Thunder sat in a small room with a bottle of water at his elbow. It was bitterly cold in the police station and small specks of ice drifted around in the drink. He shivered a little, then looked up as the door to the tiny room opened and a police officer stepped inside.

He recognized the cop as being the driver of the cruiser when Officer Calvin had led them outside. If Calvin had been unassuming, then this man was a downright wallflower. All of his features were so perfectly average that it was actually difficult to tell what he looked like. His eyes were gray-blue and his hair was that medium, common shade of brown which never seemed to draw the eye.

The cop held out his hand. It was a strong hand, but there was nothing extraordinary about it. It wasn’t particularly hairy, and there were no scars or other identifying marks. His nails were smooth, their lengths blunt and perfect.

Thunder took the hand offered to him and received a small surprise, finding that the nondescript cop had a very strong grip. His fingers pinched together almost painfully before the cop finally let go.

“Mr. Paulson, I presume?”

“Yeah.”

“My name is Bailey. Bailey Armstrong.”

Thunder laughed, startled. “Really?”

Officer Armstrong favored him with a blankly amused gaze. One of his eyebrows was raised and he seemed to be asking what was so funny.

Thunder stopped laughing. He sighed. “Officer, what’s going on? Why is Abraham in trouble?”

“Abraham is in trouble because he has made regrettable life choices. That is how these things always go. But, we aren’t here to discuss him or anything he may or may not have done. We are here to discuss you and your involvement.”

“I haven’t done anything wrong.”

“Isn’t that what they always say?” The cop snorted.

Oh, so he laughs at that.

“How do you know Abraham?”

“We’re dating.”

“And how did you meet?”

“We were in a long-distance relationship online in the past. I was in the area for work recently, and things have just kind of gone from there.” That was the truth, though maybe not the whole story. Thunder felt guilty for omitting so much, but he had a feeling the less he said, the better.

The officer scribbled something down on a piece of paper in front of him. Thunder tried to get a look at it, though he was unsuccessful because the words seemed to be in some sort of shorthand.

“What do you do for work?”

“I do freelance design. I’m an artist. I make pretty pictures and get paid for it.”

“Hmm. And to your knowledge, does Abraham have a job?”

“I know for a fact he doesn’t.”

“What about any family members?”

“Cain Savage,” Thunder said. “His older brother. Married. Has a kid. Maybe more, by this point. I don’t know his address or anything, though. Why?”

“We will need to speak with him, as well.” The cop scribbled again, then lifted his eyes to Thunder. Thunder stared back, and this caused the cop to write something else down. “Now, what do you know about Abraham’s life, outside of your relationship with him?”

Here it was. The tough questions. “He hasn’t always hung out with the best crowd, but that’s not illegal.”

“You’re aware that he has been suspected of several crimes in the past?”

Thunder flashed back to the incident in the alleys, but that was only one occasion that he knew of. He pulled in a deep breath, then let it out, trying to calm himself. “I wasn’t. What kind of crimes?”

“Petty things,” the cop replied, shrugging. “The sort of things you’d expect from someone who doesn’t hang out with the best people. He has some thievery on his record for certain. Mostly small things, though he has been known to take other people’s vehicles and go for joy rides in them.”

Unfortunately, that did sound like the Abraham he knew. “Were charges pressed for any of that?”

“The owners of the vehicles stolen seemed to know him and just wanted them back. The stores from which he has been caught stealing settled for him paying a fine, and then being banned from the store.”

The stores from which he’s been caught stealing. That means there’s probably so much more he never got caught for.

“Is that why this is happening?” he asked. “Did he steal something?”

“No. Where were you on Sunday?”

“The entire day? Uh, I had breakfast with Abraham, then he went off and did his own thing while I went to Bartram Park to take care of some business-related things. I went back home around 2 p.m., and he got home a few hours later.”

“What time, exactly?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Try.”

Thunder gritted his teeth, trying to keep himself under control. “I’d say around 6, but I’m not sure of the minutes.”

“Where was he all day?”

