The girls rolled their eyes when he came in through the front door, but none of them cared to confront him this time. Vedrun ignored them with the same level of contempt. He passed Ruben with mutual indifference. The man didn’t bother him, casting only a brief glance. Though unattended he knew the way well enough. He didn’t stomp down the hall so much as march it, already extending a hand for the door.

He set his back straight and frowned. The office wasn’t any neater since he’d last seen it. The desk in particular looked even worse, so piled high with papers, forms, and memos that Boe was almost obscured behind them. The man didn’t help make himself conspicuous, being slumped back in his chair. Boe had cleared a small place on the desk for his glass and bottle. He didn’t notice Vedrun’s entrance until the boy shut the door loudly.

Boe didn’t act surprised to see him but asked, “What are you doing here?” Vedrun entered the room fully and scrutinized him. Boe looked rumpled and rough, but he didn’t look drunk. The bottle was still over half full. Vedrun put a hand on his hip, fixing his stance.

“Couldn’t wait for me to make you a drink?” he asked dryly. It didn’t serve to amuse the man. Boe considered the glass on the desk before looking back at him.

“I didn’t expect to see you back so soon.”

Vedrun snorted. “There’s not many other places I can go.”

Boe nodded. He rested his head in one hand and furrowed his brow a moment, driving some thought out of his mind. “What is it you’re here for?”

“They won’t take me back,” Vedrun said. Boe squinted and shook his head.

“Who?”

“The Hotel,” Vedrun said firmly. He relaxed his hand that had started to curl. Boe didn’t look like he was comprehending. “I tried to go back, but they won’t take me. They said I’m not employed anymore. You bought my contract.”

“You went to the Hotel?” Boe asked.

He started to grit his teeth and nodded. He tried to hold Boe’s eyes but the man had started poking at some of his papers. “They would take me back if you were willing to negotiate the contract. They might give you close to what you paid.”

“Why would you want to go back there,” Boe wondered. He pulled a paper out from a pile and made a show of looking at it. Vedrun was getting a little pink in his coat.

“If you talk to them now, they might take me right away. If you wait too long, they can’t negotiate.”

“No.”

Vedrun stared. Boe finished playing with the paper, tucked it back into the stack, and eventually looked at him.

His body went rigid, almost to the point where he couldn’t speak. Vedrun worked his jaw and asked, “Why?”

“You’re under my employment,” Boe said. “You’re staying here.”

His hands curled. “You don’t have any use for me. Why wouldn’t you let me go now?”

Boe picked up his glass. “That’s the deal.”

“What’s the point?” Vedrun exclaimed. “My part’s done, isn’t it? You don’t need me! You can walk up to the host anytime you want!”

“Been there,” Boe said. He drank. “Done that.”

He capped his ire and it made his eyes burn. Vedrun didn’t need long to think. “So you’re done now,” he said, “is that it?”

“You could put it that way, sure,” Boe said.

They continued to look at each other until Vedrun jerked away. He shucked his coat off roughly. “I don’t believe this.”

“You’re in the front tonight. Go get changed.”

“No,” Vedrun snapped. He threw his coat to the floor and nearly stormed out of the room but doubled back, looking at him crossly. “What’s the point, Boe? If you’ve already gone, what’s the point?”

“The point of doing the job that I hired you to do?”

“Why did you do all this? You chose me,” he stressed, “you kept visiting me, you gave me things. What was the point in trying to win me over?”

Boe grinned and leaned back. He looked away and sighed, smiling wider, serving to deepen Vedrun’s scowl. “Is it really that bad what happened for you? You act like I tricked you into something.”

“You did trick me,” Vedrun said. “You played with me, played games with me. Did it entertain you to make me serve you every week? Was I just there to pass the time?”

“Isn’t that what your job is about?”

“Why did you choose me?” Vedrun fumed.

He looked interested. “Does there need to be a reason it was you?”

“There had to be one,” Vedrun said.

“You believe everything happens for a reason, don’t you?” Boe asked. Vedrun maintained his dour face. “What would you do if I told you it was chance? I picked you at random. I could have chosen anyone. I could have switched clients anytime, and it wouldn’t have made any difference to me.”

