The SoulWatch: AfterMAGA (BL)

David was sorting the donation box like he did every Monday morning—muscle memory moving his hands through the usual junk: stale kibble, expired flea meds, a cracked food bowl—while his mind drifted to the homework he hadn't finished over the weekend.

At sixteen, these Monday routines were the only thing that still felt solid. The shelter had become his second home.

Three years in Stricton. More than three years since Mom died. Three years since a boy with golden hair had changed everything with a single touch at City Hall.

And three months since that same boy had disappeared from his life without an explanation.

The metallic scent hit him first. Sharp. Wrong.

His fingers froze on something slick wedged between moth-eaten towels. He pulled it out slowly—a Polaroid photo, face-down, the back corner stained with something dark that made his stomach clench.

Blood. Dried, but recent enough to still smell like copper pennies.

David's hands trembled as he turned the photo over.

Johnny.

Three months of silence, three months of absence and ache—shattered by a single image.

The world turned over. David's knees went soft, and he had to grab the edge of the donation bin to keep from dropping.

Three months of nothing—no texts, no calls, no accidental glimpses across the Academy hallway—and now this. Johnny's face staring up at him from a blood-stained photograph.

The way Johnny's breath had hitched against his neck in the supply closet.

The comforting weight of Johnny's baseball jacket across David's shoulders on cold nights.

His body remembered before his mind could catch up. The ghost of Johnny's thumb brushing across his knuckles during their last stolen moment, before whispering "I can't do this anymore" before walking away.

David's fingers shook as they hovered over the photo. Without thinking, he traced the curve of Johnny's jaw in the image—the same path his lips had followed that last night at the baseball field, tasting salt and promises neither of them could keep.

Johnny stood at the center of a group of teenagers, all in matching white Giant Faith Church shirts. Some kind of youth event—banners in the background, those too-bright, over-rehearsed smiles that church photographers demanded.

But this wasn't a celebration.

He flipped the Polaroid over. Four words in careful blue pen: Look at their eyes.

David's breath caught as he studied the faces. Half the kids in the photo had dead eyes. Glassy. Empty. Like someone had reached inside and flipped off a switch. The boy next to Johnny gripped the back of a chair, swaying even in a frozen frame. A girl in the front row smiled with her mouth while her eyes screamed.

But Johnny... Johnny looked wrong. Still beautiful—God, still so beautiful it made David's chest ache—but his eyes had that careful blankness David recognized. The same look he'd worn that last week before disappearing. Like he was already half-gone, practicing being someone else.

And at his wrist, barely visible in the photo's corner—the telltale black band of a FaithWatch, its tiny light captured mid-pulse. Green. Approved. Nothing to see here, the algorithm insisted, even as Johnny's eyes said otherwise.

David stared for another long moment—then, with shaking hands.

David's phone was in his hand before he realized he'd pulled it out. Johnny's contact still sat at the top of his recent calls—three months of unanswered attempts, each one a small death. His thumb hovered over the name.

Just one text. Just to know you're okay. Just to hear your voice call me "David" again in that way that made it sound like a prayer.

The message cursor blinked. David typed: I miss —deleted it. Typed: Are you —deleted. Typed: Please —

His throat burned. He locked the phone and shoved it back in his pocket, hand brushing against the prayer bead there. The smooth wood was warm from his body heat, familiar as breathing.

Johnny had held this same bead once, rolling it between his fingers during a quiet moment at the shelter, whispering "How do you believe in something you can't see?"

"You feel it," David had answered. "Even when it hurts."

Just like now. Just like Johnny's absence—invisible but everywhere, in the empty space beside him where Johnny used to lean, in the phantom pressure of fingers intertwined, in the specific silence where laughter used to live.

David tucked the photo gently into his back pocket, like it might crack if he moved too fast. The blood on the corner had already stained his fingers. He didn't wipe it off.

Then the shelter door chimed.

Panic surged. He shoved the bloodstained towels back into the donation box, heart still hammering with the aftershock of seeing Johnny's face, feeling too much, remembering everything his body refused to forget.

