Work Text:
Out of all the questions swirling in That’s head, he settles for, “How did you find me?”
Unlike all these questions, he has no good explanation for when Sorawit brings up the fact he’s digging up a grave in the middle of the night, and of the bad explanations he has, there’s only a few of them knocking around in his head.
“Dr Bunn helped me hack into your phone, and I’ve been tracking you,” Sorawit cheerfully answers. “That, are you digging up a body for big bro Tan? I won’t tell Dr Bunn, I promise!”
“Yes. I’m doing this for Tan. You should go home, Sorn.”
Sorn frowns. “You sound like that when you can’t think of a good excuse, and then, someone makes a wrong guess that would still make a good excuse, and you try to go with it. Only, you’re really bad about going with it, bro.”
“Name one time that’s happened!”
“Before Dr Bunn and I knew that Tan was Dam, you did it all the time. That time you weren’t eating ice-cream with me and Nam. That time you almost killed your biological father. That time you-”
“My excuses weren’t that bad. Which isn’t the point here. Never mind. Sorn, go home before we get caught. Whether me doing this for Tan is a right or wrong guess, it’s not an excuse that would get us out of trouble if the police happened to show up.”
“No.” Walking over, Sorn pins a badge to his shirt. “But these papers Nam helped me forged saying that we’re supposed to be transporting a potentially biohazardous body for her mentor might.”
“You involved Nam?” Slapping his own forehead at the utter stupidity of that question, he asks, “Is she here?”
“Bro,” Sorawit scolds. “Of course not. You know that she’s shadowing Dr Khunpol on his rounds tomorrow. I made her magnolia tea, bundled her up in bed, and rubbed her forehead until she fell asleep.”
“Did you remember those disturbing fire crinkling sounds?”
Giving him an exasperated look, Sorawit answers, “Of course. She’s wearing those blue-tooth earphones we got her so that the neighbours won’t complain about the volume again.”
“You got those for her and put my name- Wait. Dr Thiwat? But he’s sports medicine.”
Sorn shrugs. “My excuse might not hold up, but at least, it’s plausible enough that the police would have to take time to actually investigate it. Speaking of, we should really get this body and us somewhere else, bro.”
“Yeah, alright.”
…
They get the body to the storage unit he’s renting.
“Untrack my phone now.”
“No.”
“Fine, I’ll get a new one.”
Sorn shrugs. “As long as I have your phone number, I can track you. That’s pretty disturbing that the government can do the same thing without a warrant, isn’t it, bro?”
“Do you not see the irony here? Never mind. What if I did this to you?”
“That, take out your phone, and open the icon that says Locations.”
Knowing he might regret this, he does.
And he’s looking at the locations of Sorawit, Nam, Tan, Dr Bunn, and Inspector M, or at least, the locations of their phones.
“Sorawit-” Eventually, he decides on, “You have me tracking a police officer?”
“Only on his work phone.”
He honestly can’t decide if that’s marginally better or much, much worse.
There are times he’s thought Sorn Sorawit might be the most dangerous person he knows. These thoughts usually don’t last long; Sorn will say or do something kind or stupid or just cute, and he’ll be right back to worrying about how to best protect Sorn.
“You didn’t decide I should be tracking Drs Khunpol and Thiwat, too?”
“Do you think you should, That? I can show you how. I have them on Nam’s phone.”
Inarticulate sounds come out of his mouth until he manages to get out, “Does she know?”
“Well,” rubbing his neck, Sorawit says, “not exactly.”
“You’re a menace,” he sighs.
“I’m not the one digging up dead bodies.”
That’s a fair point, he’ll concede.
Then-
“Hey, wait a minute. I dug up one body.”
“Tonight,” Sorn says. “You’ve been doing this about once a month for several months now, haven’t you, bro?”
Silence is his only defence at this point.
“That,” Sorn quietly says. “I wanted- I thought, if I gave you some time, you’d tell me. But you’re still That.”
“Who else would I be?”