“I don’t know.” The cop raised his eyebrows. Thunder constricted a growl as it rose in his throat and elaborated. “I really don’t know. He said he had something to take care of and off he went. He’s been in an odd mood ever since. I don’t know what happened, because I’m not going to press him for answers.”

“I see. Let me ask you something, Mr. Paulson.” The cop flipped through the pages of his notepad, then nodded to himself as he apparently came across the item he had been looking for. “What do you know about the organized vandalism of the Pensacola Marketing Associates building?”

Try as he might, Thunder tilted his head back and let out a distressed groan. He had been right. Abraham was involved in that.

Which meant Abraham was part of the reason Thunder would never know if he would have gotten that job.

Something started to burn inside him, low and smoldering in the pit of his stomach.

“You know something.”

“I’m a freelance designer,” Thunder said hoarsely. “They were hiring designers and artists for some work they needed done. Earlier today, I got an email from them saying the job was no longer available because they would have to focus on repairs. Because they had been vandalized. I learned that only a few minutes before Officer Dawson showed up to the door.”

There was silence for a long minute or two as the cop wrote all this information down in his short, jerking shorthand. Then, Officer Armstrong looked up. His bland blue eyes were shimmering with something that seemed to be sadness. “You do know what this means, don’t you?”

“Abraham was involved.”

“Yes.”

“But how do you know that?”

“Would you like to see the security footage, which was taken from the building’s outside cameras?”

He thought about saying no, going home, pretending none of this was happening, that he hadn’t decided to give another chance to someone who clearly didn’t deserve it. He had thought Abraham was going to move on, that things were going to stay good and get better. This betrayal of that made him want to deny everything and just go on his way, doing his own thing like he had been.

But, it was a passing want. He knew what he actually had to do, and that was to face the facts.

“Yeah,” he said. “I would.”

“Please stay here while I go get that prepared for our viewing.” Officer Armstrong got up from his chair and went out into the hallway. He left the door open, a clear sign that he knew Thunder wouldn’t leave.

Bland and boring or not, the cop was good at his job.

Thunder dropped his head into his hands. The burning inside him grew in intensity, making it so he could no longer deny its identity. He was mad. No, he was pissed. Why, why, why had Abraham done this? Why had he ruined everything they were only just beginning to have?

Why had he gone back to his old ways, when what they had was so much better?

Someone stepped into the room.

Thunder lifted his head, expecting to see Officer Armstrong. He blinked, a little surprised at who was actually standing there. It was another cop, a broad man who had very dark eyes and very short dark hair. He looked as if he might burst out of his uniform at any moment.

“Who are you?” Thunder asked. Not exactly polite, but he was already tired of dealing with things today.

The cop approached, and that was when Thunder caught a distinctive whiff of wolf. This was another alpha.

Lowering his head, the cop whispered, “I’m Austin. A member of Shadow Claws. I don’t know Abraham personally. I wanted to let you know he’s being cooperative and is giving us all the information he has.”

Thunder blinked. Hearing those words took some of the edge off his anger, though not all of it. “Thank you.”

Austin nodded. He paused, clearly listening to see if anyone might be approaching. Then, he hurried on, still speaking rapidly and bluntly. “He’s scared. He regrets all of this. I made some shit choices in my own life. I get it. Don’t back out on him just because of this one mistake.”

Before Thunder could say anything else, Austin slipped away again. Except for the lingering musk scent of wolf, there was nothing left behind to tell that he had been there at all.

Shaking his head a little, Thunder sighed and dropped his chin down onto his hands. He appreciated the update, but he couldn’t help but to feel bitter about the advice given. This was a very big mistake for Abraham to have made, and it was not the first time he had done something like this. He should have learned his lesson by now.

He should have valued his relationship with Thunder more than he valued his thrills and shenanigans.

Heavy footsteps clumped down the hallway. They clearly belonged to a human this time, since Austin’s lupine approach had been entirely silent. Officer Armstrong stood in the doorway. “Are you ready?”

“Yeah.”

They walked through a series of tight, twisting hallways before ending up at a larger room filled with tables and chairs. The tables had been pushed together to make a single massive construction in the middle of the room. There were discarded paper cups and wrappers here and there, and in some places the table was covered in crumbs.

