Colin had not lost his shit... yet.

Well, maybe he had. Maybe he was just trying to assure himself that he was okay, that was wasn't going to freak out over Marcus being around Peter. But that was a fat lie, especially after how shaken he was after that phone call.

He couldn't have been more grateful that he had decided to sit at the 24-hour diner he found, instead of driving all the way to the apartment. Before he got the call from Peter-- or Marcus, if he knew better-- he had been sitting in one of the booths, surrounded with the savory smell of pancakes and hash browns and coffee that brewed too long. He nursed a coke, praying that the bubbles, which burned their way down his throat, after every sip would take his mind off Peter.

It worked-- for a while. But as the night wore on, hour after hour, as the family with those two little boys who had fallen asleep right after they ordered their food left, and as the waitress moved to another booth, head against the window with a daydreamy look on her face, Colin could no longer clutch on the hope that everything was fine.

He should have gone with Peter. If he hadn't been able to convince his partner, he should have at least made it an option to go with, no matter how bad blood ran between him and Marcus Hall. But he couldn't.

When the call had come through, he had been flooded with relief that Peter had contacted him. He knew his person, knew how stubborn he was, knew how he wouldn't call unless he was deep in some sort of fucked up shit.

Then again, everything related to Marcus Hall was fucked up shit.

And it was confirmed when Peter didn't answer him after he spoke, was more deep-seated when the voice that came was with a melting smile that was almost tangible.

But the grip Colin had on himself loosened when the voice implied that Peter wasn't fully-clothed. To top it off, he was drunk and alone with Marcus. He wanted to believe that it was a lie Marcus was using to fuck with his head, but he could only pretend so far. Marcus had Peter's phone and that was all the confirmation he needed.

He paid for his drink, not waiting for his change even after the waitress called after him. He signalled her to keep it and she beamed, smiling widely.

In a couple of minutes he was back in the lot where he had let go of Peter's hand. The same spot. Everything was the same. Everything wasn't.

This time, he could recognize one of the people who lingered in the parking lot, chatting away with occasional outbursts of laughter. Especially the woman who sat on one of the cars and swirled a glass in her hand.

"Elaine," Colin said once he was close enough. He acknowledged the rest of the gathered with a nod and proceeded to his question. "Do you know where Marcus is?"

Obviously, Colin knew he'd be closer to the party. But he couldn't ask about Peter because Elaine would have no idea who he was. At that moment, he was sure she didn't have any idea who she was either. She seemed too light-headed. But there were others there, and he knew they'd be a good alibi. They all seemed equally tipsy and awfully happy around him to point him out as a suspect if something happened.

"He's not inside? Probably getting more food then." She swung her legs back and forth, taking a sip from her glass. "He'll be h-here anytime," Elaine hiccuped.

He hung out with them for a while-- enough time for each of them to register his face even in their pie-eyed state-- before he told them he was going to use the bathroom.

As soon as he got inside, he went to the reception. A chubby lady with flashed him the customer-service-smile, despite her difficulty in making it bright enough and her droopy eyes, a sign she'd rather be asleep than work at the desk.

He smiled back, suave and calm, and told her he was here to see someone. He didn't have a room number, and it was suspicious to look for someone who had told him nothing about where he was staying.

The woman was reluctant to pay him attention after that, but he described Peter and then Marcus and noticed her face clear up in recognition. He couldn't tell if the mention of Marcus Hall's name was what cleared the cloud of sleep that hung over her head, however, she seemed to have recovered from her haze as she went through the computer.

Immediately she gave Colin a room number, he was storming down the hall, eyes glued to the gold-plated labels on the doors. The corners of the smile he had plastered on his face turned down more and more as he passed the doors and neared his target.

B35, B36... B37. This was the room.

The door didn't budge when he twisted the cold, smooth knob. It felt slippery against his palm, as if Marcus had erased all the engraved designs just by touching it, as if he had lost his senses, ability to feel anything but the swirling storm that raged in him.

