
How could that expression be described?
Fear. Loneliness. A kind of spiritual dislocation.
Elliot knew he had seen that look before, though for the moment he couldn’t place where.
“How do they make you feel?”
“…Not good.”
Gavin relaxed by degrees, his back finally touching the chair. It was a sign, and Elliot recognized it as one. He slowed his voice, softened it, let persuasion slip into the edges of his tone as he leaned in slightly.
“And if you don’t take them?”
“I have nightmares.”
“What kind of nightmares?”
“It’s always the same one. I…”