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Dembe needs to find the address for Raymond, to get them out of this mess . This disgusting situation, that makes Dembe want to burrow under the blankets, hold his hands over his ears and pretend it’s not happening. He hates that this is happening.
But he can’t pretend. Pretending doesn’t get Raymond out of there. So he tips his head forward against the bars, and swallows like it hurts. It does hurt. He hooks his fingers into the mesh of metal that separates Raymond from him.
The marshals are lurking not-so-inconspicuously at the door. Dembe swallows again, around a lump in his throat that feels like it’s burning. He can feel their side-glances on him, like they see him right to the bones that vibrate with terrible electricity. He can smell the leftovers from the others held here; sweat and something stale that Dembe can pick out in a moment; fear.
Raymond stands slowly and gives a smile that’s so forced it hurts. Just a little lilt of his lips that doesn’t reach his eyes. It’s stiff and it’s ugly, and it makes Dembe want to turn right away and leave.
Raymond tilts his head to the side, and seems to be calculating how well the situation plays out with someone’s spiritual advisor kissing them through the bars. Dembe imagines not well, and guesses they’ve both come to the same conclusion. Which is, really, a terrible thing, because Dembe thinks the withdrawal is making him weak.
Raymond threads his fingers through Dembe’s around the cage that holds him. Rests his head against the bars just below Dembe’s, and looks up with sad, pale eyes. Dembe moves microscopically to briefly kiss his forehead through the little metal square.
“You are not dying,” Dembe murmurs firmly. He squeezes Raymond’s hand through the bars, who is feeling around his molars with his tongue. Like it’s a nerve-wracking puzzle he wants to solve, how Dembe can say what he does.
Dembe shakes his head, knowing Raymond’s going to say something he doesn’t want to hear. Like how he will die and this is the last time they’ll see each other before Raymond’s fate is set in stone, or how Dembe should already be moving on, fleeing the country. Something about telling Elizabeth everything, something about swearing him to secrecy about it all. Or maybe he’ll say something far worse, like ‘I love you’ .
But now isn’t the time, because no one is dying.
“I’ll get the address,” Dembe promises, moving his head a bit to force Raymond to look him in the eyes where he avoids it.
Raymond nods once, wetting his lips. He says something worse than what Dembe thought he would.
“You’re everything to me, Dembe,” he says quietly, looking him in the eyes when he says it.
Dembe doesn’t respond, but he can feel uncomfortable turning in his stomach. Worse than butterflies, worse than anxiety. It’s a mix of both, and it’s terrible.
“I’ll get the address,” he repeats. Raymond smiles, awful and forced, just the corners of his lips tilting upwards again. It makes Dembe ill.
“I know you will.”
“I would do anything to keep you from death, Raymond,” Dembe’s voice drops as he says it. “And if that is not enough…“ If it’s not enough to want, if anything is not enough… Then- then-
It would just have to be enough. It’ll be enough. It has to be enough.
Dembe trails off, setting his jaw. It aches with how often he’d been grinding his teeth. He had kicked that habit a few years ago, but it’s been unconscious how he does it now.
Raymond squeezes his hand again, with a smile that’s more of a grimace. He nods briefly.
“It will be.”
He says it like a lie and a half , but Dembe nods. It’s easier that way, and he leaves soon after because he can’t stand another lying smile.
He reaches for the keys in his pocket, nodding to the marshals as he hurries out the door.
He has to get the address.
Dembe sits in the car after he lies to Raymond about who called the police, sitting in the parking lot of the place where he’s being held. Dembe leans his forehead on the steering wheel. The windows are tinted darker than any legal car could be, so no one can see him, with his hands gripping the thighs of his jeans.
He takes a deep breath, and it rattles low in his throat.
But he won’t cry. Dembe won’t cry, because Raymond is not dead. He's not dead, or dying. He won’t be dead tomorrow, or even the next day. He's alive.
Tears have no point. Tears have no points unless someone is dead or dying.
Dembe wipes the dampness from his eyes, and sits up again, shifting his shoulders. He lied. For Elizabeth. Isn’t that what Raymond would’ve done? Keep Elizabeth’s secrets, keep Elizabeth safe. That’s how it goes. That’s the logical conclusion Raymond would come to, the logical conclusion that Kate would come to. He did it right.
Dembe drives. He forgets how far, just around a few blocks. But he ends up back in the parking lot. He stares at the cold, stone building.
He just wants Raymond back.