"Peter!" he yelled. "Peter, can you hear me?" His hands punctuated the sentence by banging on the door, jiggling the knob, hitting with all his strength till his arms hurt.

This went on for a while, long enough for the predictably high-class people in the other rooms to contact hotel management and complain.

He sank to the floor, back pressed against the door to B37. He didn't know why he was this distressed. He had never done something that even came half as close to this, yet, here he was, wishing he could tear out his hair if he had to bang the door one more time. His hands kept running through the strands because he didn't know what to do with them. If he let them down, they'd be hitting the door a second later. Soon, Colin's hands were pressed to his temples in a bid to calm himself.

It didn't work. He was up again, screaming his lungs out for anyone who could hear to hear. The brunet was spent, but the lady at the desk's arrival meant he had reached his limit.

"Sir, you're disturbing our patrons. You'll be escorted out of here if this continues." The service smile was there again, twice as dull, twice as irritated. It made her eyes twitch and the small mole she had on her cheek seem to move.

Colin didn't have the energy to fake a smile for her.

"He's got him in there, can't you see? Can't you see he's locked the fucking door?" Colin's leg sprung forward and kicked the door, hard enough for it to rattle against the doorjamb.

The lady was running out of patience with Colin as her hand moved towards the device in her pocket. Well, he was running out of patience with her too.

With a tight smile that made deep lines appear around her lips, her eyes, her mole, she said, "He's got who in there exactly?"

"That guy you saw Marcus bring in, he's my person."

"Excuse me?" She blinked, animated and non-customer-service.

"My partner, my boyfriend. Dammit, don't you see it? He's in there!" An exasperated hand raked through Colin's hair and his teeth clenched. "He's inside and he's drunk, I don't even know if he's okay."

"Sir, I'm sorry but I can't--"

"Please. Please, I only want to see him and take him back home," he pleaded. Colin's voice went a note softer, aiming for sympathy from the lady in hopes that it would work. "He came to Hall's party and I'm supposed to come get him home by this time, but he wasn't at the venue and I was directed here. Don't you think that's something to be worried about?"

It seemed she thought so. Or maybe she was just curious and needed her boring night to be filled with excitement with the possibility of scandal. Either way, Colin didn't care as long as he got in.

She unlocked the door after retreating to get a keycard. Once done, she lingered in the doorway a little longer, peeking into the room to see whether Colin was just a raving idiot or someone who was just desperately in need for clarification.

The latter was the right option.

Peter was sprawled on the bed, limbs splayed out at jaunty angles. His clothes were strewn in the room in the same fashion, shirt, jeans, shoes... boxers. He was in a bathrobe.

Colin heard the door shut behind him and knew the lady was gone, probably to spill out whatever she wanted to her co-workers.

Now that he was where he needed to be, he could only think of where Marcus was and why Peter was alone. He stormed towards the bathroom, checking every corner and crevice he could to confirm the Marcus really wasn't around, before he settled next to Peter.

"Baby, wake up. I'm here." He touched Peter's cheek, yanked his hand away from the burn that stung it and made him flinch. Colin dared to hold his face in his palms once more, even though it pained him to do that because of how hot Peter felt.

"Hey, wake up. Let's go." His hand moved down to his nose, waiting to confirm whether he was still breathing. He was, a little to rapidly. Colin felt along his bare chest for a heartbeat and was relieved when he heard the thump-thump rhythm. His head pressed against him a little longer. "Please tell me you're alright," he whispered.

His head shot up when the door swung open and the devil's incarnate stepped through it.

"Oh, how nice of you to join us, Mitchell," Marcus remarked, a glass in his hand. "He's already passed out, huh?"

"What did you do?" Colin yelled without hesitation.

"With him... or to him?" Wrong answer.

"Marcus, I swear I'll not hesitate to knock you out if you play with me." He was off the bed now, standing a few feet away from Marcus with an expression which showed that he meant his words.

