Black Velvet - 24 (Patreon)

(A/N: Starting off November with some angst)

Tobias calls out sick.  Day after day — for an entire week.  In that week, something stirs and blooms into anxiety that I can't rid.  Ms. Martin considers firing him.

And — when he finally shows, the bakery is quiet, and my heartbeat floods my ears.  I've felt sick to my stomach, trying to think of ways to bring it up — to question Tobias' wellness.  The thought is horrifying, and the question seems daunting in the shadows of the small steps towards acquaintanceship that we've taken.

...But he needs help.

Tobias needs help.

It probably doesn't seem like I feel that way at all.  I've been avoiding the man like the plague in our small workspace — which I keep telling myself is only until I can think of the right words.

"Oliver,"  His voice is quiet.  I need to ask him his side of the story — if he has any relatives that can help, if my family can help, what I can do to help.  "I can't remember how to do this."

I swallow, pick at my shirt because my hands won't rest, and the bakery lights seem too bright — the heat seems too stifling.  I can't leave my head to comfort him, and my anxiety blossoms with that, watching Tobias' leaned over the half-proofed dough on the table.  He's glaring daggers into the scale as he tries to figure it out on his own.  He has fifteen minutes left of his shift, but his patience left hours ago.

Finally, after he's tried his hand several times at shaping the wet mixture, he slams his hand onto the metal-framed desk, shaking it. He does it again, louder, and I notice a new bruise across his lower arm.

Something turns in my stomach, wondering if this is a new thing, an old thing —

Or if now, he's not even bothering to hide it.

"Fuck!"

I frown at how easily his frustration could be misread — and wonder if Shelby is in ear-shot. This past week Tobias has been unraveling into a caricature of a man that he's not, that Richard tells others he is.

"I don't have a fucking clue as to how I'm supposed to do this,"  Tobias turns his glare on me over his shoulder, fingers spread out across the workbench where he's hunched,  "so do you want to tell me why you're suddenly so quiet or call someone else in to train me?"

I don't expect the low pitch of his voice, like someone who's explained himself one too many times.  The rumor has begun to spread like wildfire, and I have a feeling that Shelby and I are not the only ones in the building who have heard it —

I feel like everything that Tobias has built is gone.

There's a slow slump to his shoulders of defeat as I struggle to form words.

"You've got another bruise,"  I swallow, sinking back on the foot I have crossed behind me,  "I — on your arm."

He stares.

"And — I heard about you.  I heard about your stepdad... what he said about you.  Are you okay?"

I don't know what I expect Tobias to say, but if anything, I expect him to defend himself.  He's not at fault — and I want him to protect himself.

"What does that have to do with work?"  Tobias' back is still facing me.  I feel like I get a better read off of how he feels when I can't see his face, anyway.  There's an edge to his posture that wants to cut.

"Nothing. But... Tobias,"  I take a couple of cautious steps in his direction, nervous at the unfamiliar territory of having Tobias in a position at which he doesn't feel comfortable.  He looks like a caged animal, restless and unsure — stripped of everything, his mask, his love from the town. It happened very quickly, anti-climatically. There was no build-up that I could see.  "I just know it isn't true."

"Isn't it?" The man laughs ruefully, and his shoulders work with it as he slams down a piece of dough,  "Oliver, you don't want to have this conversation with me."  His voice is a warning, like a mother telling her child not to touch a hot stove.

"Well.  Yeah?  Maybe — but I still will," my voice is too earnest, "Because I think you need help. Do you need help...?  You're not that sort of person."

"Why's that,"  Tobias snaps, "Why do you care what sort of person I am?"  Tobias' heated look is on me now — and in the nerves of it all, I hadn't even noticed him turn around. There's something different in his eyes, but I can't pick it apart; I haven't seen it before.  It's exhausted and hateful, and I don't know how to touch on it.

"It doesn't make sense, but I do," I wave my hand to the side. My voice is hilted, nervous, "You're the kind of person who acts like a dick but can put up with the million times Nic has called you drunk for a ride home — or pulled weeds from my dad's garden —" I think of many other things, many different situations...  But my voice is caught, and I can't think of anything beautiful to say,  "you —you glued my project together."

"One fucking time," Tobias snarls, "one fucking time. That's the amount that I've done something good for you. It doesn't make me an angel, Oliver. Favors don't make me a good man."

"You need help." I feel like crying, but I don't understand why, "Tobias, you really need help.  Let me help you."

"Why? The rumor is true, Oliver."   Tobias closes his eyes, inhales.  His fingers twitch,  "I beat up on my stepdad when he pisses me off."

"You don't."

"I'm brittle, and I'm violent, and I'm never grateful —" he stops himself, opens his eyes, and takes another breath. "And that's that. Think of how I treat you. Is it nice?"

"You need to turn him in," I wrinkle my nose, "he's in your head. I can tell that it's bothering you, what people have said. They're idiots— I'll —"

"Stop fucking overanalyzing everything!"  Tobias' voice is barely louder, but I jump, hands curling. "Just stop."