“But you didn’t,” Vedrun said. Boe shrugged. The boy made a noise. He started for his coat, leaning over to get it. Boe watched him snatch it up off the floor and shifted in his seat.

“It was mostly random,” Boe said. Vedrun glanced at him without comment. “I asked what I had to choose from, of course. You weren’t exactly recommended.”

Vedrun had started to pull his coat back on one arm and slowed. “Why shouldn’t I be?”

“You should know better than anyone,” Boe said. “Performance wasn’t consistently up to par, fewer people were asking for you again. And there’s your attitude.”

“Uh huh,” Vedrun grunted. Boe quirked a grin.

“I could have chosen anyone, and I did. I picked you. I figured you would be like anyone else would have been. Then you copped that attitude at the end of our first meeting.”

He slid the coat off and held it loosely, arms crossed. He didn’t bristle at Boe’s smiling eyes.

“You know,” Boe said, “it kind of reminds me of him, how he was. He was never as rude as you were, but the spirit’s still there.”

“What are you talking about?” Vedrun asked. Boe arched an eyebrow at him.

“You didn’t have to say anything for me to know you wanted to get out of there. Your impatience, how you reacted to my offer... your behavior spoke plenty. So, I really don’t understand why you would want to go back now, when you’re finally out.”

He looked openly at Vedrun from behind his desk. Vedrun showed only deadpan. After a moment Boe stood up from his seat. He brushed absentmindedly at the deep wrinkles in his clothes and wandered around to one of the bookshelves.

“Really, I’d say it was a great coincidence. Although, it didn’t work the way I had hoped. At least one of us got something out of it.”

“I never wanted any of this,” Vedrun said. He shifted his weight curtly. “You didn’t do anything for me.” Boe eyed him critically.

“Don’t act like I’m the only one who cares about himself. You were going to use that man to get out of the Hotel anyway, weren’t you?”

He gawked, and the slack corners of his mouth drew up involuntarily. Vedrun sniffed and seemed to get caught on a noise in his throat. He stepped back and turned, putting his back partially to Boe.

“What- what are you saying, is ridiculous. I didn’t-...” He failed to stifle a noise that broke into uneven laughter. “My god, Boe, how could you say something like that.”

“It’s true, isn’t it?”

“No- no, Boe, that isn’t true.” When he turned back around he rubbed at one of his eyes. He couldn’t seem to get control of the tickle in his throat that made him giggle. “Maybe I wanted- maybe it’s true, I wanted to leave, but not like that. Maybe I wanted to leave with him,” he said, all teeth showing. “I wanted to be with him, Boe. I loved him, do you understand that?”

“You don’t love him anymore?” Boe asked. Vedrun’s teeth clenched together in an awful leer.

“You don’t think I did in the first place, do you?”

“Well,” Boe said, “I don’t know how you’d learn to love in a place like that to begin with. Maybe you were just infatuated with the idea that he could get you out of there.”

“How do you know he even said he could?”

“It’s just a guess, but you’ve pretty much confirmed it for me.”

Vedrun shook his head. He didn’t try to put his coat on, instead stuffing it into a messy bundle. Boe came towards him slowly, still good humored.

“Let’s say, hypothetically, you did really love him.” Vedrun tried to clear his throat and kept his face turned away from Boe. Boe didn’t demand eye contact. “The only reason you wanted to get out was to be with him. Well... if that was the case, it makes sense that you’d want to go back to the Hotel now. There’s no other reason for you to be here.”

The boy swallowed and breathed evenly to calm the remaining flirtation of laughter. Even once composed he preferred to look at something neutral like the desk.

“All right,” Boe said, “if you really want to go back, I might be able to speak to them about you. The thing is...” He was right next to Vedrun, looking down at him, but refrained from touching him. “You don’t really want to go back there, do you?”

His close proximity made Vedrun tense on principle. He could see a storm brewing in his face, a dark, growling concentration in his brow and jaw before it had to break. Vedrun let out a low sigh under his breath, just enough pressure released to make a decision.

“Of course I don’t,” Vedrun said.