"Who says I'm playing? I did exactly what I told you. I booked a room and got him a bed."

"Then why is... why's he naked?"

"Beats me." Marcus laughed. "I only took off his shirt, he helpfully took off the rest, I guess."

"You guess?" Colin was dumbfounded. He didn't know what to make of the situation before him. On one hand, Peter was knocked out and sporting only a hotel bathrobe. On the other, Marcus was suggesting that nothing happened between them. For the first time in ages, he was hoping that the blond was right.

"Yeah. We only talked. A very interesting talk actually." A mischievous glint in his eyes. "I don't know if you'd remember these but..."

Colin stopped breathing when Marcus flipped his phone over.

"Where did you get that?"

"Peter sent them to me, duh." He stared down at the photos. Photos which brought back memories from a time where both he and Peter were at a sort of battle with their feelings, photos under the brightness of a spotlight on a Sunday afternoon, when he let himself get carried away because Leo didn't come in on Sundays.

He couldn't remember why he kept those photos after he got the camera. Worse even, he didn't know why he ever thought it was a good idea to send them to Peter back then. He had never gotten a comment on them so he assumed Peter either didn't care for them and deleted the email, or he never saw it.

"These are actually pretty hot. You could make good money off of these, Mitchell. It almost looks like what you two we're doing in them was real. The pleasure on his face is immaculate, almost too hard to be faked," Marcus said, opening the next slide.

Colin asked the only thing he could. "Where are you going with this? Why can't you just leave us alone?"

"Us? Oh that's where you're wrong. I don't want Peter, he's not my type." Marcus smiled, shrugging. "But you though, you're even more of my type than when we were back in Northwood. We were great together, we could be--"

"There was nothing great about us. You hid me, hid everything we were like you were ashamed of the idea of us being together." Colin snarled, "And like an idiot I thought you just didn't like PDA, I thought you didn't like the attention. But you drew that same attention to yourself with all the girls you made out with in the halls."

"It was a cover, Mitchell. You've never heard of two prom kings, have you?" The same excuse he came up with back then. Colin had willed himself to believe that it was the reason he could never touch Marcus in public or walk too close. He willed until it became the truth.

Now, he could see right through the gossamer fabric of lies Marcus had blindfolded him with.

Colin had a lot to say to that, only, he didn't have time to be digging through undisturbed soil when Marcus had just shoveled up a fresh batch with those photos.

"What do you want from me?"

"Same thing we used to have... just until I leave the country again." Marcus looked down at his phone, fingers sliding on the screen. "A week from now."

"I can't, even if I wanted to. And trust me, I don't."

"Okay, a compromise, since I trust you don't want these out. Come here," he beckoned with a finger.

Colin towered over Marcus now, a contrast to when he used to be the short one of the two. With his head bent, he avoided making contact with the hands that reached his shoulders and slid up and down his arms.

"What are you d-doing?" Colin asked as he swallowed. He resisted the urge to fling the  hands off him.

"You're not as skinny as you used to be, Mitchell. I'm just... checking how much muscle you put on."

It went on for a while, and bile rose up Colin's throat anytime his bare skin was rubbed by Marcus. Goosebumps appeared all over when his face was cupped and examined but he stayed still. If this was what he had to do to get him to delete the photos, he would.

Colin's eyes fell shut when two thumbs brought his eyelids down. They remained that way after Marcus let go, and just as he was about to open them again, lips were attached to his.

He tasted whisky and shut his mouth along with his eyes, harder this time, not wanting to witness anything that would bring him more pain. His breathing hitched as arms hooked behind his neck and brought him down, deepening the abomination that had already gone on for too long.

Colin's teeth clenched so hard it hurt, but Marcus didn't seem to care. The blond kept kissing him, running his hands everywhere even though he received absolutely no response.