On one wall were corkboards and whiteboards, some of which had information on them. Though Thunder looked at the boards, the words swam around in front of his vision and he could make neither heads nor tails of any of it.

On another wall, in plain view of the table, was a large television mounted on the wall. The screen was exceptionally shiny, and the thinness of the device seemed to suggest it was very advanced and very new.

Officer Armstrong nodded to the television. “Before this, we’d be watching security footage on those TVs on stands. The kind they still use in schools for some weird fucking reason?”

Thunder laughed, startled. “I remember those. They still have them?”

“Yeah. My son came home just last week and asked me what a VCR was. I told him it was something they still use in prisons. He said he felt bad for the prisoners.”

Thunder laughed again. It felt good to laugh, if only to relieve his stress for just a moment.

“Anyway, we finally got some more funding, so you’re seeing taxpayer’s dollars at work, here. Even if the security footage is still shit, we can see every bit of blurriness in HD. Take a seat at the front, and I’ll get the tape playing.”

Thunder did as he was told and sat in one of the chairs at the front. He had very little experience with being in police stations and his knowledge of them was more or less limited to what was shown in movies. From what he could gather, this was some sort of planning room where everyone put their heads together while looking at the evidence.

This close to the huge TV, he felt almost as if he was about to watch a movie. He was very confused on the inside, already rattled and angered by the current events, and now struggling with this weird sensation of anticipation.

I just want all of this to be over.

“Here we go,” Officer Armstrong said, and flipped off the lights.

The television screen came alive, and Thunder was again struck by the feeling that he was seeing something staged. It had to be a movie. This had to be fake. There was no possible way that what he was seeing could be a reality, could it?

All those men, captured for an eternity in the midst of their rage against nothing as they destroyed a building. The violence they exhibited was staggering. They used their full force. They held nothing back.

The fact that the footage was without audio did not help in the slightest. Thunder could imagine each thump, crash and thud quite clearly.

The angle of the security camera was pointed out and slightly down, so he was watching this from an aerial perspective. It was difficult to see faces at all, and impossible to identify who was who because of the various masks and hats they wore.

Except for Abraham, who emerged out into the open with his face uncovered before seeming to realize this. But, by then, the damage was done.

Thunder watched a few more seconds of the violence and felt his stomach start to turn. “That’s enough,” he blurted out.

As if Officer Armstrong had been waiting for him to say that, the TV screen went dark. The lights flipped back on a moment later.

Thunder pushed his hands back through his hair and tried to fight down the nausea at what he had just seen. That was pure animalistic hatred. No, that was beyond animalistic. Animals did not do things for no reason. This was just plain nastiness.

“That is Abraham, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

Why not confirm it? Why not? They already know. He’s already confessed. I can’t help him at this point.

“Knowing what you do now, does anything stick out in your mind about his weird behavior? Anything which might be relevant?”

At first, he couldn’t think of anything. Then, he sighed. “He showered before he came home. I guess he probably went home with one of his friends to get all the paint and shit off. And he had new shoes on.”

“New shoes?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll make a note of that,” the cop replied, while doing exactly that. Then, he straightened up. “Mr. Paulson, I believe our interview here is over. Unless, of course, you have anything else you would like to say? Any further questions?”

Thunder bit his tongue, trying to hold back, and then gave in. “What happens now?”

“There will certainly be a trial, and Abraham will be involved. As to the nature of the trial and his involvement, I cannot say. He will probably be held on bail until then, unless someone pays the bail for him. In which case, he will be allowed to return home, albeit with constant police check-ups to ensure he has not gone anywhere or done anything he shouldn’t.”

Thunder wanted to pay the bail.

He didn’t.

He went home and lay down in the bed he had so recently shared with Abraham, hardly able to believe how much things had changed in so little time. He buried his face in the pillow, breathing in the scent of his boyfriend, trying to sort through his jumbled thoughts.

Unfortunately, he was no closer to reaching a resolution than he had been at the start. An hour passed. His eyes grew heavy, though it was morning and he shouldn’t have been tired yet. He slept, and slept for a very long time.

