OOM: Here

[latino_menace]

It probably says something about Ramon that, on being taken back to a home he used to love, his first reaction is to be suspicious. Why would Bar send him back here? Is it because...he spins suddenly, checking to see whether the door is still there. It would be just like her to lock him out, keep him on a planet on his own, unable to do anything...but no, it’s still there. He frowns at it. Then glares. Really, it almost appears that he’s disappointed. Being stuck here would be a nightmare but at least he’d have something to blame. As it is, he’s clueless and he hates that.

He turns back to the house, surveys it, sums it up, refuses to think of the good times here. Resolutely blocks memories of laughing and ridiculous domesticity and holidays and sex and peace and all those things that used to make him sick before he had them. They make him sick now, like remembering a cancer creeping through the body; he feels relief at being rid of it. It was weakness (liar) and he’s glad to be himself again.

It is unchanged. It’s impossible to tell, on this world, how time correlates to Bar when no one’s there because there’s nothing here. A whole world and only this house on it to prove that people exist. It’s the way they wanted it. This was theirs. It’s why they named it Haven – they’re the type of people who need a place to go where things are too hot elsewhere, where no one can find them, where they can keep things to themselves. Where they could just be with each other and not care about reputations or expectations or work or family. It worked, mostly. If he’s honest with himself, and he rarely is, he’d admit that he failed far more often than Random. He’s not the type of man to just leave a life, and persona, behind. There is a good reason for this and it’s quite simple – Ramon is exactly the way he appears. He is that nasty. That brutal. That uncaring. That egotistical. He doesn’t walk away from the way he comes across to people because that is how he is. Random knew that most of the time. But not always. Sometimes he tried to make him change just by loving him and expecting him to behave, because how could you be with someone if they’re always in the cells or have people trying to kill you or in a hospital somewhere because you can’t keep your fists to yourself? And Ramon had tried. He hated himself for it sometimes. Curbing his instincts never came easy. But he tried. Sometimes.

He’s thinking about him without meaning to. Perhaps it’s inevitable, being here. Truth be told, it’s rarely a hardship to think about Random, even now. If he makes an effort, he can forget about the humiliation at being left behind without a word, or the anger at being played for a fool. The anger at himself, for allowing it to happen simply by letting someone get that close to him. It can be done, when he’s on his own and there’s no one to see – Ramon’s not imaginative outside the world of crime (God knows, he’s inventive enough at hurting people or breaking the law) but even he can think back and remember. There are a lot of good memories. The bad times were extremely bad but the good...they were the best. The best ever. It sums them up perfectly because they are both men of extremes and that’s probably why they worked so well.

The fresh food in the cupboards (not much, neither of them ever learned to cook) has gone off; an indication that time has passed. There is dust coating their furniture and the floor, but not a thick layer. A clock ticks on the mantel above the fire. Ramon listens to it for a while, vaguely notes that there are magazines on the coffee table in the lounge and that there’s a breeze outside – he can tell because the trees are moving against the backdrop of the green sky, and the water on the lake is moving. It was often still but not today. He can’t hear it though, and turns from the window. He’s seen the view before.

He wanders for a while. Kitchen, lounge, Martin’s room. This house isn’t large and he remembers that it had been strange for him to settle for a place so small. All his houses on Earth are huge and beautiful, all of them impeccably crafted from stone and marble and tile. Cold. This house is small and furnished with carpet and curtains and big squashy sofas. Random’s touch, of course. Ramon had left the decor to him and simply nodded in the right places.

Upstairs. A guest room that they’d never really used. And their bedroom. He actually hesitates before going in, his hand hovering over the doorknob. He’s not sure why. In the end, he tells himself not to be so fucking stupid, and pushes it open. And it’s exactly like it was the last time he saw it. He wonders whether he should have expected otherwise, as if he’d walk in and find that people had been here and tidied up or used the bed or stolen their clothes. Of course they haven’t. It reminds him of their room at the bar the first time he went back to it, with Random’s shirts and weapons everywhere. This is worse though because they had lived here, really lived here, and every surface carries reminders of their life together, all the way down to the unmade bed that he knows will carry the stains of their last time together in it. He closes his eyes and in the end, doesn’t go in. There’s no point.

Once downstairs again, he finds the liquor cabinet and pours himself a drink. Should he leave? Much as Bar frustrates him, he finds it hard to believe that she’d send him here for no reason, especially as she hasn’t opened the door to this house for well over a year now. Maybe she’s trying to tell him to bring the virus here because she really doesn’t want it, but he won’t do that. Chances are he’d bring it here and she’d never let him come back to fetch it. Clever on her part, but he’s not falling for it. So, should he leave? He’s not sure and can’t make up his mind so just stands, drinking a slow tequila, staring out over the quiet living room to the large windows beyond, watching the trees.

* * *

When he’ll look back, years later, he’ll muse that it should have come as an anticlimax. It wasn’t, of course. It was anything but.

* * *

The front door of Haven opens straight onto the living room. There is no hallway or porch. Ramon, standing next to the liquor cabinet with his back to the door, has no prior warning to it opening and when it does, he freezes. But really, only for a split-second. He doesn’t have to look round to suddenly understand why he’s been brought here. Suddenly, it all makes sense. Suddenly, life is life again.

’Oh my God,’ he hears, and he smiles, his glass still held almost to his lips. ’Oh my God.’

‘Weren’t expecting me to be here?’

‘No. I took a chance.’

Ramon lowers the glass and sets it down, turning. The smile is still there without him even meaning it to be and perhaps it is this that reassures Random more than anything because the sharp features melt from nervousness to relief right before his eyes.

‘Lover?’

‘Random.’

If he prayed, he’d say it sounded like worship, the way he says that name. He hasn’t said that name more than twice in over a year.

It does sound like worship, even to his own ears. And he doesn’t care, doesn’t think about it, doesn’t do anything except catch the flying blond that’s landing in his arms, and hold him like he’s never going to let him go.