"Earth to David," Abby's voice cut in, sharp with concern. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

David straightened, forcing his breath even. "Just sorting donations."

She narrowed her eyes. "Since when do donations make you look like you're about to throw up?"

"I'm fine."

The lie burned like copper. Like blood. Like the memory of Johnny's goodbye, desperate and final and tasting like the end of the world.

"David—" He backed into the supply shelf, knocking over half a dozen flea shampoo bottles in a clattering mess.

As he knelt to collect them, his hands shook like he was the one who'd been torn open. "Okay, now I know something's wrong," Abby said, crouching beside him. "You're never this jumpy."

Before he could respond, Shiloh's bark echoed through the kennels—low, tense, the sound she reserved for threats. They both froze. Someone was here.

A "Hang in There!" kitten poster fluttered as Jesse Sheffield, David's father, shouldered through the door, banker's box sagging in his arms. David's stomach dropped. That particular box only came out for bad news.

"My office," Jesse said quietly. "Now."

The small room smelled like antiseptic and defeat. David closed the door, already knowing this conversation would hurt.

"How bad?" David asked.

"City council voted last night." Jesse set the box down like it might explode. "Budget cuts. Another thirty percent."

His father's hands trembled as he removed his glasses. "Six weeks left. Maybe eight if donations pick up."

Jesse didn't continue right away. His gaze dropped to the floor.

"We start making lists. The older ones first. The ones who've been here longest. The ones no one asks about."

David's mind flew to Shiloh—three months waiting, growing quieter, more suspicious with each passing day.

"You mean we..."

"Don't." Jesse's voice cracked. "Please don't say it."

David's jaw tightened. "How many?"

"Twenty. Maybe thirty to start." Jesse rubbed his temples. "Unless..."

The pause stretched, loaded with implication.

"Unless what?"

"The Ashfords have influence. With the licensing board. With city council." Jesse finally looked up. "Johnny could—"

"No." The word ripped out before David could stop it. His whole body recoiled at the suggestion, muscle memory of Johnny's last touch still burning under his skin.

Three months wasn't enough to forget the way Johnny's fingers had trembled against his cheek, whispering "I'm sorry" before walking away forever.

He clutched the prayer bead in his pocket.

"David—"

"I said no." The words came out like shattered glass. The bloody photo in his pocket seemed to burn through the fabric.

"We'll find another way."

"There is no other way." Jesse's voice hardened. "FaithCoin processing fees almost doubled overnight. Private donations are down. Everyone's scared to be associated with us."

"So you want me to go begging to him? After everything?"

"I want you to save this place." Jesse leaned forward. "Twenty dogs, David. Twenty lives. Is your pride worth that?"

David thought of the Polaroid—Johnny surrounded by glassy-eyed kids. Johnny at the center of whatever was happening to Stricton's youth. Johnny who hadn't looked at him in three months.

"It's not about pride."

"Then what's it about?" Jesse's desperation bled through. "It's been three months, Jisoo-ya. Whatever happened between you boys—"

"Nothing happened." The lie came automatically.

But his father using his Korean name—soft, knowing, the way Mom used to when she saw through his pretenses—made David's throat close.

Jesse only called him Jisoo-ya when he was trying to reach past the walls David built.

"Nothing doesn't require this much avoidance."

His father's knowing look cut deep.

"Nothing doesn't make you check your phone fifty times a day. Nothing doesn't make you sleep in that old baseball jersey he left here."

David flinched. He thought he'd hidden that better.

David stared at the framed certificates on the wall—the years of service, about to be strangled by digital currency and city politics. His father had built something good here. Something that mattered.

"Even if I asked," David said quietly, "Johnny's different now. He's not..."

He couldn't finish. The words stuck like glass in his throat. Not the boy who used to help with the night feedings, whispering made-up stories to scared puppies.

Not the boy whose breath had pressed against his neck in the supply closet.