When he woke, his body stiff from being locked in the same prone position for so long, he had to admit to himself what he was feeling. He was depressed.

He didn’t struggle with depression on a day-to-day basis. In fact, depression was, for him, more like a bitter enemy he crossed paths with every couple of years when something went terribly awry. The feeling usually didn’t last, as his was situational and he could nearly always solve the problem or just leave the situation behind.

This time, he didn’t know what he was going to do.

For the rest of the day, he mostly slept and ate, alternating between the tasks. His sleep was dark and dreamless, though disturbed.

As night descended, he showered, then went back to bed. He slid over onto Abraham’s side of the bed and curled up, and let his sadness carry him away.

This time, he dreamed.

He dreamed that he opened his eyes and Abraham was standing over him, looking tired and small and drained. “You’re in my spot,” the dream-Abraham whispered.

“I am your spot,” Thunder replied, believing this made perfect sense. His dream-eyes closed again as the apparition of Abraham crawled into bed and pressed up against him. He was very warm for a phantom, and his presence lulled Thunder deeper into sleep.

And then Thunder awoke in the morning to find that this had not been a dream at all. Abraham lay pressed against his side, his eyes closed, though his eyelids twitched as if he was having a terrible dream. Reaching over, he stroked his fingers down Abraham’s cheek, soothing some of the tension from his face. “Abe,” he whispered. “Abe, wake up.”

Abraham groaned and stirred, keeping his eyes closed. “Not now,” he whispered, his voice blurry with sleep. “Please.”

“We need to talk,” Thunder said. Though he hated to do this, he knew it needed to be done. There were questions which needed answering, especially in regard to why Abraham was here when he should have been in jail. Someone must have paid his bail, but who and why?

Abraham opened his eyes. They were dark and stormy, filled with turmoil. “Thunder,” he said, “please just wait a little. This is the first time I’ve managed to sleep in days.”

“You’ll be able to sleep again when we’re done. This is important, okay? Get up.” Thunder sat up in the bed as if demonstrating this skill, and Abraham groaned and followed suit. He rubbed his eyes with both hands, then set them down in his lap and stared at them as if they were aliens.

Thunder placed one hand on the small of Abraham’s back and pushed him forward closer to the edge of the bed. Abraham put his feet on the ground and stood. He kept his head down and shuffled into the living room, guided there like a lifeless marionette by Thunder’s hand on his back.

The small point of contact felt like murder. Thunder desperately wanted to grab onto Abraham and pull him in deep into an embrace, to squeeze him until all the darkness oozed out. He would kiss his forehead and stroke his hair, and he would murmur sweet nothings until the entire world managed to turn itself in the right direction again. As it was now, everything was so backwards

But, things would have to stay backwards. He could do none of those things. Getting answers was more important.

Thunder guided Abraham to the couch and then sat down in the armchair. He perched on the very edge of it so their knees brushed together. That was the only bit of contact he could allow himself.

“What are you doing here? How did you get in?”

“You think I don’t know how to pick a lock?”

Thunder sighed. Of course, it had to be something like that. There couldn’t be a normal explanation for anything when it came to Abraham.

At the look on his face, Abraham backpedaled. He held up both hands, a useless gesture of appeasement. “I’m only kidding, okay? The door was unlocked. I let myself in.”

He didn’t remember leaving the door unlocked. Then again, he remembered very little from the past day, as was normal when all a person did was sleep for hours. “You can see how I’d be reluctant to believe you.”

Abraham winced and dropped his head. Loose tendrils of his hair dangled across his forehead. Thunder resisted the urge to push them away, because that would mean touching Abraham more, and he could not touch Abraham right now or else he would kiss him and tell him everything was fine, water under the bridge, when that was not the case.

“No more jokes. This is a serious conversation we’re having. Why aren’t you in jail?”

“The police got in touch with Cain. He paid my bail to let me go. It wasn’t all that high.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m a petty vandal and not a murderer.” Abraham spoke flatly.

“I saw the security footage,” Thunder said.

