Before I Ran || Perrentes

Chapter 23: Bang! Bang! Bang!

"You're freezing," Mike whispered, rubbing Tony's arms. Tony shivered, despite the warmth of Mike's hands.

"I'm cold," he admitted. "But Rian is marginally warmer. So it counts."

Night had well and truly fallen several hours ago, and now one of the only ways of seeing was by the dim light of the street lamp that slipped in through the broken windows. It bounced off the floor and was reflected in highlights on Mike's face as he leant his head to kiss him softly.

Sitting around them were several cans, the original lids taken off and and sealed instead with a tight wrap of cellophane, which they'd found in the storage room. Inside the cans were equal measures of acidic drain cleaner, which were slowly dissolving the aluminium can lids, bubbling, giving off hydrogen that was getting trapped in the can beneath the cellophane.

They'd started a fire between them - sitting in the centre of their circle was a pile of old papers (also from storage) torn up into little pieces, combined with dry leaves that had blown in through the broken windows and anything flammable they could find. Sitting in its warmth and its gentle glow, Tony had felt a sense of triumph. It wasn't a very big fire - but it was something at least. It was an effort. It was putting up a fight.

"How did you think of it?" Mike asked softly. "This whole plan...it's brilliant. But how did you find the sheer will to persevere?"

Tony sighed and bit his lip, watching the dregs of the dwindling fire struggle for life. "Because I know their next move."

"How do you mean?"

"I wouldn't speak. And my mom worked that out - she can't find a weakness inside me; but she has found one outside of me." He looked up with partly frightened eyes, and was still. "You."

Mike's gaze was sincere as he realised, and he looked away slowly. "Ah."

"The moment she walked in, the gun would be pointing at your head, and don't think she wouldn't shoot. And I'd break. So...I had to find a way out for your sake. It drove me on."

He shivered involuntarily again as a cold night breeze floated into the store, and Mike rubbed his arms again, shuffling a little closer. "We're all so grateful. We have a chance now, thanks to you."

"It might not work," Tony admitted quietly, trying not to wake the others. "Loads of things could go wrong, or..."

"If they do," Mike stopped him, "then at least we tried. At least we didn't go easy. If my dad found out we'd laid down and taken it...he'd have been furious. So it won't be for nothing, no matter what."

Tony smiled softly and turned his lighter over and over in his hand. Once or twice, he flicked it on, watching the gentle yellow flame flicker in the breeze before letting it go out again.

"And if it does work," Tony continued, flicking the lighter on and off. "What then?"

"We carry on as normal."

Tony stopped flicking the lighter and looked up at Mike, who had his arm wrapped around him and whom Tony had been resting against for hours. Neither of them spoke as they stared at each other - the future was too uncertain for them to speculate, so Mike just bent his head down again and kissed him a little slower, a little softer than before.

"Try not to die tomorrow," he mumbled quietly, tilting Tony's chin up with one hand, brushing his jaw with his thumb. Tony grinned.