Home Sweet Home (mxm)

Chapter 6: Bones

The chime of a text message coming through his phone made Taylor groan as he rolled over. When it didn't beep again, he felt himself beginning to fall asleep again as he nuzzled into soft, cool blankets. He'd gone to Adoni's apartment after the fun they'd had the previous day. Of course, he'd offered to just get a hotel for a short while until he could figure out how he wanted to deal with his situation, but Adon mentioned that he had a spare furnished room and didn't mind him hanging around for a bit.

Thank you, god.

He stretched out a bit, but his mind awoke a little more when his toes brushed against something that felt like clothing.

Is Adon in here, too?

The guy had his own room, so it made no sense for him to sleep in the same bed with him, or at least stand at the foot of it. When his phone chimed again, Taylor sighed and tugged the pillow up and over his head.

Probably just work.

He definitely needed to at least go in later to do some paperwork. It was probably just one of his workers panicking about how he hadn't been in in the past few days. His phone chimed again, but he ignored it.

Then again.

Then again.

Then again.

Jerking upright abruptly, Taylor snatched it from the blanket next to him as he squeezed his eyes shut to yawn. When he blinked them open to finally glance down at the screen, his mouth opened slightly as he read the message he was being spammed with.

The fish.

The fish.

The fish.

He quickly unlocked the device and frowned at the ten messages there. When he opened them, no phone number or name came up. Both normally-filled areas showed completely blank.

How the heck can he text me? This is ridiculous.

After glaring around the room, Taylor clenched his jaw and looked back down at his phone.

"You are just going to kill me if I go back there to deal with that thing. I know that you can feed it. Just take care of it yourself," he said as he got up and headed for the small attached bathroom.

Adon had lent him a set of clothing to change into, so he figured that he'd just take a shower to wake himself up, then see if his host was awake. The shower was pretty small, but he was more than happy with the hot water and pressure from it.

All of the stress from the previous week began to wash away as he tilted his head back and closed his eyes. He would have stayed that way forever if something tiny hadn't bumped into his toes.

Curious, he opened his eyes and looked down, expecting an old piece of hard soap or something along those lines.

What the...?

Kneeling down, Taylor reached toward the drain and picked up several tiny little objects. It took him a moment before he realized what they were... and who must have put them there.

And those are definitely not my toes.

Shivers wracked his hot body as he fought to not move. Everything in him wanted to run, but at the same time, he couldn't even make himself take a decent breath. The faint chiming of his phone caught his attention as the text message notification pinged nonstop in the other room.

"You... just want me to go check on the fish?"

His phone went silent and a faded bloody hand appeared in front of him as the person before him leaned down.