Spilling Guts

Part 78 - How can anyone like this?

Louis shifted at Balcuwitz's praise; sitting up against a ripple of muscle slightly less slippery than others. "Really? I felt like I was complaining."

And I could have put up with it, thought Louis. I can adapt. Just one more thing to get through. Power through. Man up. It wouldn't have killed me. Yes, I was worried about falling, but Will wouldn't have let me.

"You were not complaining," said Balcuwitz. "You were communicating a problem and requested an action to alleviate it. Will, did you feel Louis' request unreasonable?"

"No. I would have felt uncomfortable that high up too."

Will's sympathy made Louis feel brittle, a wood-framed house with too many termites.

Louis looked up at the pink, dripping ceiling. Will was calm for now. He dreaded the flesh coming down on him again, suffocating and crushing him. And nothing he had done stopped it; not yelling, not pounding on the walls, not begging, nothing.

Okay, getting close to panic again. Bring it back. Talking about boundaries, not your well-deserved phobias. Let's put a wide strip of caution tape around that one and come back to it later.

Louis let the heartbeat pulsing above lull him back to safety. He would feel better once he was out of Will and on his own two feet. But he didn't regret telling Rachel to stop the endoscopy. Hearing Will's heart race and his breath choke hadn't been worth it.

"So," continued Balcuwitz. "You have an example of setting a boundary, and getting it observed. Build on that. Will, during the session you took more lubricant. Is it because it is hard to get Louis down?"

That's an awkward question. The mechanics of Louis... being ingested, for lack of a more sterile term, had never been brought up except by Will. What Will did with his body was his own business. Until Louis had to go inside it.

The heartbeat throbbed deeper. "It's not that bad once he's all the way in," said Will.

"For you it isn't," muttered Louis.

"Care to elaborate?" said Balcuwitz.

Louis covered his eyes with his palm as the pounding heartbeat sped up. He had forgotten how sensitive the SkySprechts microphones were. Anticipation of a fight. Dust falling off the rotting beams.

Hell, this is the big talk. Just come out with it. Swing the sledgehammer.

"I hate being in here." There I said it.

He expected Balcuwitz to chide him. Instead Will choked out. "I know I screwed--"

"No, not today with the test," snapped Louis. "I mean, yes, today sucked. But half the time I shrink I'm stuffed in here with the heat, and the smell. And I hate it."

Will rasped a laugh. "And you hate me."

"What?" Louis felt they were going off topic, whatever it had been, but Balcuwitz wasn't steering back to it. "When did I say that?"

"Back in California, I asked if you hated me. You said yes."

"Cali--" Louis threw up his hands. "I was a beaten mess covered in mud; I hated everything! I hated the damn trees!"

"I was only half the reason you became a beaten mess." Will's voice heated, rising with his heart rate. "You were the one that walked out the door for damn coffee when we were supposed to protect Massaru and his family. Sometimes I can't tell if you'd have my back in a fight. I can remember you fighting me, but never for me."

"Cause each time we'd get into trouble on a mission I'm commanded by a dumbass up the chain to shrink down and hide like a coward." Louis rose to his knees, yelling towards the heartbeat that threatened to drown him out. A battle drum. "The last time I got the lead out was when I got hauled onto a slab in Freewill. Ever since this shrinking shit I've been told to hang back, let others do the fighting, like I've suddenly become too fragile to hit someone. The machine in Rachel's lab says different!

"Even Beni assumed I'd have to hide inside you when I shrunk in her car last Friday."

"I'm not the one saying you're fragile!" said Will.

"But it feels like it! When I'm stuck here I can't do a damn thing but hold on and hope for the best. I have to pray that the fanboy rookie can get himself out of whatever hellhole he got dropped into because I can't help! I'm trapped. There's no exit unless you or Rachel do something drastic. And if the walls closing in doesn't make me white-out panic, the thought of you being killed while I'm "safe" does. Your death would be on me!"

Another death on him, another partner dead because he wasn't fast enough, strong enough, or in this case, big enough.

"If you die while I'm inside you I'll either have to climb up your throat, or carve my way out with my knife. And I nearly did use it the first time this happened!"

The knife Retten and his goons had left with him as his body had been shrunk and then shoved down Will's throat. The knife still tucked into his boot sheath. The knife he had reached for when Will's stomach tried to crush him through an esophagus. The knife he'd held and then shoved back into the sheath when the idea of slashing open Will's throat from the inside burned the nerves in his mind and made him shake.

Louis flopped boneless back down into the slick furrow, the humid air tight with tension. He could melt into a puddle of misery and fade away into a headache. He had swung the hammer and hit himself. He'd have to climb out of the rubble and live with it.

"I hate this. Not you. This. I don't know how anyone can like this."