“Most of the time, you’re awesome, bro. But sometimes, you’re still that wannabe tough kid who’d rather die of an infection than let someone help you.”
“Look, Sorn-” He takes a deep breath. “Whatever I’m up to, I’m up to it. You’re still that stupid kid who helped the guy who beat you up. You can’t spend the rest of your life trying to look out for me, alright?”
“Then, who’s going to look out for me and Nam and big brother Tan if I don’t? Dr Bunn, too. If you wanna protect us, you got let us protect you sometimes.”
“Could we talk about this some other time?”
Sorawit shrugs. “If you want. I’m not leaving you alone, though, until I find out why exactly you were stealing a body.”
“For Tan.”
“If I ask him that, especially in front of Dr Bunn, will he-”
“No,” comes out.
The urge to handle things with his fists and feet is there, but-
“Sorn, I need you to trust me, and just leave this alone.”
“I do trust you.” Sorn looks at him with painfully sincere eyes. “But one night, me and Nam were eating together, and then, she was in the hospital after almost dying of a drug overdose, and it turned out men had been doing terrible things to her. I’m tired, bro, of the people I care about suddenly being in danger or hurt or trying to face big things all alone.”
“Sorn-” He doesn’t know how to finish.
“Look, it seems like you aren’t going to stop this anytime soon. If you keep doing it on your own, you’re definitely going to get caught. I mean, in a way, you already have been. So, just let me help you before all of us, me, Nam, your big bro, and Dr Bunn all have to try to deal with the fact you have been.”
He wishes he could be truly angry at being so thoroughly cornered.
Mainly, he’s just wondering if everything is about to end in this storage container.
“I’ll have to show you. You won’t believe me if I just told you. So, it’s better to just show you right away. But I’m warning you, Sorn, this isn’t- this is going to be incredibly hard to see.”
“Show me, That.” Sorn’s soft, encouraging eyes are filled with firm resolve.
Go over to the body, he wonders if Sorn has noticed the body-sized freezer lying down on the floor.
Or the nearby handsaw.
Breaking a finger off the body, he hears Sorn moving behind him.
Turning around, avoiding Sorawit’s eyes, he takes a bite, and his body slumps at a bit at the now-familiar taste of flesh going through him. His headache eases, and the ache in his stomach starts to fade.
“It’s good I found out about this before Nam did.”
He finds his eyes meeting Sorawit’s.
“Bro, did you make sure you won’t get sick from eating this person? Did they have any diseases? How did they die?” The feeling of discomfort clear on his face, Sorn nevertheless studies the body.
Moving in front of it, he sighs, “Really?”
“This has something to do with your biological dad, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah. You really should have let me kill him.”
“You’re stronger,” Sorn notes. “You broke the finger off really easily. Has anything else about you changed?”
“Besides the fact I eat dead bodies?”
He’s pretty sure Sorn does register the sarcasm, but giving a simple nod, Sorawit asks, “Were any of the zombie movies we watched right about anything?”
“We tried watching two zombie movies, and we didn’t finish either of them.”
“Right. I was thinking of that time me and Nam watched zombie movies when her American cousin was sad about us not having Halloween. Bro, we really need to see Dr Bunn to make sure you don’t end up hurting yourself or getting sick. How often have you even been eating? One body every month-”
He thinks he might truly prefer for Sorn to bring up the fact it was him, not Sorn, who was responsible for them not finishing those two movies.
“Let’s just go,” he interrupts.
…
“It’s the middle of the night,” Dr Bunn grumps.
He’s relieved it seems Tan and Dr Bunn were simply sleeping. Every time he has to stop by unexpected, he’s always afraid he’ll be interrupting more.
Ruffling his hair, Tan asks, “What have you done this time?”
Batting the hand away, he considers how-
“Dr Bunn, you need to test a dead body,” Sorn says.
“Does this have something to do with that organ thief ring we dealt with last year,” Dr Bunn asks. “Is Nam-”
“Nam is fine,” he interrupts. “This isn’t about that. Okay, let’s start with: For the last four months, I’ve been digging up dead bodies.”