Chapter Text
The phone doesn't ring anymore but Finney hears it anyway.
It's 4:47 a.m. and he's awake because sleep is a place where the basement still has him. Robin's arm is dead weight across his chest, their legs tangled in Finney's twin bed that's too small for two seventeen-year-old boys who grew into their shoulders and knuckles. The room smells like sweat and the joint they killed around midnight, roach still sitting in the ashtray on the nightstand beside Robin's switchblade.
Finney stares at the ceiling. The water stain in the corner looks like a hand reaching.
Ring.
He counts his breaths. In for four, hold for seven, out for eight. Gwen taught him that after she found him hyperventilating in the bathtub last month, still dressed, water running cold over his jeans.
Ring.
Robin stirs. His fingers twitch against Finney's ribs like he's throwing punches in his sleep. Probably is. Robin fights in his dreams now—has since the basement, since the Grabber learned what happened when you put your hands on Robin Arellano's person. Since Robin learned what his hands could do when they had to.
The phone keeps ringing in Finney's head.
He slides out from under Robin's arm, careful, and pads barefoot across the carpet. October cold seeps through the walls. Down the hall, the kitchen light is on—Dad's probably awake too, nursing coffee at the table, pretending he sleeps anymore. Gwen's door is closed but Finney can hear her crying through it, small choked sounds she won't admit to in the morning.
She's been having the dreams again. Seeing things. Dead boys and black balloons and their mother's face.
Finney presses his forehead against the hallway wall and counts the rings. Seven. Eight. Nine.
"Finn."
Robin's voice cuts through it, rough with sleep. When Finney turns, Robin's sitting up in bed, bare-chested, hair fucked up on one side. The lamplight catches the scar on his shoulder—the one that matches the grip marks on Finney's throat, the ones that faded months ago but still tighten when he swallows wrong.
"Come back to bed."
"I'm fine."
"Bullshit." Robin swings his legs over the side of the mattress. "You're hearing it again."
It's not a question.
Finney doesn't answer. Robin knows. Robin always knows, has known since the first time Finney woke up screaming about phones and black balloons three weeks after they got out, when Robin climbed through his window at 2 a.m. and just stayed. Started staying. Never really left.
"Come here," Robin says, softer now, and Finney goes because he always does.
Robin pulls him back into bed, repositions them so Finney's between his legs, back to Robin's chest. His arms come around Finney's waist, hands flat on his stomach, solid and real and here. Robin's chin hooks over Finney's shoulder.
"Breathe with me," Robin says.
They breathe together. Robin's chest rises and falls against Finney's back, steady as a metronome, and slowly—so slowly—the ringing fades to static, then to nothing.
"Better?"
"Yeah."
Robin's thumb traces small circles on Finney's hip, just under the hem of his t-shirt. His lips brush Finney's ear. "Want me to stay awake with you?"
"No. Sleep."
"Can't sleep when you're not sleeping."
"That's codependent."
"No shit." Robin bites his earlobe, gentle. "Told you I'm not letting you disappear on me."
Finney turns his head enough to catch Robin's mouth. The kiss tastes like stale weed and something desperate underneath. Robin's hand slides up Finney's chest, settles over his heart like he's checking it still beats.
When they break apart, Robin says, "Your dad's gonna catch us one of these days."
"He knows you're here."
"Yeah, but he doesn't know we're—"
"He knows," Finney says. "He just doesn't say anything."
Robin's quiet for a moment. His fingers find Finney's, lace together. "Gwen's crying again."
"I know."
"You want me to—"
"No. She won't talk about it." Finney squeezes Robin's hand. "Not to me, anyway."
The house settles around them. Pipes creaking. Dad's chair scraping in the kitchen. Gwen's crying has stopped but Finney knows she's awake, staring at her own ceiling, seeing things no thirteen-year-old should see.
Robin's breath evens out against his neck. Not quite asleep but close.
Finney closes his eyes and tries not to hear the phones.
—
At 7:15, Dad knocks twice and opens the door. Robin's already sitting up, pulling on his shirt like he wasn't just wrapped around Finney like a second skin. Dad looks at them both—Finney still in bed, Robin finger-combing his hair—and his mouth does something complicated.
"Breakfast in ten," Dad says. "Robin, your mom called. Said to tell you she's making tamales tonight if you want to bring Finney."
"Yes, sir."
Dad nods. Lingers in the doorway. The bruises under his eyes match Finney's. "You boys sleep okay?"
"Fine," Finney lies.
Dad knows he's lying. Dad always knows. But he just nods again and closes the door.
Robin pulls on his jeans from yesterday, still stained with grass and something that might be blood from the fight he got into Thursday after school when some college kid called Finney a faggot outside the arcade. The kid's nose broke clean. Robin's knuckles are still purple.
"You gonna tell me what the phones are saying?" Robin asks.
Finney sits up, reaches for his own jeans. "Nothing."
"Finn—"
"They don't say anything. They just ring."
Robin crosses the room, tilts Finney's chin up with two fingers. Studies his face like he's looking for cracks. "You'd tell me if it got bad again. Right?"
"It's not bad."
"If it gets bad."
Finney kisses him instead of answering. Robin lets him, for a second, then pulls back.
"Finn."
"I'd tell you."
Another lie. Robin knows that too. But he drops it because downstairs Gwen's setting the table and Dad's burning eggs and this is the closest thing to normal they've got.
Robin slings an arm around Finney's shoulders as they head for the kitchen. His thumb rubs circles into Finney's collarbone, over and over, like a prayer or a leash.
Finney doesn't pull away.
He never does.