“Why don’t you sit down?” Boe suggested. Vedrun stood still a few more seconds, waiting for a direct command. When none was issued he walked around the desk and sat in Boe’s chair. His coat stayed piled in his lap. Boe sauntered to the door and leaned his back against it. He let Vedrun get settled in.

They allowed a quiet moment to transpire. Vedrun looked at the heaps of papers without disturbing them. He couldn’t decipher the messages taped along the edge of the desk, written in an unfamiliar shorthand. The seat was comfortable with a high back. Vedrun picked up Boe’s glass and inspected it with a sniff. He put it down and pushed it as far away as he could on the crowded surface.

“You know,” Boe confided in him, “I was completely rejected.”

Vedrun looked at him and chuffed. “How does that feel?” he asked. Boe thought about it.

“Kind of unsatisfying,” he said. His head lilted. “How about you?”

“I don’t want to do this,” Vedrun said.

“What do you want to do?” Boe asked.

The boy looked over all the paperwork again. There didn’t seem to be any underlying order in it. Nothing had been organized in quite a while. Vedrun straightened up in the chair. The sudden stillness put anticipation in the air between them. Quietly Vedrun got to his feet. His coat fell off his lap without notice. He leaned over, reaching out his hands.

The stacks of papers shifted with a smooth sound, then started to lean one way or another. Boe didn’t try to intervene as the piles of work spilled off the desk with a hard push from Vedrun. The boy shoved everything away, growing harsher each time. The small desktop lamp hit the floor with a tinkle; the bulb had cracked. When the phone was thrust off the edge it came off the hook and the tone became audible.

He knocked over the glass and bottle and the alcohol came out in a gush, quick to consume every nearby parchment and grow across the increasingly empty desktop. The glass rolled off the desk and landed unharmed amid a nest of spilled reports. Vedrun swiped at stray sheets, whipping them in the air to get them off. When it was finally done he rubbed his hands dry on his pants; he’d gotten some of the drink on himself.

The boy took a breath, checking his work, and was finished. He looked at Boe then. Boe crooked his neck at the mess and rolled his shoulders.

“I feel kind of like that, too,” Boe said. Their eyes met without friction. “What now?”

“You could fire me,” Vedrun said. Boe chuckled.

“Then who would clean this up?”

Vedrun sighed. “Is that really all I’m good for to you?”

“Well,” Boe said, “what else am I supposed to do with you?”

It made Vedrun noise something between humor and frustration. He glanced away from Boe to an unknown view. Boe watched him for a time before going to his coat tree and taking down his jacket. The movement brought Vedrun’s attention back to him.

“Do you want to leave?” Boe asked. Vedrun had a long look for him, betraying nothing.

“Leave where?”

“I don’t know,” Boe said. He inspected a thread in his jacket and tweezed at it before leaving it alone and slinging the whole thing over his shoulder. “I thought I might go for a walk. Maybe take in a museum.” There was an expectant pause. “Is there anywhere you want to go?” he asked.

His hand had found the desktop and curled loosely around its edge. Vedrun squinted at him, then gradually relaxed. He crouched down and found his coat. Boe almost didn’t hear him muttering, “Better than staying here.”

The boy pulled on his coat and got it straightened out. Boe in the meantime had knelt down himself, and Vedrun approached him. Boe looked up at him with his mouth stretched in a line. He held something up for him to take.

“Drop this?” Boe asked. Vedrun looked at it but didn’t take it. Boe twiddled it between his fingers, making it rattle. “You’ve been holding onto it.”

Vedrun conceded a nod and stamped his feet a little. “It was a gift,” he said gruffly. Boe got back to his feet and held it out a little longer. Before he dropped his arm Vedrun grabbed it from him and stuffed it back in his pocket. Boe grinned but said nothing else of it.

He opened the door for Vedrun. “I don’t know if I can handle all this as gracefully as you have,” he said.

“Yeah,” Vedrun said. He pushed past Boe although the man gave him enough room to exit into the hall. “You’ll get over it.” He didn’t need to check over his shoulder. Boe was following close behind.

-

A/N: An epilogue may or may not be added in the future, otherwise, thank you for reading.