Trigger Warning: Brief mention of abuse/sexual assault, depression

This time, when they were told to kiss, Remington's new husband wouldn't even touch him. He couldn't decide whether he was grateful or offended by such hostility from someone he had just been forced to marry. 

They had taken him during the early hours of the morning, while most others were at the protests. As he walked obediently towards the blacked-out car, he found himself hating Andy for being gone, for not being there to say goodbye, for leaving without fixing things between them. Their last conversation had been an argument. 

This new husband was rich, but that was a given, and the house had three storeys, not that Remington was allowed to see them. He was taken into a room at the top of the house that he noticed immediately locked only from the outside. The fear was numbed from the previous times and he did as told with a strange amount of ease. 

Without speaking, the husband - his name was either Harold or Harry and Remington couldn't remember which - turned, closed the door, and locked it. Remington stood alone in the room and wondered what it would be this time, whether it would be unlocked only for nightly brute-force sex. He shuddered at the thought. 

The bed was a single rather than a double, and there was no desk and just one small chest of drawers, not that he had anything to put in them. There was a tiny en-suite with a shower that was comically small, and, sitting on the edge of the bed, Remington sighed. He tried to prepare himself, but he didn't know what for. 

What he did know was that he had been in the car for six hours in total and that he and Andy were divorced. Or at least they would be very soon, once Andy had been made to sign the papers. 

He looked at the ring on his finger. It was ugly and too big; he was worried it'd slide off and he'd lose it down the drain. Then he'd be in serious trouble.

They had taken Andy's ring from him. He wanted it back, wanted to have any connection he could to the man. 

The day went by slowly. He didn't see or hear from his new husband at all, didn't get anything to eat, and went to bed hungry and lonely and frightened. He wanted Andy. 

When he woke, there was a bowl of cereal on the chest of drawers, which meant Harold/Harry (Remington decided that thinking of him as simply H would be easier) had come in, seen him sleeping, and done nothing. Still, Remington couldn't decide whether that was a good thing or not.

He ate the cereal and rinsed the bowl and spoon in the bathroom, left it on the dresser, and aimlessly opened all the drawers, finding nothing. He had to put back on the suit from the wedding, and slipping his arms through the black jacket sleeves made him think of Andy and his pretty red suit with the black lace on the lapels. 

His eyes filled so he blinked until they were dry again. 

It was a cold day, and the suit was thin, so he sat in bed and sung to himself. There was nothing else to do. No books to read, and he wouldn't be able to finish the one he had been reading at home with Andy, would never know the ending.

Again, his eyes filled and he blinked. 

He shouldn't have been so rude to Andy. He should have gone with him to protests. Then maybe he'd be at home and not sitting alone in a small room with nothing but himself and a tap that wouldn't stop dripping. The sound was already starting to send him a little insane. 

He listened for any sounds in the house, any sign of H moving about, but heard nothing. H must have gone to work. 

Desperately, he tried to force the door open, then the window, then thought about smashing it and jumping out, only he was three storeys up and if he were to survive the fall, he'd be caught and probably shot.

He sat back on the bed and waited for something to happen, but nothing did. Not for weeks.

He saw nobody and heard little but the hum of cars passing the house and his own repetitive singing. 

He made up songs, forgot them, started again. He wrote lyrics in his mind but had nothing to note them down with, wracked his brain for missing words to songs he'd half-forgotten, paced back and forth until he could sing one from start to finish.

Some time after the one month mark, he started holding his breath until he was about to pass out just so he could feel the relief of being able to breathe again after. 

The loneliness was making him delirious. All his life, he'd been around people. His brothers, their girlfriends, his mother, teachers, strangers he passed in the street, Andy. Now, for the first time, he was completely alone, and he didn't even have a television to occupy himself with, to listen to someone else's voice.

It was just him.