"I said I was sorry." Set tried for the thousandth time to get Lucas to say something. He tried to look back at Lucas, but it was hard with Lucas's hand holding his collar and pulling him up the stairs. Why was he acting like this? Except the hissed order to get on the bike and a few threats before that, Lucas hadn't said a word since he had dragged him from the garden. Actually they'd had to run toward the place where Lucas had hid the bike, because Set's clumsiness when they went out of the garden had drawn unwanted attention. And since then Lucas had hardly even looked at him. "Lucas. Please."
Lucas stayed silent. His fingers tightly held the collar of Set's shirt as he pushed Set through the apartment door and into the dark hallway, not bothering to turn on the light.
"Say something." Set's shoulders slumped. There was still no answer from Lucas, who just pushed him forward into the bedroom and then quite literally threw him on the bed.
"There's nothing to say." Lucas turned and stepped back in the hallway. He merged with the darkness and closed the door behind him, locking it.
Set lay there on the bed, not knowing if he should fret and fume or cry in misery. He had never seen Lucas like that, had never experienced his wrath and it was scary.
Set wasn't really afraid Lucas would hurt him and in a way he didn't even care about that because it would be easier to endure being struck by Lucas -- anything would be better than this suppressed rage.
He hid his face in the pillow - the pillow that still carried Lucas's smell. He snuggled his face deeper into the softness. He had finally come to terms with his attraction toward Lucas, the fact that he liked a guy and that he might even be in love with him and… Lucas didn't even want look at him.
He could understand the anger, the concern; he was, after all, in Lucas's care and if anything happened to him, his family would feed Lucas's intestines to their dog (not that they had a dog; they would probably get one especially for that occasion), but to act the way Lucas was acting -- talk about overreacting.
He sighed. With the back of his hand he wiped a few tears from his face, then stripped down to his T-shirt and boxers, and climbed under the covers. He wrapped the light blanket tightly around himself, because even though it was still summer and warm outside, he was cold.
The door was unlocked and a light was turned on.
Set blinked at the light and pulled the blanket over his head. Maybe if he didn't move or make any sound, Lucas would climb into bed . Please. Let it be just Lucas coming to bed to sleep.
The mattress dipped, the edge of the blanket over Set's legs was pulled away and a hand grabbed Set's left ankle, slightly lifted it and then something was put around it.
Set peeked at Lucas who was sitting on the edge of the bed. "What…" He cleared his throat. "What are you doing?"
"Go to sleep." Lucas put Set's leg down and covered his legs.
Set sat up and rubbed his eyes. He stuck his left leg out from under the covers and looked at the wide 'bracelet' that was around his ankle. "What's that?"
"A device the police use for house arrests," Lucas's voice was even, empty and blank, so similar to his face.
The corners of Set's mouth turned down and he felt the start of tears in the corners of his eyes. God, he hated crying. He swallowed the lump he had in his throat and scrambled over to Lucas, who was by the look of things ready to get up from the bed. He wound his arms around Lucas's neck and pressed his chest tightly against Lucas's back. "Don't be angry. Please."
Lucas sighed and put his hand on Set's arm, his fingers trembled slightly, the muscles in his jaw clenched. "I'm not angry, just disappointed."
Set closed his eyes and pressed his cheek against Lucas's. "Stay?"
"No." Lucas unclasped Set's arms and pushed him, not ungently, away from himself.
Set fell back onto the bed and lay sprawled out. With moisture in his eyes he watched how Lucas stood up and went through the door, shutting and locking it.
#
"Set. Set. Wake up."
"Go away." Set swatted at the hand that was shaking him and turned away from it, then pulled the blanket over his head. His head hurt like an elephant had stomped on it all night long and his eyelids were heavy and sticky.
"C'mon Set." The blanket was pulled away from Set and a hand patted him on his back. "It's already eleven o'clock."
"Go away."
"I have coffee."
Set opened one eye with difficulty. He wasn't ready to get up and face a new day yet. "Go away, Chris. I'm not getting up."
"C'mon." Chris rolled him around and grabbed his wrists, pulling him up into a sitting position.
"Please, Chris. Just let me be." Set's head rolled back.
"Damn, Set. You look like shit." Chris's fingers released Set's wrists.
Set fell back with a small thud. "I feel like it, too." He turned around on his stomach and snuggled into the pillow that, by some strange miracle, still carried Lucas's smell. Lucas! He opened his eye again and looked where Chris should have been. "Chris!"
"What?" Chris's voice was heard from somewhere in the hallway.
"Where's Lucas?"
"What? I can't hear you. I'll be right back."
He came back with a glass of water in one hand and a small green and white box in the other.
"Aspirin. I think that you need it. Badly." Chris sat on the bed beside Set. He offered Set the glass and the tablet.