David's hand unconsciously moved to his neck, to the spot where Johnny's mouth had left invisible marks that still burned in quiet moments.

"I know something happened to change him," Jesse said gently. "But maybe there's still enough of the old Johnny left. Maybe seeing you would—"

"Dad, please." David's voice broke. "I can't."

Jesse nodded slowly, accepting what David couldn't say. "Okay. We'll find another way." He gestured to the banker's box. "Help me go through these forms. Maybe there's a loophole, a grant we missed..."

But they both knew there wasn't. They were just buying time before the inevitable.

As David reached for the papers, his fingers brushed the photo in his pocket. The blood on the corner had soaked through, leaving a rust-colored stain on his fingertips.

Twenty dogs versus whatever was happening at that church. His father's life work versus his broken heart.

There were no good choices left.

Only the weight of knowing that in six weeks, they'd start making lists. And every name on those lists would be his fault.

Just like losing Johnny had been his fault.

For wanting too much. For not hiding it better.

For being the kind of boy whose love made other boys run.

David tried to lose himself in the shelter routines, but the bloody photo weighed heavy in his pocket. He knelt beside Shiloh's kennel, letting her warm presence ground him.

The German Shepherd mix pressed against the fence, amber eyes knowing.

"Three months you've been here," he murmured, scratching behind her ears. "Same as Johnny's been gone. At least you have an excuse for being abandoned."

His voice caught on the word.

Abandoned.

Like Johnny had just left him on the side of the road with a note pinned to his collar: "Can't keep him anymore."

The front door chimed.

David looked up, expecting a volunteer—and froze.

Micah Rodriguez stood in the doorway, and David's body betrayed him instantly.

His pulse jumped, skin prickling with unwanted awareness. Designer jeans that cost more than the shelter's monthly food budget.

That yellow racing jacket that should have looked ridiculous but somehow made Micah glow like a warning sign David couldn't stop staring at.

Even holding a delivery bag, he managed to look unfairly good—dark hair artfully messy like he'd just rolled out of someone's bed, that particular swagger that made David hate how his body noticed.

Noticed the way Micah's shoulders moved. Noticed how his lips curved. Noticed everything David had no business noticing when his heart belonged to a ghost.

"Special delivery," Micah announced, lips curving into that infuriating smirk. "Your sad little lunch has arrived."

Shiloh growled low in her throat, the sound reverberating softly against the metal bars of her kennel.

"Easy, girl," David murmured, staying kneeling beside her. Shiloh didn't back away. She stood, tail rigid, pressing her nose to the grate. Then—sniffing—she let out a quieter sound. A chuff, almost curious.

Micah cocked his head. "She always this into strangers?"

"No," David said tightly. "She has taste."

But Shiloh didn't retreat. She lowered her head slightly, watching Micah with something between suspicion and reluctant interest.

Just like David.

David stood, brushing off his knees. "I didn't order anything."

"I know." Micah sauntered closer, bringing a wave of expensive cologne that cut through the shelter's familiar smells. "Saw your name on the app, figured I'd do you a favor. Consider it charity for the charity worker."

David's jaw tightened. "How much?"

"Twenty-five bucks." Micah's eyes gleamed with amusement. "Plus delivery fee. Plus my time."

Before David could protest, Micah grabbed his phone and tapped in the charge himself.

The casual invasion of space, the way Micah's fingers moved across his screen—it sent an unwanted jolt through David's system.

Micah was too close.

Close enough that David could see the faint stubble along his jaw, could smell something underneath the expensive cologne—something warm and male and dangerously real.

David's breath caught.

His body leaned in for half a second before his brain screamed at him to step back.

"You literally walked three doors down," David muttered, voice rougher than intended.

"Premium service, Sheffield. I'm faster than any app." Micah set the bag on the counter and leaned into it, muscles flexing just enough to be noticed.

The jacket pulled tight across his chest, and David's eyes followed the movement before he could stop himself.

"You planning to eat that with those hands?"

"Just saying." Micah's nose wrinkled delicately. "I know what kind of stuff you clean up back here. Some of us actually like our food without... extra seasoning."

