“What the hell are you doin’?” Hank panted after him, his hips now reminding him too that he wasn’t used to such rushed movements.
“I’m leaving. I shouldn’t have stayed this long, anyway. You don’t need a stray like me hanging around.” His voice shook as he furiously swiped a few strands of wayward locks away from his glasses.
“You can’t leave at this hour. It’s pitch black, freezing cold. Where’re you gonna go? You haven’t even eaten yet, Finn.” He was feeling real panic building, the prospect of Finn being alone out there in the dark, cold and hungry, unbearable. His chest tightened; his next breath stuck in his lungs. Placing himself in the doorway, making himself as tall and as broad as he could, he tentatively placed a hand on Finn’s shoulder.
“Please, get out of my way, Hank,” Finn’s voice shivered, his eyelashes fluttering, those damn moths dancing despairingly in front of Hank as if they were getting ready to take off and flee too.
“I don’t want you to go.”
“Hank…”
“I don’t want you to go,” he repeated, realizing those words held more truth in them than anything had in a long time.
“Why not? I’m just a burden on you, anyway.”
“I like havin’ you around…” Hank squeezed his hand tighter around Finn’s muscular shoulder, feeling him shake beneath him. “Besides, a burden implies that something is too heavy to bear. You’re not. Please stay.”
“I can’t.” Finn tipped his chin defiantly. “Look, I’m sorry, okay, but I can’t.” Finn broke their eye contact, his shoulder sagging under Hank’s touch.
“Because of him? Because of Eugene? I already told ya. It doesn’t change anything.” Hank swallowed.Please don’t let it change anything. I don’t want to go back to how things were.Finn might be the one who would be out there in the cold, but Hank was afraid that he would be the one who would freeze without him.I’ll freeze without you, Finn.
“But it does. It does,” Finn murmured, shaking his head, his glasses hidden behind a curtain of hair.
“Why?”
“Because I can’t be around you anymore, Hank. Not when…”
“When what?”
“When you’re just like me. When we’re the same. I didn’t realize that we were the same.” Finn looked back up, his gaze indecipherable. “If I had, I wouldn’t have stayed.” Hank’s mind tried to wrap itself around what Finn was saying. It sure sounded like his mother tongue, but the words were foreign, cryptic.
“Kid, you’re making zero sense here. I don’t see…”
“BECAUSE I LOST EVERYTHING TOO, OKAY? Okay? I fucking lost everything, too, and while it’s hard to forget even on the best of days, then it’s a whole lot easier when I’m on my own! Okay?” His voice tore through the small bedroom, Finn’s entire body shaking, his mouth twisted in a desperate grimace.Fear. Pure, unfiltered fear.Hank automatically took a step back in awe at Finn’s brutal honesty, but he didn’t release the firm grip on his shoulder. Instead, he squeezed it even harder.
“Nothing’s ever easier on your own,” he spoke quietly, reaching for Finn’s backpack, disentangling it from his death grip. “If it was easier bein’ on our own, then why did God make us the way we are?”
“Like what?” Finn panted, the moths starting to quiet down some, the tears clinging to their wings. Hank hadn’t realized that Finn was crying.
“Starved. For the company of others.”
“Not all people are. Some are reclusive. Prefer to be alone,” Finn countered, a stubbornness returning to his posture, that defiant tilt of the chin that Hank had come to love so much.
“I know.” Hank placed the backpack on the hardwood floor with a smallthump. “But man wasn’t born that way. Life made him into a recluse. It’s not in his nature, though. From the minute it’s born, the small child is screamin’ from the top of its lungs.”
“So?” Finn pursed his lips, and if it weren’t for the serious look in his eyes, the pout would’ve looked adorable. In a way, it still did. Yeah, defiance looked damn adorable on the kid.
“It’s screamin’ for its tribe. Its kin. It’s the most desperate sound you’ll ever hear. More desperate than the cry from hunger or from pain. Even from insanity. It’s the call of nothin’ but pure desperation. It’s the ‘Where are you?’the ‘Please, hold me. Don’t leave me alone.’”
“I… I…”
“It’s all part of His master plan, dontcha see?” Finn looked up, a fierceness in his eyes, that small spark of honey-colored fire back amidst the muddy brown.
“I don’t believe in God!” he spat.
“Well, neither did I until He took Eugene away from me. As long as He stayed outta my business, He could do whatever the hell He wanted. But when He tookhimaway from me—yeah, let’s just say, there’s a debt that must be settled one day.” A small chuckle burst from Finn’s lips.
“Jesus, Hank. And you call me the Hun. You’re the fucking scary one around here. Hank the Motherfucking Hun! Sounds better anyway…” He did look kind of awestruck as he stood there, looking at Hank, liquid fire dancing in his golden gaze.
