What Happens in Vienna {ManxMan}

CHAPTER 8 (Tobias)

I was never good with physical contact. I'm not exactly sure when it all started, but even my earliest memories of being touched or hugged by the landlady of the orphanage were rather shadowed. I remembered people patting my head or ruffling my hair only to get kicked in the shin as a distraction so I could hide and try to rub the feeling of being touched off my skin. I remembered getting hugged and nearly screaming. I remember a little girl trying to hold my hand only for me to freak out and shove her into a puddle of rain water.

It was never truly clear to me why I was like this, the most I could figure was it had to be some psychological fear of getting hurt by the people I trusted getting close enough to touch me. The only times I could be touched by other people was when I got so drunk I couldn't function or walk on my own, and even then, I would never touch someone back. The only time I would touch someone was during sex, but I always felt this disgusting tinge left on my skin from it.

Was I a germaphobe? No, that seemed unlikely, I didn't care about germs. After all, just the other day I ate a cube of cheese that had fallen on the ground. Granted I only did it because Bryn told me to throw it away and I wanted to spite him, but that's not the point.

Carter touched me. He grabbed my wrist, preventing me from moving, and my initial reaction was to spin around and punch him as hard as I possibly could to get him off, but when I turned around with my fist clenched I stopped. I was looking at his hand, rather small compared to my own, pale and flawless, soft, warm.

Usually touch burned me, it was painful, I would feel my throat clench in this disgusting sensation of being exposed and open to harm, but Carter's touch didn't hurt me. It was.... Nice. I found myself enjoying it, the feeling of his fingers pressing against the area of skin just under my wrist; he could probably feel the way my pulse was racing. Then I touched back, I let my hand close over his, and they fit so perfectly together I didn't want to let go.

Now I was sitting alone in my office, paperwork spread out in front of me but untouched, because I was holding my wrist, staring blankly ahead, trying to remember the foreign but pleasant sensation of his skin against mine and counting the seconds until he'd come back from scouting the perimeter.

When the rapid knocking finally sounded from my door I jumped, throwing papers all around the room to make it look like I'd been busy and not daydreaming before yelling at whoever was there to come in.

Bryn was the one to push the door open, covered in dirt with rips in his clothes, a slight limp to his steps and dry blood matted against one side of his head. The very sight of him had me standing, panicked. I was worried about him, but there was one thought even more prominent on my mind.

"Where's Carter?"

The look he gave me made me wince a little, he looked disgusted in me, shaking his head, "The building caved in on us. I barely got out."

"You didn't bother looking for him?" I hissed, and Bryn's eyes got wide as he opened and closed his mouth.

"Why is this a problem?!" he demanded, "He was getting in the way anyway- Tobias!" I'd shoved past him into the hallway, storming down the hall with him limping after me, "Stop! I know what you're thinking, but you can't-!"

"I can't?" I repeated, turning to glare at Bryn, making him tense up, a rare look of fear in his eyes, "You don't tell me what I can and can't do, Mr. Keller. This is my city, my people, he is my prisoner, my responsibility, not yours," I paused to let the words sink in before turning and starting back down the hall, "I'm going to look for him."

"Tobias...," Bryn's voice choked as he followed me, "What makes him so different from all the others we've captured, huh? You've never been this obsessed before!"