Silence dropped like a bomb between them, producing pulses of quiet that kept coming and coming. Every time one of them opened their mouth to say something, they only ended up closing them again.

“They showed you?” Abraham finally whispered, when the waves of silence seemed to be abating.

“I could only watch a few seconds of it. Abe…” He had no words to finish the thought. “And you did it to the place that might have been going to hire me. I can hardly believe that you would do something like this, after we were just starting to get things worked out.” Thunder felt the anger begin to burn in the pit of his stomach again. He swallowed hard, trying to keep it at bay so he wouldn’t end up doing something he regretted.

Abraham looked miserable. “I didn’t choose where it was going to happen. Damien had been planning it for days. I showed up at the wrong time.”

“Or the right time?”

“The wrong time,” Abraham said, stressing each word. He leaned in and Thunder leaned back a little to compensate, not wanting to get too near, just in case he acted against his better judgment. “Thunder, I know you don’t have to believe me. Please listen anyway? When I left that day, it wasn’t so I could go and fuck around with everyone else. I was going to tell them that I was calling it quits, that I had something better going on now and didn’t need them anymore.”

Thunder looked long and hard and deep into the omega’s eyes. He searched for the deceit, the falsehoods, and saw nothing of the sort. All the same, he hesitated to believe. “Then why the hell did you go with them?”

Abraham hung his head again. Guilt clouded his features. His mouth drew down at the corners, a bitter frown which encompassed a plethora of dour emotions. “I got caught up in it,” he whispered. “Damien told me about the plan and I forgot who I was. I thought I’d do this one last thing and that it would be almost like a send-off. Like I could go out with a bang. But that didn’t last long, and I started to regret it. But I couldn’t leave, or else Damien would track me down for what I knew. I just kind of stuck around.”

“So, you’re saying you didn’t cause any destruction?” He knew that couldn’t be the case.

Slowly, Abraham shook his head. “I did. But only just enough to get rid of what I had, so Damien wouldn’t get suspicious.”

Thunder tossed his hands into the air, some of his anger getting the best of him. “Whenever you talk about these things you do, it’s always Damien this or Damien that. .”

Abraham shook his head vehemently. “You don’t understand. You’ve never been the way that I am.”

“And what way is that?”

“Lost.”

“I spent most of my adult life being lost. Searching for a place where I belonged. I understand more than you think.” Thunder grimaced. “I thought we’d be fine together, now that we’d found each other. We weren’t lost anymore. Didn’t you feel the same?”

“Even if I hadn’t gone with Damien and everyone else,” he was quick to add, “then the PMA building would still be vandalized.”

Thunder pushed his hand through his hair. With every second that passed, he felt less in control of his anger. That was a terrifying thing, especially since he had always been so serene and in control. This burning emotion was not something he was used to dealing with, and it was much more powerful than he was ever prepared for. “I’m not so much mad about the building,” he said. “I’m not so much mad about maybe losing out on the opportunity to work for them. Disappointed, yeah. A little angry, yeah. What I’m mad about is your part in it. I’m disappointed in you. I thought we were coming together, and now I’m starting to wonder if we’re at separate places in our lives again. Why did you even have to go there?”

“It seemed like a good idea?”

“Unfortunately, that’s not a good enough excuse for me to believe you.”

Abraham crossed his arms over his stomach, as if it hurt. His efforts to keep himself together were becoming more transparent by the moment. His muscles were tense and his jawline, though squared, was trembling. “Damien came to talk to me that day you were finishing up that surfboard job.”

The delay in Abraham’s return finally made sense.

“He kind of made it clear that he was suspicious of me for not coming around for a while. You can’t just back out of a gang, Thunder. You’re part of it. Everyone knows who you are. You can always be found, even if you hide. I had to go and try to make a clean cut of it in front of everyone, so they wouldn’t think I’d gone rogue or had started working with the police or something.”

That was about the only part of this entire conversation that made any sense.

Abraham looked around, scanning the shadows at the corners of the apartment. He whispered, “I’m working with the police.”