"Tobias?"

"Stop trying to check my bandaids — stop trying to dissect — how I think. I'm so sick of it, I've always been sick of it."

I push forward, feet away from him, and twist my hands over the waist of my apron,

"Is that like, a defense mechanism? 'Operation:  This person cares, so try and make them feel like shit?'"

"Oh?  You care?" Tobias snorts.  I cringe at the bitter tone of his voice, settling my nervous hands.

He doesn't think that I'm concerned.  He thinks I'm picking and prodding at him like some sort of lab rat, like the next piece of gossip is at my fingertips.

"It's — It's not like that, you know."  I tell him,  "I'm not like...  You can't expect people who care about you not to wonder what's wrong when you're so hell-bent on self-destruction."

Tobias makes a low sound in his throat, like a warning.

"I care,"  I repeat. "I really do care."

Tobias' jaw almost quakes.

"Oh.  Because... You think you know me?  Because you know everything?"  His posture is defensive, back against the table and eyes on me again.  It's like he's trying to figure something out too.  "I'm your big brother's best friend, and you've watched a few baseball games, so you think you've got everything figured out?"

"Maybe I do,"  I bite back, cheeks heating,  "Maybe you're not as shitty as you're trying to make me think you are — or Jameson.  Maybe you just need help.  So let me help."

Tobias chuckles, fist knocking a little too hard against the workbench as he taps it in a steady rhythm like he's trying to steady himself.

"Oliver, so concerned about my image,"  the man glares, and I'm surprised at the way that I shrink into myself.  "You're the fucking spaz next door that has his head in a different universe because he doesn't fit in in this one — the kid that shaves cats and hides out in his room 'cause he thinks he's smarter than the rest of us."

"I —"

"And you're worried about how I come across?" Tobias spits,  "I'm not a fucking science project.  You don't know me at all."

Spaz.

"— and you don't know me!"  I yelp back, and I feel humiliated over the way that my voice is cracking.  I've taken his bait.  I hate myself a little for it.  "See, that's probably the most I've gotten out of you, ever, and it was an insult."

"Yeah?"

"I know everyone thought you were the shit.  Oh, Tobias is so handsome — he's so kind.  Really, you're just a drunk that can't handle his problems,"  I snap,  "you could be a nice guy!  But why? Because why would you possibly find another way to handle anything other than getting liquored up and dawdling on the front porch? I'm trying to tell you that it doesn't have to be this way!"

No, what am I saying?

"You don't know what it's like!" Tobias catches himself mid-shout and shrinks before he grows back into his height — his mask.  Guilt strikes me again, ten-fold, "and you wouldn't even fucking know that if you weren't always there watching." He stalks forward and presses his fingers against my chest,

"You're not concerned about me, Oliver, and you don't want to know me."  Tobias' eyes are brutal and dark, a wave of real hostility to his tone.  "You have me in your head as who you want me to be, just like everyone else, and now you're pissed that I'm not that person."

I can hear it in his voice. I can hear something that sounds like his heart is breaking.

"You don't know that.  I've seen this part of you so many times."

Tobias is considering something, things I feel he doesn't want to say,

"I do know that,"  Tobias is nodding as he speaks, "I'm not an idiot.  You don't care about me.  I wasn't sure at first — but I see the way you watch me.  A lot of people watch me the same way."

My heart is thumping.  I feel sick.

"What way is that?"

Suspicion and fear that he's noticed something that — something that I try hard not to think of, is rooting in my tone.  The air has changed.  There's a shift in everything that has me on unsteady ground.

"You want me to be a lot better than I actually am,"  Tobias' voice drops, quieter as his fingers trace up to the side of my neck.  My stomach flops as they tuck into a curl behind my ear, "Isn't that right?"  Tobias chuckles, and his breath fans across my cheek, lips dangerously close to my ear.

"Tobias.  Don't."

"You want me to be better.  You want me to be different.  You want to feel less bad about how much you want me to fuck you."

I feel my breath stop short in my throat, eyes widening as they drop to the man's chest instead of his face. Tobias' hand sinks, and he chuckles, that angry growl of a laugh and stalks past me.

"You..."

I feel like he's trying to cut into my core with his accusation, to find an unpleasant and hidden curl of internalized homophobia that lashes out at him — so that he can justify yet another reason to hate himself.

The curl isn't there. I'm angry at him for it, even still.

"... Fuck you," I say quietly, but it just sounds like I'm mindlessly repeating the tail end of his statement. Hurt swells in my chest, and I call after his retreating figure, "oh — fuck you and your self-hatred, Tobias!  That isn't what this is about!"

Tobias laughs, another furious swell of noise.

"Wouldn't it be great if you stopped thinking you could help me? Wouldn't it be easier for you — to ignore it, like you always have?" he yells back, but I'm still staring at the floor.  Had I ignored it?  Had my family — were we an accomplice in breaking him?  "Would you get the hell out of my head then?"

The doors slam shut.

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