Elizabeth grabs Dembe’s hand so tentatively while they stare at Raymond through the glass. Dembe doesn’t see a thing in that room other than the man inside. Raymond looks awful, tired and uncomfortably confident. Uncomfortably, because it’s so believable.
Dembe glances down awkwardly at Elizabeth’s hand, back at the white, terrible room ahead of them. The weight of her hand isn’t very much, just a squeeze against his palm, like she’s scared to take his attention away from the glass. He can smell a faint waft of her perfume, the sterileness of a public building drowning it. The sterileness almost makes him want to gag.
Elizabeth lets go.
Raymond looks at them with that stupid little smile. A grimacing smile that Dembe hates so much. He wants to break into the room, hold Raymond’s hand and hold him close, tell him not to be scared. Shit, while he’s at it, he might as well rip out the damn IVs, and take him away. Take him so far away from everything, they can spend their lives somewhere between soft sheets and warm breezes. And too-nice fedoras and fast cars.
Dembe can stand sand between his toes if he can see Raymond grinning at him while knee-deep in tropical green-blue water.
He blinks against the tears. Dembe won’t fall apart yet, not while Raymond can still see him, not while Elizabeth is on the verge right beside him. He will not fall apart. Raymond isn’t dead. Not yet. He’ll fall apart when Raymond’s died, he’ll fall apart once Elizabeth turns away.
Dembe can fall apart when it’s over.
For now he has to be strong for them both. For all three of them. He doesn’t take his eyes off Raymond. He hears him deny the offer of last words. Dembe folds his hands, but can’t find the words to pray coherently.
The phone rings, a muffled sound through the glass.
They left Elizabeth at her home. Truthfully, Dembe was a bit jealous she was the first one to embrace Raymond outside the prison.
It’s a rare occasion when he comes to sit up in the front seat, but Raymond does after they drop Elizabeth off. It catches Dembe almost off-guard. Raymond reaches for Dembe’s hand, the one gripping his own thigh. Dembe sniffs quietly to keep his tears at bay. He turns his hand over with little convincing, and Raymond holds it firmly,
“Where do you want to go?” he asks quietly, voice scratching. He squeezes Raymond’s hand to make sure he’s real. He is, and Dembe could break down right there, pull them over, and hold Raymond so close so nothing bad can ever happen to him.
Instead, Dembe flicks on his blinker and waits for the Tacoma ahead of them to turn. Raymond’s calloused palm is warm against his.
“I haven’t thought so far ahead,” he says with a sigh. “Take us to the jet, and we can figure it out from there.”
Dembe swallows and nods. He goes on autopilot. The only thing he can truly register is the weight of Raymond’s hand in his and the occasional intersection. They’re both silent, Dembe thinks, but Raymond could’ve been talking the whole time and Dembe wouldn’t have heard a single word.
He’s too busy working through the earth-shaking shock of it all.
They make it to the jet, and he practically mourns the loss when Raymond slides out of the car before him. Dembe follows, locking the car and tucking the keys in his pocket. He mounts the steps, and collapses into a seat while Raymond is talking to the pilot, leaning into the cockpit. Dembe stares at his back, feeling the tears surfacing again. Which is ridiculous. No one’s dead, least of all Raymond, no one’s going to die, and-
Dembe brushes his hand over his eyes to rid himself of the tears forming there. Raymond turns around, wetting his lips, seeming distracted. When his eyes land on Dembe though, he smiles.
“Dembe,” Raymond says quietly, coming closer. Dembe tilts his head back to look up at him. He still looks tired, but that terrible confidence is gone, replaced by true relief. They stare at each other for a long moment. Dembe’s fingers fidget where they rest on his thighs. He thinks he could do this forever if he needed to.
The spell of it all is broken whe Raymond moves. He retires his hat onto an empty seat, along with his jacket, before slowly settling himself onto Dembe’s lap, straddling his thighs.
It’s unexpected, and Dembe rests his head back tiredly on the seat just to look at him. Alive. Brows drawing together as he attempts to get comfortable, pale eyelashes fluttering as he looks from Dembe’s face down to where his knees are settled. He shifts experimentally on the seat’s cushion, something to support himself.
Dembe hopes it’s not noticeable, the tears that threaten to gather in his waterline.
“I’m getting far too old for this,” Raymond murmurs, hands coming to cradle the back of his neck. It’s what they both need, truly, warm skin on warm skin, a reassurance, a promise.
Dembe doesn’t bother asking what he’s too old for. He doesn’t want to know.
Dembe hesitates before touching Raymond. He can feel his hands shaking as he slowly rests his hands on Raymond’s waist, up his back. The tears come without warning or sound. He just knows that they’re being brushed from his cheeks while chapped lips move up against his own.