Thunder narrowed his eyes. He still didn’t sense any deception here, but this seemed like a leap in logic. “Why and how?”

“Why? Because I feel like shit! And how? Because everyone else had face masks and shit on, but I still know who they are. I can identify them.” Abraham pulled in a deep breath. “And by doing that, when it comes time for the trial, if there is one, I might be able to completely avoid any punishment. Or, a lesser one. Community service or a fine or something.”

“So, you’re just doing this to save your own ass.”

“Maybe a little,” Abraham admitted.

There was undoubtedly truth in that statement, and Thunder relaxed a little. All he wanted was to be able to trust Abraham. These little victories might be all he got for quite some time. “Won’t that kind of put you at risk? Once the police start going after the people you’ve identified, everyone else will suspect you because you just left the gang.”

“They’re already going to be watching me closely to make sure I don’t go anywhere. The cops, I mean. They can just protect me at the same time. And if not, I’m a wolf. I know what to do.”

“I’m a wolf, too,” Thunder said. “And I’m not letting you out of my sight. Not until I can trust you again.”

Abraham’s shoulders slumped. “That’s fair.”

It’s more than you deserve at this point.

“I love you, Abe,” he said, lowering his voice. “I want what’s best for you. I think we both know this gang life isn’t it.”

“Well, I’m not going to be involved anymore, so there’s that.”

Yes, there was that. Unfortunately, it was a little too late.

“Is there anything else you need to tell me?”

Abraham answered right away. “You probably figured it out by now, but I went home with Damien. I used his shower so you wouldn’t smell anything on me, and he gave me a pair of his old shoes. I threw the other ones in a dumpster on the way home They had blue spray paint on them. I already told the police about that.”

Thunder felt his control finally break in the wake of this final confession. Everything was out in the open now. He held out his arms and said, “Come here,” and Abraham went to him and sat in his lap.

“I love you,” Abraham murmured. In response, Thunder wrapped his arms around his shoulders and they curled up together as they had on practically every other night before this, always striving to touch each other and be in close contact. However, this time, things did not feel as they should have. Though their bodies touched, there seemed to be a gap between them. They did not line up as perfectly as they should have, melding together so they seemed as one.

Running his hand down Abraham’s back, Thunder figured out why that was. They were too tense to relax to get even what they desperately needed. Burying his fingers in Abraham’s hair, soothing the back of his head with gentle pressure, he murmured, “Let’s go back to bed.”

“Are you sure you want to share a bed with me?”

Thunder felt a tug on his heart and he sighed, tilting his head so that his cheek rested on top of Abraham’s hair, crushing down the wily strands. “Of course, I’m sure.”

“Take me there?”

The question had two meanings to it, Thunder was almost certain. He knew how to answer one, but not the other. He would gladly carry Abraham anywhere he wished, but to take him once they had gotten there? Now? At a time like this?

Maybe that wasn’t what he meant.

Thunder wrapped his arms around Abraham and lifted him up, cradling him to his chest. Abraham let his head rest on him, as trustingly as a child. The differences between the two of them seemed more pronounced in this moment, and Thunder wondered again if they were still not compatible, still too far from each other in their positions in life. He had everything figured out, and Abraham was still playing catch-up, struggling to find his own place while many others his age had at least a short-term goal to aim for.

He had thought he could help along that journey and that it would be rewarding, but he was beginning to think maybe that was not how things were supposed to be.

As if sensing his thoughts, Abraham clutched his arms tight around Thunder’s neck and held on.

Thunder brushed his lips through Abraham’s hair, then took him to bed. They lay down in their usual spots, with Abraham closer to the wall while Thunder was on the outside.

They pressed their bodies together. Thunder wrapped his arms around Abraham, pulling him in close. They lay still.

Their bodies were the only parts of them that did not move. The very air itself was disturbed by swirling dervishes of thought. Their souls were in disarray, struggling to settle against each other in the way they had known so many times before. Neither of them could seem to rest. Thunder could feel Abraham’s thoughts bouncing around wildly, chasing endless trains, and he knew Abraham could feel his doing the same.