In his head, Colin could only count as the seconds dragged on, a distraction from whatever was happening to his body which his mind was now unattached to. Peter was the mantra he chanted. Peter Peter Peter. This was all for him. The boy had only come to terms with who he was recently and it was a huge step to Colin-- even if the person he came out to couldn't be any worse.

If Peter knew that Marcus was threatening to leak the lewd photos out to the world, ones which he wasn't even sure Peter knew was taken, it would be the end of everything. He just had to endure and hope it would be over before any more catastrophes.

That was admittedly too good to be true.

His consciousness came right back in a second and he pushed Marcus away, startled by the bang of a door.

This one?

It seemed very likely. The bed was empty. Peter was nowhere in his line of sight. Which meant--

"No no no. Fuck... not now," Colin mumbled as his heart leapt in his chest.

He rushed outside, bumping into Peter who had been leaning close to the doorway, making him fall to reveal his dark eyes which glowed with unshed tears.

"So this was the reason so didn't want to come. Because you knew you'd be all over him, to the extent of kissing him." Peter stood up, tightening the belt of the robe which had loosened with his fall.

"I didn't kiss him, I swear. He made the move and I couldn't resist him because--"

"God, are you hearing yourself right now?" Peter sounded bitter as his eyes flit over Colin. He shifted back when Colin's extended arm reached for him.

"It looks bad but I can swear on my life that I had no choice! I'm had to do it for--"

"Was that the reason you let me top you? Because of some stupid score you had to settle with your ex?" Peter shook his head in disbelief.

"No, that's far from the reason." Colin's head was shaking too quickly, making it hurt as much as the ache in his chest as the world crumbled around him. It was all wrong, every single thing about this night was twisted.

"I let you do it because I wanted you to... I admit the reason was backed up with anger and jealousy and this weird urge to prove something to someone I'm not even sure of." Voice shaking, Colin tried to let out everything he could to make Peter see and understand. "My emotions were all over the place at that time because you were so excited whenever his name was mentioned and that just pissed me off. I wanted to say something but-- but I didn't think things would get this messy."

Again he reached for Peter, wanting to hold him and cleanse himself of Marcus' touch. Again he was rejected with the coldest look.

He knew he was losing Peter fast, he had to let it all out if he wanted to salvage what was left.

"I'm gonna hide it from you anymore. The thing--" Colin let out a breath. He paused as he tried to find the right words to describe the torrent going on inside his head and his heart. "I gave myself to you because I love you, dammit. I'm in love with you, Peter, so much that it's fucking tearing me apart inside. I didn't know how to tell you, and I didn't just want to blurt out the words when I realised it because... you won't appreciate it as much. That's why I figured it would ne better to show you, by submitting myself to you, one thing I've not done for anyone in years. I'm sorry how things turned out, "

Marcus stepped out into the hallway, patting his hair into place, acting as if he wasn't the one who let things plunge this far. "Again with unnecessary feeli-"

"Shut the hell up, Marcus," Colin interrupted, casting him a sideways glance. When he looked forward, he was met with Peter's retreating back. "Peter, where are you---"

He didn't even flinch or stop for a beat as he said, "I'm leaving."

"I... you don't have anything to say?"

This time he stopped, turning just enough to catch Colin's pained expression. "Oh, you mean like the whole monologue you just entertained this audience with?" His eyes roamed the faces that peered at him through small cracks in the doors as he spoke out with spite. One person even had the audacity to stand outside with his arms crossed, judging the scene with a disapproving face. Who could blame him.

"I know it all looks--"

Peter cut him off. With words that had Colin had no idea could stab and prick at him when arranged in this particular sequence.

"You know what? You're right. I really don't appreciate any of this."

Whew, 3404 words... Never written this much since the chapters range from 1800-2100

Thoughts here... I'm a monster, I know ~~>

This was honestly so hard for me to write but it had to happen, y'know? :,)

I'll start doing special mentions in the chapters soon since I realized I've been missing them. Anyways....

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