David clenched his fists. The casual disgust stung—but worse was how Micah managed to look that good even while insulting him.

The soft curl of his mouth, the faint line of a scar over one brow, the way the jacket clung across his chest.

David couldn't decide if Micah looked more like an angel... or a demon.

"Oh my God, are you serious right now?" Abby's voice cut through the tension like a blade. She emerged from the med room, latex gloves still on, looking ready to perform surgery on Micah's ego.

"Did you really just come here to insult how we work?"

Micah's smirk widened. "Abby Chen. Always a pleasure. How's your brother? Still pretending he's cool?"

"How's your face? Still punchable?" Abby stripped off her gloves with unnecessary force. "David doesn't need whatever poison you're selling."

"I'm not selling anything." Micah's eyes never left David. "Just making conversation. Speaking of which—" His voice dropped to something more serious. "Johnny's sorry he missed your calls. Church thing on Friday—figured you wouldn't be into it."

David's fingers stilled on the sandwich wrapper.

"He said that?"

The casual way Micah spoke about Johnny—like they'd been having private conversations, like Micah had become the person Johnny confided in now—sent a spike of jealousy through David's chest.

Three months ago, Johnny would have told him directly.

Three months ago, Johnny wouldn't have needed a messenger.

"Yeah."

Micah's eyes tracked David's reaction with predatory interest.

"We've been hanging out more. School stuff. Church stuff."

A pause, calculated. "Late night stuff."

David's jaw clenched.

He could picture it too easily—Micah sliding into the space David used to occupy.

Micah in the passenger seat of Johnny's car.

Micah getting the texts David used to get at 2 AM when Johnny couldn't sleep.

"Oh, and his party this weekend?" Micah watched every micro-expression on David's face.

"Everyone's invited. Even Noel."

The name hit like ice water. David's mind raced—Noel, who'd missed choir practice twice this week. Noel, the choir's only countertenor, whose voice could make angels weep but who'd been growing quieter, more careful with each passing Sunday service.

Abby stepped forward, protective instincts flaring. "Let me guess. You came here to rub it in David's face that he wasn't invited. How original."

"He couldn't be invited," Micah said, tapping his wrist where the black band pulsed green. "No watch, no entry. That's the new rule. They scan at the door now."

"Actually," Micah said, his gaze hardening, "some people can't afford not to show up. They make lists at these things."

Something in Micah's tone made David look closer. The usual cockiness was strained, forced. Like he was performing confidence instead of feeling it.

"What kind of lists?" David asked quietly.

Micah's hand unconsciously rubbed his wrist—the movement so quick David almost missed it. "The kind that matter. The kind that determine who stays and who... relocates."

"When's the last time you saw Tyler?" Micah asked suddenly. "Or Marcus Williams?"

The abrupt shift made David's pulse spike. Those names—kids who'd supposedly moved, kids who were different, kids who were like—

"They relocated," David said carefully.

"Sure they did." Micah pushed off the counter, and David caught something else in his scent—fear-sweat, barely masked by cologne.

"Funny how Johnny's parties always happen right before people... relocate. Hope Noel's ready for his close-up."

"Stop talking in riddles," Abby snapped. "If you know something—"

"What are you really doing here?" David stepped closer without thinking, close enough to see the faint scar above Micah's eyebrow, to notice how his breathing had quickened.

Close enough to be stupid.

Close enough that Micah's exhale ghosted across his cheek.

Close enough to see his pupils dilate, to watch his throat work as he swallowed.

The air between them crackled with something electric and unwanted—not the pure ache he felt for Johnny, but something hotter, angrier, more immediate.

For a moment, Micah's mask slipped completely.

He looked young, scared, almost vulnerable.

His lips parted like he might say something real.

David found himself staring at that mouth, hating himself for it, hating how his body responded to Micah's proximity while his heart screamed Johnny's name.

Then it was back—that infuriating smirk, that casual cruelty.