They outlasted the chaos for perhaps ten minutes, and then Abraham rolled over in Thunder’s arms and placed his hand between his thighs.

Thunder kept his eyes closed as Abraham’s fingers strummed against his leg. Only a few days ago, this action would have caused him to break out in excited shivers. His heart should be racing, his pulse pounding in his ears. He should be whisked away to a land of intensity and pleasure, and he should already be straining against those searching fingers, trying to shove himself more firmly against them.

Little tingles of heat formed in his groin but that was all and they did not last. Like sparks before a tornado, they had no chance of catching.

He grabbed onto Abraham’s wrist, wordlessly trying to guide him away.

Abraham came at him again with his other hand, this time dropping all pretenses of foreplay. He pushed his hand down into Thunder’s underwear and took hold of his cock, stroking and caressing its limp length to try and stoke the fire that he seemed desperate to create.

Closing his eyes, Thunder tried. He really did. He focused on the last time they had sex and how good it felt, how intensely he had cum. It was always difficult to recall an orgasm after the fact, as if the experience was too much for the brain to hold. Nevertheless, he tried to call upon the sensations of rapid breathing, tension in his thighs, the way he curled his toes. He pictured Abraham’s face, lips parted, eyes squeezed tightly shut in the midst of orgasm.

His cock stirred around, moving against Abraham’s hand.

Encouraged, Abraham started to stroke all the way up and down the length of it, moving rapidly and surely, then urgently.

They worked together, putting far more effort into it than it should require. Thunder tensed all his muscles, trying to make the flames inside him leap higher. Abraham rubbed harder, faster, putting everything he had learned into the movement. Their breath came in effortful gasps, and Thunder started to tremble from the strain of having his muscles tightened so hard for so long. He was still only half-erect and every time his thoughts strayed, he drooped and could not regain the lost ground.

After far too much time spent achieving nothing, Abraham relaxed his grip on Thunder’s cock, then pulled his hand away. He pressed his face against the pillow, hiding in the fluffy white depths. “I’m sorry. I’m so fucked-up I can’t even do that right anymore.”

His chest tight, Thunder wrapped an arm around Abraham’s shoulders and pulled him back against him where he belonged. “It’s okay. It doesn’t mean anything. We should just get some sleep.”

And the process of waiting resumed again. The atmosphere in the bedroom grew busy once more as they were both left to their thoughts again. They were two wolves roaming on the opposite sides of a mountain, howling and calling and being called back, but never able to reach one another.

The first one to fall asleep was Abraham. Thunder took a very long time to follow, as he pondered their future and what seemed to be its inevitable end. He dozed, fitful, doubtful.

When he awoke that afternoon to the scent of burning, he knew what he would have to do. Kicking off the blankets, he rose up from the empty bed and followed the odor of blackened food into the kitchen.

Abraham stood in front of the stove, restlessly stirring eggs around in a skillet. He actually wasn’t doing too bad a job of that, though his efforts at cooking sausage left a lot to be desired. They were sticking to the sides of the pan, to the bottom, and that was what was causing the burning.

“Here,” Thunder said.

Abraham turned, holding out the spatula he was using so Thunder couldn’t grab it from him. “No,” he said. “I’m doing something nice for you.”

“As much as I love eating sausage-flavored charcoal, I’m afraid I have to rescue this situation.” Thunder laughed a little, then reached right around Abraham and plucked the spatula away. “It’s okay. I’ll finish up here. You make some coffee, and then we need to talk.”

“I really hate that phrase.”

“We need to have a discussion.”

Abraham wrinkled his nose as he stepped past Thunder with the coffee pot to fill it up in the sink. “Yuck.”

“We need to engage in a dialogue.”

“It just keeps getting worse.” A small smile flickered around Abraham’s lips as he left the pot in the sink to fill up, while he threw out the used coffee grounds and put in a fresh filter.

The fact that they were able to still joke and tease each other seemed very important. Not everything had been lost. They were not lost.

Thunder rescued the sausages from their unfortunate situation, then nudged the eggs around so they would cook evenly. The whites were still runny. While he didn’t mind a runny egg every now and again, and had even eaten them raw in the past, he wasn’t in the mood for it today.