It’s not much of a kiss, just their lips brushing, like some strange dance.
Dembe doesn’t move his hands, fingers spread against Raymond’s back, the warmth of his skin bleeding through his shirt. But he mentally recoils at any mention of bleeding in a way that he thinks deserves some prayer. He slowly slides his hands up to hold Raymond’s face, brushing away tears that could be either of theirs. They’re a mess, and have a good dose of an aversion to intimacy each, but they’re-
Shit, they’re alive .
When Raymond sits back for a moment, Dembe can see the tears in his lashes, like dew on a spider’s web. So delicate, too delicate.
Dembe acts on impulse, and tentatively, slowly, reaches with two fingers to feel Raymond’s pulse, who tilts his head slowly to the side, baring pale skin. Dembe presses his index and middle finger to the soft spot below his jaw.
Raymond’s heart beats, barely-there through the skin, drowned out by the blood rushing in Dembe’s ears.
His hand drops. Raymond smiles. Actually smiles, eyes-nearly-shut, teeth-baring smile. Dembe rests both his hands on Raymond’s shoulders, squeezing gently, shifting his fingers. Dembe just wants to stare at that smile for the rest of his life, memorise every line in his face when it happens, every twitch of his lips.
“Don’t tell me you were worried,” Raymond says with a bit of mirth that Dembe scoffs at before he’s done his sentence.
“You know that-” He swallows a fresh round of tears he doesn’t want to shed. He prays his voice hasn’t cracked. “You know that I was.”
Raymond’s smile fades a bit, and he stretches to kiss Dembe’s forehead. He holds his lips there for a long time. Dembe closes his eyes. Takes it all in. Raymond smells too much like antiseptic, but he’ll take it for now. There’s something of the prison beneath it, but he’s not focussed on anything that isn’t Raymond.
The plane starts its taxi, but neither of them want to get up. Raymond settles fully on Dembe’s thighs, the weight of him perfect and real. They move almost in tandem, Raymond ducking down to press his face into Dembe’s shoulder, and they both wrap their arms around each other. Dembe closes his eyes.
The plan could crash, the world could catch fire, they could both die right there, and…
And they wouldn’t notice a thing. Dembe wouldn’t, at least.
They land in London in the fog of an early morning. They stay where they are for a little too long, Raymond stretched across the seats of the jet, head in Dembe’s lap. Too tired to talk, too energised to sleep.
Raymond notices his watch says it’s nearly eight, and they decide to get coffee. Their knees knock under the table, and Raymond locks one ankle around Dembe’s moments after they sit down, and he doesn’t dare move it. The coffee isn’t bad. Dembe takes another sip of his, glancing at Raymond, who’s going at a chocolate croissant like it’s killed his whole family. He suppresses a smile.
There’s hardly anyone there, and the only person working is a tired-looking blonde who seems to have a personal grudge against hair ties, because hers keeps sliding out. She made their drinks with a forced smile, looking shaken when Raymond slipped her an extra twenty or so pounds, and seemed in a better mood overall afterwards.
They were both on their third cup by now. They don’t speak, in their little booth in the back. There isn’t a need to. People are slowly filing into the little cafe as the morning there drags on, briefcases and backpacks, shoulder bags and duffles, in and out like gusts of wind. Raymond, Dembe, and the recently increased to two harried baristas are the only constants. Grass blades under the breeze.
Raymond reaches for his free hand that rests idly on the table. He more so slides his palm along the table, and works his fingers in between Dembe’s. Their fingers interlock perfectly, a puzzle that doesn’t need solving. Dembe stops people-watching the couple who have been trying to discreetly argue in public for the past five minutes to look at his and Raymond’s hands. The dirt that’s gathered under Raymond’s nails, Dembe’s bitten to the quick. The short term is easy to see. Later on they can realise the long term.
He looks up at Raymond’s face, and they stare at each other with almost-smiles. It feels completely surreal to be here. Raymond almost died, which, in turn, nearly killed Dembe, and now… Now they’re in London. On the surface, they’re just an old couple getting coffee. No one knows about the stress like deep, deep water that compresses their spines. The stress is like mud cracks, running through everything they do.
“I adore you,” Dembe admits.
He thinks he says too quiet for Raymond to hear, but he doesn’t really want to make himself vulnerable again. He resolves he’ll lie if asked to repeat himself. It’s disturbing to think, but feels necessary. It’s too much to say it again.
Then Raymond lifts Dembe’s hand to his lips, and it’s all perfect.