"Okay." Probably for the third time already Set rolled over and sat up. He pushed the pillows behind him and leaned on them. He took the tablet, put it in his mouth, took the glass from Chris's hands and took a sip. He swallowed the pill. Then he put the glass down on the nightstand and pulled his knees toward himself. "Where's Lucas?"
"He locked himself in his office."
"Oh."
"Did you guys have a fight?"
"No." Set's finger started to draw circles on his leg. "But he's angry with me. He doesn't even look at me."
"Just let him cool off and don't push him. He'll come around."
Set looked up. "You think so?"
"Yeah." Chris smiled at him. "That's just the way he is. He needs time to calm down, to think things over and if you push him when he's not ready, he hits back." Chris chuckled and rubbed his jaw with his fingers. "I had to learn that the hard way. Boy, can he throw a punch!"
"He hit you?" Set's eyes widened.
"Yeah, and he wasn't even sorry afterwards. Bastard."
"Lucas?" He couldn't imagine Lucas hitting Chris.
"Yeah, Lucas." Chris tugged on Set's ankle bracelet. "I see he put "Nancy the third" on you."
"Nancy? What are you talking about?"
"The bracelet. When I was still in high school Tian brought the first "Nancy" from somewhere and used it on me whenever I was under house arrest so that I didn't sneak out. He wasn't home a lot, so that was one of his ways to keep me under control. I named it 'Nancy' after my first babysitter and it's 'the third' because it's the third."
"Why do you still have it?" Set fingered the device. He had seen the thing on the TV once, years ago, and it looked pretty clumsy and heavy. He smiled - "Nancy the third" looked and felt pretty light.
"Tian doesn't want to get rid of it. He said that if I misbehave it might still come in handy."
"At your age? Your brother is weird."
"You have no idea." Chris grinned. He patted Set's knee. "Now come on. Get out of bed and get dressed. We have work to do."
"Huh?" Set watched Chris get up.
"I have some things to do, nothing fancy, just have to verify some data. Actually, a lot of data and you, my dear, are going to help me." Chris grabbed Set's hand. With his fingers wrapped around Set's wrist, he pulled him up.
Set got up and with the help of Chris's push he waddled toward the bathroom. In the process he grabbed his clothes from the guest room cabinet. For a second or two he absently wondered if he should ask Chris if he had any idea what yesterday night's show could mean before he quickly discarded the idea. The only one he could ask about it was Lucas. Actually Set couldn't ask him because Lucas had locked himself up in the office.
He quickly washed up and got dressed and then he was guided into Chris's office, where an additional chair was already waiting in front of Chris's desk together with a laptop beside Chris's computer and between them a pile of documents.
Set sighed. It was going to be a long day.
#
Set turned off the laptop, stretched and then rolled his shoulders and moved his head back and forth.
Four hours of using a mouse and a keyboard had made his shoulders and neck stiff. Thank god they were finished. He looked at Chris who, judging by his movement, was also getting rid of the stiffness produced by prolonged computer use. .
Set's stomach growled. It reminded him that he hadn't eaten anything all day. Set looked at the clock, it was time for a late lunch. "I'm hungry."
"Yeah. Me too." Chris opened one of his drawers and pulled out take-out menus. "What would you like? Thai, Chinese, Italian, Greek, Indian… I have everything."
Set shrugged his shoulders. He didn't really care what. All he really wanted at the moment was some cuddling because he felt like shit. And he wanted the cuddling to be with Lucas who, at this moment, didn't want to have anything to do with him.
He had tried to see him, but first, the locked office door had stopped him. Then when he knocked on it and Lucas opened it, the jerk had said to leave him alone and that he didn't have time for him.
Wasn't it just yesterday when he had sat in the man's lap, snuggling close?
Something squeezed Set's heart painfully and he cleared his throat, though his voice cracked anyway. "Chinese sounds fine to me. What about you, what would you like? And Lucas and Tian?"
"Oh they went out an hour ago. Tian said that they weren't coming back anytime soon. It's just you and me. And Chinese it is then." Chris threw all the menus except the red and yellow one back into the drawer. "So what would you like?"
Set took the menu, picked three dishes from the menu (What? He was hungry.), gave his order to Chris and gave him back the menu. So that really, really short phone call that Chris had had a while ago was with Tian. Why? He usually just yelled from the door's entrance that he was going out. He shook his head.
Chris picked up the receiver and started to dial.
Set stood up and bent his right leg back, grabbed his ankle and stretched the leg out, he then repeated the process with his left leg.
He went towards the door and after opening it he stepped into the reception room.
Had Lucas given them the verification job and then ordered it done Chris's office so that he could avoid Set?