Abraham took the pot of water back to the coffee maker and poured the water in through the top, then set the pot back where it belonged. “What do we need to talk about, Thunder? I kind of thought we got it all sorted out this morning. Did you have another question or something?”

Thunder brought plates to their little table and set them down, then fetched the salsa. As a joke, he placed a straw by Abraham’s plate, just in case the omega wanted to get a drink of the salsa he loved so much. He had been doing that for days now and it never failed to put a smile on Abraham’s face. “We’ll get to that when we sit down.”

The coffee was nearly done brewing by the time the rest of the food was ready, so they each poured themselves a mug and then sat down. In unison, they looked at their food, then at each other.

Thunder picked up his fork just to have something to do with his hands. “I’ve been thinking a lot about this, so pay attention. And please, please think rationally about it before you say anything, okay? This is only a discussion.”

“Sure,” Abraham said. He stirred his eggs around on his plate under the pretext of making sure they were thoroughly covered in salsa. He didn’t eat any of them yet. His eyes were wary and dark.

“I can understand the temptation to want to go out with a bang. I understand that you felt like you had to. I even understand that you really did have to, otherwise you might have gotten hurt. But I just can’t get over the fact that you didn’t tell me anything. You didn’t say anything before, or after, and those were the most critical times for me to learn something. I could have gone with you. Or, you could have told me what happened right away so it didn’t come as such an unpleasant surprise.”

Abraham nodded slowly, his head drifting sedately up and down like he lacked the strength to hold it up on his own. He said nothing, which was a good thing, because Thunder wasn’t done yet.

“I think we need to take a break.”

Abraham’s head shot up. His mouth formed a surprised, horrified O. Color leached from his face, leaving him ghostly white. He looked as if he might faint.

Alarmed and hurting in his own heart, Thunder thrust his arm across the table and grasped at Abraham’s. Abraham dropped his fork and clutched at him with the strength of a drowning sailor. “I’m not going to leave you, okay?” Thunder said, enunciating each word carefully to make sure they arrived to Abraham in exactly the way as he meant them to.

Abraham’s chin trembled. He stammered. “Then, why?”

“When we cuddled up earlier, did you feel like things were the same? And when we tried to have sex. Did it go the way it always goes?”

“No.” A reluctant moan.

“That doesn’t mean things are broken! It just means that we need a little time. Look, we’ve already talked about everything there is to talk about. Right?”

Abraham gave a nod, delivered with trepidation.

Thunder pushed on. “Everything’s out there in the air. If we take a break, both of us kind of getting back in the groove of things, we’ll feel better. We’ll be able to rejoin again as if nothing happened. It’s not breaking up. It’s not broken. It’s just a break. What do you think?”

Abraham’s expression twisted. His dark eyes were further clouded by tears, which welled and threatened to spill. “You think I’m going to go back to the gang the moment I’m without you. You think I haven’t changed at all.”

“Of course, you’ve changed. The Abraham I first met would never dare dream of cooperating with the police. But the Abraham sitting before me is different and better. I know you’re going to get things worked out. I’ll be waiting for you while you do.”

But there was a part of the question he had not answered, and that was if he believed Abraham was going to go back to the gang.

Thunder hoped not, but in light of recent events, he no longer felt sure.

“Does this mean I have to move out?”

“Is that what you want to do? I think it’d be pretty hard otherwise. Just coexisting in the same room, the same living space, feeling and seeing each other all the time.”

“I never had any problem doing that with my other roommates. We all just did our own thing.”

“But the difference here is that you want to be around me.”

“Where am I supposed to go?”

I hate this part. I am probably going to regret it until the day I die.

“You called your brother before you moved in with me, just in case something happened. And since he broke you out of jail, I’d say he knows that something’s happened. Why don’t you give him a call after breakfast?”

“Okay,” Abraham agreed. Thunder wished that breakfast would never end. He didn’t think Abraham understood how much this was hurting both of them.

It would be good for them, some time apart. It had clearly worked in the past, so maybe doing it again of their own accord would work even better.