A dream, a night. He was bare, covered only by a blanket that felt too thin against an unseen cold. The wind howled, a mournful sound that seemed to come from everywhere at once. He was standing in the street, the familiar silhouette of his own house stark against a moonless sky. He asked himself where he was, how he got here, but the questions dissolved into the biting air.
The house was dark, every window a vacant eye, yet the front door creaked open. A man emerged, a shadow holding a shadow, the moonlight glinting just once off the long, wicked blade of an itak. His father.
"Papa?" he asked, the word a small, desperate puff of air. He gulped, trying to swallow the lump of terror lodging itself in his throat. Shadows writhed around the figure, clinging to his father's frame like layers of his skin. With a sudden, sickening snap of the neck, his father moved, jerking forward with the unnatural animation of the marionettes he'd seen in old Western period dramas.
"!" Felix tried to run, to scream, but his legs were lead. He looked down and saw with a surge of panic that the blanket had fused with the asphalt of the road, trapping him. It was a part of him now, a heavy, tar-like anchor. He was panting, a frantic, useless rhythm against the howling wind.
"Bakla..!" The voice was his father's, but distorted, stretched into a sound of pure malice.
"BAKLA!"
"BAKLA!!"
His father screamed the word, practically changed it like a spell that didn't work. His body bent backwards in an arc that defied human anatomy. Felix finally found his voice, a strangled, tearing sound. He grunted, pulling against his asphalt prison.
"Please don't!" he begged, tears streaming down his face as he felt the road begin to swallow him, the rough surface pulling him down into the earth. When his father was close enough, looming over him, his body warped at an impossible angle. He smiled, a predatory slash in the darkness.
"BAaaaAakkkLaaa..."
Felix gasped, his eyes flying open. For a heart-stopping second, contorted face of his father lingered in his vision, superimposed over the familiar cracked ceiling of Amor's spare room. He shot up, his own blanket tangling around his legs, and the phantom sensation of being trapped sent another jolt of adrenaline through him. He kicked it away frantically before his brain caught up.
He was in a Amor's living room. He was safe.
Felix looked around, his frantic gaze landing on Amor, who was fast asleep on the couch a few feet away from him. She was curled on her side, a throw pillow clutched to her chest, not a care in the world as the lazy afternoon seconds ticked by. The contrast between her peace and his own internal chaos was a physical ache. He groaned, a low sound of anguish, and hugged his knees to his chest, burying his face in them. He tried to build a wall in his mind, brick by brick, using his happy things, his safe things. Afternoon walks by the seawall. The smell of old books. A cup of wintermelon boba, extra pearls. And Gray…
No. The thought was a violent rejection, a full-body flinch.
No, Gray shouldn't be on that list, that wasn't—that's not... that's a warning siren! Liking him is like inviting the man with poison into the house for merienda, it's stupid, it's reckless, because Papa—because he said—that...that ugly, twisted word he screamed until it wasn't a word anymore—I can't... not in Sinait where the church ladies watch you over the tops of their fans and their whispers follow you down the market aisle.
It's just the heat, it's making it all funny, it's not real, this feeling isn't—it's just a stupid—It's not anything. It can't be anything... it's not a dream, it's not fear, and he can't, it won't—
"Are you ok?"
The voice, quiet and laced with a strange, gravelly concern, sliced right through his spiraling thoughts. He looked up, his eyes wide and unfocused for a second before they landed on the figure standing over him.
It was Matthew.
A towel was draped loosely around his neck, and his dark hair was wet, slicked back from his forehead with a few stray drops tracing a path down his temple. He'd clearly just come from the shower, smelling faintly of soap and clean water. He was looking down at Felix with an expression that was an unsettling mix of curiosity and genuine concern.
Felix's throat was dry. "I-I am alright," he stammered, the lie tasting like ash in his mouth.
Matthew's gaze held his for a moment longer, a flicker of disbelief crossing his features. A voice in his head, the one that sounded a lot like a Brixton street corner—pragmatic and wary—screamed at him to back off. Not your problem, mate. He didn't want to get involved more than he already was.
This boy was a stranger, really. The friend of a cousin. Someone he'd shared a few charged times with. That was it, and that was already enough for him. Getting tangled up in whatever local, family drama was causing that look of raw panic on Felix's face was a complication Matthew absolutely did not need.
But for some reason, his mind kept flying back and forth. The resolution to stay detached felt flimsy, already fraying at the edges. His questions, insistent and unwelcome, wanted to be answered. Why did he look so bloody terrified? Is it connected to his bruises? The curiosity was a surprising, insistent itch, digging in under his skin.
He let it go, or at least, he pretended to. He physically forced his shoulders to slump, a conscious decision to end the battle in his head.
"You know, just tired. You should come to the market with us!" Those statements were performative, desperately trying to hide fear from.
"Like hell I would," Matthew replied.
He knew it was a lie, but he stopped himself from asking more. His eyes scanned the room, landing on the chaotic mess of ripped paper still strewn across the tiles. A flash of something—guilt, maybe annoyance at himself—crossed his face. He knew Aunty Dawn wouldn't be happy seeing the mess, and he was the only one in the family, aside from Tito Nando, who drew. The mess was his to claim.
He moved then, getting closer to Felix as he crouched down to start picking up the scraps. The sudden proximity made the air crackle. Felix froze, his breath catching in his lungs. He could inspect, up close, the sultry edges of this man.
He could see the sharp line of his collarbone disappearing under the towel, the faint sprinkle of dark hair on his voluminous forearms, the way the muscles in his shoulder and back shifted under his skin as he reached for pieces of paper. The clean scent of him was stronger now, overwhelming the dusty smell of the living room.
But... as he reached for a final, crumpled piece of paper, the one resting precariously close to Felix's bent knee. Things felt different.
He was kneeling. His gaze flickering up from the paper, intending only to make sure he wasn't intruding, but it was a miscalculation. His eyes, sparkling still, collided with Felix's.
And they stuck.
Polite society, the unwritten rules of human interaction he'd grown up with in London, dictated a one-second glance. Two, if you were being bold. This was pushing five, almost a ten. An eternity. The distant sound of an ilocano tune seemed to die down, its melody stretching into a low, droning note. The afternoon sun slanting through the windows felt hotter, more focused, as if a magnifying glass had been positioned directly over the two of them.
And with that, Felix forgot his senses. Acting on an instinct so pure it felt like breathing, he began to move. He slightly pushed up from the floor, the motion slow, fluid, and utterly transfixed. He inched his face closer to Matthew's.
The papers in Matthew's hands might as well have turned to dust. He was falling into a trance, hyonotized. He stood perfectly still, a statue carved from soapstone and surprise, waiting. The world had compressed into the shrinking space between their faces. He could see the slight tremor in Felix's lower lip, and the way his long eyelashes cast tiny shadows on his cheekbones.
Time warped, stretching and thinning until it was almost transparent. For Felix, looking up into Matthew's eyes was like looking into a deep, quiet body of water; he was sinking, and he wasn't fighting it. His eyes fluttered shut as he tilted his head, a final, silent surrender.