Dust Doesn't Settle [closed]

“If you knew I’d delete it, why bother sending it at all?”Odion asked, trying to justify himself. Not everyone had ESP, nor did they have a giant stick up their ass. Maybe he’d deleted Rhett’s number from his phone, but he couldn’t forget what the exact number actually was. He wasn’t someone who needed a contact list in order to remember people’s numbers by heart. Odion’s head snapped up to take a better look at Rhett. “Bell?” He asked. The closest thing he had come to their old ‘buddy’ was Mia Bell, and there wasn’t a connection, he had checked.

How easy it was to forget those you had once considered family. Odion had missed all the boys he used to deal with once he was sent to Kocher. Funny, how time could alter so many things. He would always be a pickpocket, but he didn’t think his past would come back to haunt him so expertly. Yes he had come here to find Rhett, but that was for something more than friendship. So what now? What did the past want now?

“What?!” Odion half roared, his voice lowering only after considering they were in public. He looked around, that fierce rage he had come to know as a common occurrence taking over. Bell hadn’t spoken to either of them in approximately two years and now he was attending Hammel? Odion’s body couldn’t decide whether it wanted to turn red or blanch, so he stood up finally from his spot on the couch and ebbed very close to Rhett. “How do you know?” He whispered harshly. If he was going to believe anything Rhett said, he needed proof. Maybe something in Bell’s own hand would be proof enough.

Snail mail. Of course, leave it to a pickpocket to make a statement. Odion wasn’t surprised, though he was impressed as his hands folded around the letter to read it, no longer listening to whatever Rhett was saying. It was a good thing Rhett had gotten to this first, as Odion wouldn’t be so courteous as to share it with Rhett as he would with the garbage pail.

Good, Jared still didn’t know why he had been kicked out of the gang what felt like so many years ago. But he was coming here now, and there was no stopping him. The letter didn’t state it, so the question remained: why? It had to be for more than just a reunion and that was for sure. Odion stiffened a little at the p.s. – he could read between the lines and sense the threat posed by their old friend.

Odion folded up the letter and kept it in his hands, giving Rhett a hard look. Things were about to go up in flames as soon as Jared got here. They had both wanted to start over, to find something new here, and apparently it just wasn’t going to happen. What was Odion supposed to tell Lani now? Jared would bring a whole different side to the story, one Odion was working very hard on to destroy.

Odi glanced at the letter again. “There was a return address correct? I’ll send him a passport, that should make coming here a little easier.” Right, as if he really wanted Jared here, but he was going to get here one way or another, and Odion might as well get on his good side now. Jared always seemed more fond of him than Rhett anyways.

Handing the letter back finally, Odi’s fingers brushed against Rhett and he knew from then on, that getting Rhett out of his life was surely impossible. “What do you think Bell’s going to ask for now?”

“He says he’s having some trouble getting out, I’ll get him one anyways,” Odion said. If Rhett was stupid enough to believe that Odion couldn’t find a picture of Bell that would work, then it just proved how little Rhett knew about him. Apparently he hadn’t heard of rush mail either. Snail mail might be outdated, but it wasn’t ineffective.

Odion wondered if Rhett was trying to prove how alike he and Rhett were. “We were merely friends because it was convenient,” he said stiffly. And if Rhett’s memory failed him, Odion would only be too happy to supply the one where he left Europe to find Rhett, and at the time it was more important.

That’s what this was about? Compensation? “If we wanted all of us back together he would’ve come sooner,” Odion explained, getting into the psyche of Jared’s reasoning. “He needs something from us,” he carried on, ignoring the stupid bet Bell had made – some things never changed.

Nice, sure, Odion would let Rhett believe that if it made things easier to digest. As per usual, Rhett viewed what Odi did as useless and he ginger tried not to feel belittle by it. You’d think by now he wouldn’t give a damn, but he obviously did, or he would’ve walked away by now.

The passport itself would be completely legitimate, and a means of getting Jared into the country and earning his trust once more. Odion was wary of the other boy’s intentions, but he wasn’t so stupid as to think that there was anything he could do to stop Jared from coming at all. Rhett has ESP, but Odion had time travelling, why did Rhett doubt him so much?

Odion allowed a smile to pass his lips, before sighing. Didn’t Rhett know that Odion found everyone suspicious? “Life is about to be hell,” he stated as though Rhett didn’t already know, and as if it hadn’t already been. But there was no other reason to stick around, and quite honestly, they would both know once Bell arrived, he wasn’t exactly quiet.

“Anything else I should know?” He asked, making peace with the fact that he would be seeing more of Rhett.

It wasn’t that Odion didn’t like Jared, he did. He just, brought a different Odion than the one people had learned to love here at Hammel. Lani thought Odion couldn’t have any fun – Jared would probably love to prove that wrong. That was what Odion was afraid of, he was going to have to disprove one or the other, he couldn’t be shy and quiet and also loud and obnoxious (although in his defense it was mostly the alcohol when the latter happened). Odion wanted to face his demons on his own time, and now he was being rushed. Maybe there was a way to leave Hammel before this happened, just start all over once again. But he couldn’t, he had someone he cared about here.

Odion cringed at the obvious. The only one who knew some of the details of that was Lani, and that was hard enough. To have to tell Bell? God, that was going to be fucking terrible. Odion scoffed – Rhett wouldn’t know honesty if it fell on top of him. What killed Odion the most was that Rhett was trying so hard now, when he hadn’t when they were together. Odion hadn’t been worth that kind of honesty.

But god forbid Bell find out from someone else other than them, even though they were just as capable of lying. “What do you think?” Odion asked, mentally kicking himself. Rhett didn’t give him courage, he just made the ginger doubt and second guess himself in the worst way. It was like that backbone he had been building fizzled into nothing when Rhett was around.