“Gabriel! What is taking you so long!?”

              Gabriel swung the bathroom door open with a flourish, shower towel hanging over his shoulder, eyes grinning, fully aware exactly how his intruder would react to his rather shirtless self.

              “Oh my god.” Arius looked like he wanted to double over and puke. “How hard is it to put on a shirt?” He shouldered past Gabriel into the bathroom.

              “But you were so desperate, Ari. I was afraid you would pass out on the other side of the door.” He turned toward Arius. Then, grinning devilishly, he raised both hands and planted them on his six pack, sensually massaging his own abdomen.

              Arius turned the sink faucet on to max as if to drown out Gabriel’s voice. He kept his eyes deliberately away from Gabriel’s display as he began washing his hands. But he must have caught a glimpse of it through the mirror. One wet hand snaked out and grabbed Gabriel’s tee shirt off the counter. He swung around and whipped the fabric violently across Gabriel’s chest. Before the older boy could recover from the stinging blow, Arius shoved him out of the doorway.

              Gabriel caught the door a millisecond before it was slammed in his face. “Arius.” His voice had suddenly lowered in volume, tone sobering like the drop of a stone.

              Arius gave the door another shove, but Gabriel held his inch and a half between the cracked door and it slamming shut.

              “Arius. What happened to your arm?”

              Silence.

              “Arius.”

              “Nothing. I fell.”

              “You fell? On your roller blades?”

              “Yes.”

              “Does Mom know?”

              Silence again.

              “Arius, let me look at it.”

              “You’re a pharmaceuticals student, not a nurse.”

              “Yes, but…”

              “Go away, Gabriel.”

              “No.” Gabriel thrust an arm out in front of him, only realizing the bathroom door was no longer there when he felt his arm flail out into empty air. For a second or two, he felt the sensation of falling. And then, gasping, he was fully awake. The cot he lay on creaked as he sat up, eyes turning immediately to the lit doorway of the shelter restroom. But then his head was whipping around to the other side, attention seized by the sound that had woken him.

              It was a choked cry. For one second, then two, Gabriel blinked at the cot beside his, trying to force his eyes to adjust to the dim light. A figure came into focus, back turned to him. A light-colored tee shirt, dark skin, unfamiliar build—

              I thought Arius was sleeping there, went briefly through Gabriel’s head before reality clicked. Gabriel’s entire body fired with adrenaline. A foreign kind of fear flooded him, one he had never imagined possible. Gabriel leapt out of bed and had two hands on the stranger’s shirt in the time it would have taken him to breathe. He didn’t care that his fingers dug savagely into the stranger’s skin as he tore the man off the cot.

              The stranger made no sound as he hit the ground at Gabriel’s feet. Like a silent predator, he simply got up and scuttled away, hand raised to the crotch of his pants as if he had to zip them up. Arius was already up off the bed, the mark across his face indicating the stranger had been covering his mouth. He stood there steady for a second, then wavered like he was moments from collapsing.

Gabriel grabbed Arius’s wrist, instantly finding it cold and sweaty. He did not say a word as he pulled Arius close to himself and started for the exit. Back out in the room with the tables, Gabriel walked straight to the door.

              “Ay, you can’t leave,” a staff member announced, rising from the chair he had probably been falling asleep in.

              Gabriel tried the door, but found it locked. Arm holding Arius protectively close, he turned toward the employee. “Let us the fuck out.”

              “I can let you out, but you ain’t comin’ back in,” the man responded.

              “Let us the fuck out,” Gabriel repeated, jaw closing on the last word.

              “A’ight, but you ain’t comin’ back in.” The staff member produced a set of keys and walked up to the door. He unlocked it, then held it open for the two.

              The air was heavy outside. Late night traffic ghosted through the streets. An empty intersection cast a red glow across the sidewalk. Even the bar on the corner was closed so late at night.

              Gabriel was not sure if he was looking for a place to stop or only walking off his adrenaline. He kept up his brisk pace, hand tightly grasping Arius’s shoulder, doing his best to keep his mind empty. But then it began to rain, and with the first heavy drops, reality sank in.

              They had nowhere to go. Arius was weak with hunger. They both needed sleep. And Arius—

              Gabriel shoved the rest of the thought aside when he saw a highway bridge up ahead. Quickening his pace as the rainfall began to intensify, he led Arius to it.

              The space under the bridge was empty. They climbed to the plateau at the top of the concrete incline, and Gabriel sat Arius beside a large framework pillar.

              For what felt like fifteen minutes, they sat there in silence. Gabriel’s lips parted, mind searching for how to say it, how to ask. “Arius, he must have thought—”

              “Shut up.”

              A short silence followed.

              Arius quietly rested his chin in his folded arms.

              “You could have fought him off on your own if you weren’t sick,” Gabriel offered softly.

              Arius shook his head but did not reply.

              A car passed on the street below them. Arius leaned into the pillar beside him and shut his eyes. Gabriel drew in a steadying breath and let it out slowly. He had to figure out what they were going to do, where they were going to go. He had to clear his mind, get some rest so he could think straight…

              But in the quiet that followed that thought, Gabriel could not bring himself so much as to close his eyes.