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The clock ticks, a sharp and steady reminder that time continues to pass. More and more of it while One is left to sit and wait. His stomach churns in what has become an almost too-familiar sensation since the first time Papa sent his goons to take One's soulmate away.
It hasn't happened often, and not once has it taken this long.
The skin of One's palm is rubbed raw where he can't stop scraping his nail across it. He refuses to give Papa the satisfaction of seeing how he's affected his oldest child by doing something so pedestrian as bouncing his leg or pacing a tread into the linoleum. Unfortunately, he cannot contain his nerves entirely. He allows this single compromise, this one sign of how uneasy he is to be separated from his soulmate.
Particularly when he knows it is to punish Steve for One's misbehavior.
Precise steps—one, two, one, two—intermingle with the less sure shuffling of his soulmate's gait precede the harsh jostle of the keys that will undo the door's many locks. The clock continues to tick, grating against One's senses as anticipation of finding out what they have done to Steve builds.
One does not face the door as it swings open. He cannot be sure how he will react if the guards decide to escort Steve all the way inside. It will do neither of them any good if One loses his temper all over again.
There is a muffled, indignant grunt that One would recognize anywhere by now, followed by the unsteady slide of feet that has One digging his nails further into his palms. Anger rises within him at the blatant mishandling of his soulmate—he knows by now what it sounds like for them to push Steve into the room, as though he has ever tried to run from them.
The door shuts with a series of clicks as each lock is once again put to use. They are nearly as redundant to One as the guards' shoving Steve into a room that he has never tried to escape. It is not a door that keeps them here. It is not even the chip Papa slid under the skin of One's neck—a chip that he is slowly but steadily overpowering. It is the threat of what might be done to either in retaliation if they try to leave and fail.
Until there is no longer a threat to Steve's well-being, the locks will hold. In his many years as Papa's first, and most successful weapon, he has learned patience. He can and will bide his time until the perfect moment.
Unfortunately, even he is not capable of keeping control of himself every second of every day. Whatever they have done to punish Steve this time will stand as a harsh reminder to keep his head down while he waits for an opportunity to strike.
Not much longer now.
The guards' steps gradually fade as they leave, confident as ever that they need not watch the door all night. Someday soon, their overconfidence will be rewarded with a taste of One's power. It irks him that he has to let them go now, just as he has done since the first day they brought Steve—confused and terrified and immediately drawn to him—into his life.
One waits a beat, finally turning to face the door when Steve doesn't attempt to diffuse the tension, or simply verbalize his relief at being back, by speaking. The unease that has been plaguing One since Steve was marched out the room threatens to boil over at this change in routine.
Steve always has something to say, no matter what's been done to either of them. Always.
His soulmate's head is tilted down and away, eyes locked on his feet. From this angle, One can see something isn't right—beyond Steve's uncharacteristic desire to look anywhere but at him. The overhead lights flicker with a ferocity that matches One's rage when he bends low enough to get a look at Steve's face.
Steve's head snaps up, eyes wide and afraid and when he tries to speak—likely to calm One down—the words are muffled beyond recognition by the thing on his face, holding his mouth shut.
Shame. That is what dims Steve's eyes after his failed attempt to speak. One has seen what shame looks like on his soulmate's face more than he cares to recall. Only now, rather than Steve filling the silence of their room with chatter until he's pushed past that feeling, he is forced to bear it.
And for the first time, One bears it with him.
"Steve," he says, the low, vulnerable tone of his voice unfamiliar even to himself.
Whatever it is he's hearing spurs Steve into action. With wide strides, he closes the distance between them, coming to a sudden stop mere inches away.
"This is because I wouldn't listen to him. So I don't get to hear you."
Steve's eyes go soft and sad and guilty, as though this is somehow his fault. As though it wasn't One's misbehavior that caused it.
As though he doesn't blame One at all.
Soft skin, warm and familiar, brushes against the side of One's face. Steve holds him there, grounds him with touch in lieu of words he can't speak. The rage boiling his blood calls for One to unleash what power he has that is no longer chained by Papa's chip. The guilt that's turning his stomach tells him to push Steve away, that he doesn't deserve his soulmate's comfort when the muzzle on Steve's face is One's fault.
Instinct, and the uncertainty of his welcome in his soulmate's eyes, has him covering Steve's hand with his own. One pulls him in close. Shoves as much of the rage down as he can manage.
It won't be long before he can make them pay for all that they've done. To One and to his soulmate. Every tick of the clock, every punishment that befalls Steve to bring One to heel, brings him closer to the moment when he will stain the halls of this lab in blood.
But One can be patient. For Steve, he can rein in his anger, stop the lights from flickering and giving himself away too soon.
He leads Steve to their bed and motions for Steve to lie with his head against his chest. Steve is all too eager; One understands. This was the longest either of them have been apart since Papa first ordered Steve brought to him. One holds Steve close, runs gentle fingers through his hair and doing what he can to avoid drawing more attention to the straps around Steve's head. He fills the silence in Steve's stead, promising bloody revenge, and is emboldened by the tight grip Steve holds him in.
All the while, for the first time in his life, One lives with the guilt of being the cause of someone else's misfortune.