It sounded plausible. Very plausible, even though Lucas seemed like a "grab-the-devil-by-the-horns" type of guy and not a "let's-sneak-around- corners-so-that-nobody-can-see-me" guy.
In the distance a telephone rang.
Set listened. The sound came from Lucas's room.
He stepped toward the office and tried the door handle. It was unlocked. He opened it and went toward the desk. It was Lucas's private phone. He reached out with his hand and then he remembered Lucas's words to never answer his private line. He withdrew his hand and then, because he was already here and it couldn't hurt, looked over the papers that were scattered on the desk, hoping to find something interesting, which of course he didn't.
No surprise there.
The telephone stopped for a moment, like it was taking a deep breath then started to ring again, even louder, if that were possible. It seemed that somebody really needed Lucas. Don't people know that if the phone isn't answered on the fifth ring, it probably wouldn't be on the fiftieth? Judging by the persistent ringing Set guessed that no, not all people knew that or maybe the caller was somebody who just wanted to annoy Lucas.
"Pick it up already. It's annoying." Chris stuck his head through the door.
"It's his private line." Or to annoy Chris. Well… that was something worth remembering - how to annoy Chris.
Chris came through the opened door into the room. "So what?"
"He yelled at me when I picked it up."
"So what? He's not here, is he?" Chris went toward the desk and picked up the phone.
"Hello." Chris leaned on the edge of the desk, he looked at Set, pointed at the phone and silently mouthed "your brother" to Set.
How did Geb know that he was here? Lucas probably kept him posted. Set stepped toward Chris, expecting the receiver would be handed to him.
"Li? You mean Lucas? He's not here."
Set wrinkled his forehead. Li?
"If he's not answering his cell he probably doesn't want to hear your whining."
Geb wanted to talk to Li and he called Lucas. Set stepped back and sat down in the chair before the desk.
"You are whining to me."
The thought was lurking there, taunting him and Set couldn't, didn't want to acknowledge it.
"And that should scare me or something?"
No. It couldn't be. Set leaned back in the chair, he closed his eyes and with his hands grasped the edges of the chair, the force of the grip colored his knuckles white.
"Yeah, you too. Asshole." Chris threw the receiver down and turned towards Set. "Your brother's a first class je- Hey. Are you okay? You're really pale."
Set swallowed and opened his eyes. "I just… I just don't feel well. I think I'll go up and lie down for a while."
After Chris nodded he stood up and slowly went out of the office area and up the stairs. As soon he was out of Chris's sight his pace accelerated until he was jumping two stairs at a time. He had to make sure of what he thought was really the truth and he couldn't ask Chris, not yet.
He stopped in the hallway and looked around him. He didn't know Li's last name, or any of the information that one needed to identify a person. All he knew was that he was Li. That in the past when Li had still been living in England he went to his place on the Tube's green line, five stops from where the green and black crossed. That Geb had once taken Set with him and that he absolutely adored Li when he was a child and that Li's leaving had made him bleed inside.
Pictures! He could tell if Lucas was Li by Lucas's childhood pictures and everybody has childhood pictures stashed somewhere.
Set went into the living room. He opened the closet and went through the things there. He was looking for one of those thick albums that almost every household had.
All that was in the closet were different papers and rows and rows of files.
Next closet. It was full of metal boxes. He opened one. A machine for god-knew-what . Next box. The same.
Next closet. Thin DVD boxes, rows of them, arranged in alphabetical order.
Next closet. CD boxes.
Next closet.
Next closet.
The cabinets.
Books, papers, metal boxes, paper boxes, plastic boxes, rows and rows of different boxes and no sign of anything like a photo album.
Desk. Drawers. Pens, paper clips, little slips of papers.
Hallway. Lucas's room.
The closet. Clothes. Pants. T-shirts. Sweaters. Jackets.
The upper shelf. More jumpers.
The cabinet. First drawer, second drawer, … the lower drawer.
His fingers touched something hard between the soft balls of socks and he pulled it out. A box, a little smaller and shorter than an average shoebox. He sat down on the carpeted floor and put the box in his lap.
Set's fingertips stroked the metal, smooth and shiny surface of the box. He grabbed the lid and pulled it open.
There under the videotape and few DVDs were pictures.
Set's fingers went over them, he picked them up, one by one.
Pictures of him and Li together, of him together with Geb and Aton smiling into the camera, of him on his fifteenth birthday, on his sixteenth birthday, on his seventeenth birthday…. at his graduation. Pictures from summer vacations spent with his parents. So many pictures. Of Set.
Set sat there, the pictures scattered on the floor, his back curved, his face hidden in his palms and the taste of salt in the corners of his mouth. He wished to be different, forgiving enough so that there might have been a lot more pictures of Li and him.