But now David could see through it, could see how Micah's pulse hammered in his throat, how his hands trembled before he shoved them in his pockets.

"Someone should have warned them," Micah said quietly. "Tyler. Marcus. Kai." He moved toward the door. "Someone should have told them to run."

Abby moved to block his path. "You don't get to come in here, terrorize David with half-truths, and just leave—"

"Watch me." But Micah's bravado cracked slightly. He glanced back at David. "I'm a coward who wants to survive. So I'll show up to Johnny's party with a smile, and you'll..."

His eyes lingered.

"You'll probably do something stupidly heroic."

For a second, Micah's eyes had looked like Johnny's used to. Wide. Hurting. Like he knew something terrible and wanted someone else to carry it too.

He slipped past Abby and out the door, leaving them in stunned silence.

"What the fuck was that?" Abby breathed.

David pulled out the bloody Polaroid, then looked at the door where Micah had vanished. Someone had warned him. Someone who knew the shelter, knew his routine, knew he'd find it first thing Monday morning.

Someone who'd just charged twenty-five dollars to deliver a sandwich worth eight.

"David?" Abby touched his arm.

"What aren't you telling me?"

He showed her the photo.

As she studied it, David stared at the door where Micah had disappeared, certainty crystallizing in his chest.

However much he hated it—however much Micah's presence made him feel things he didn't want to examine—they were connected now.

By secrets.

By fear.

By whatever was happening to the kids of Stricton. And maybe, David thought with a twist of something he refused to name, by the weight of mutual recognition between two boys pretending they didn't see each other clearly.

By the way Micah's eyes had lingered on his mouth.

By the way David's skin still burned where Micah's breath had touched it.

It felt like betrayal—to want anything from anyone who wasn't Johnny.

But his body didn't care about loyalty.

It just knew that Micah Rodriguez looked at him like he was worth saving, and David was weak enough to want to be saved.

Even if it was by the wrong boy.

The shelter felt too quiet as the sun dropped behind the rooftops. David moved through evening rounds on autopilot—water bowls, medications, the familiar rhythm that usually calmed him.

Tonight the routine felt hollow.

Every corner held a ghost—Johnny helping with evening meds, Johnny singing off-key to nervous dogs, Johnny's shoulder pressed against his as they cleaned kennels.

Three months, and David's body still moved like Johnny might appear beside him, still left space for someone who wasn't coming back.

Abby followed a few paces behind, scribbling notes on the clipboard, her usual chatter subdued.

"Feels like they already know," she said, pausing beside the senior pen. "Even the jumpy ones are quiet tonight."

David nodded. "Twenty dogs. Maybe thirty."

They stopped at Shiloh's kennel.

She rose immediately—spine straight, ears forward—then softened when she recognized David, tail doing that uncertain half-wag of a dog who wanted to hope but had learned better.

Even discarded, she couldn't fully let go of what she'd been. Her eyes still scanned the room, body coiled with readiness.

Someone had trained those reflexes too deep to forget.

"Top of the list, aren't you, girl?" David crouched, letting her nose bump his hand. "Too much?"

Abby crouched beside him. "She's not too much. She's just not what people think they want."

"I hate people who dump their animals like that. Just give up. Walk away. Abandon them," David's jaw tightened.

The words tasted bitter, edged with more than anger about dogs.

He could still feel the phantom pressure of Johnny's hands on his shoulders that last night, pushing him away.

"I can't do this anymore, David. I can't be what you need."

Like David was a responsibility Johnny needed to surrender.

Like three years of stolen embraces could be dropped off at a shelter with a note: "Can't keep him. Too much to handle."

Abby didn't look at him. "Not everyone who abandons something does it by choice."

He glanced over. Her voice had gone tight. Personal.

"I didn't mean—"

She shook her head. "I know what you meant."

Shiloh whined softly and licked David's fingers like she understood more than she could say.

Abby stood first, brushing her hands off on her scrub pants. "Budget forms came in," she said. "Your dad's trying to figure out how to make one plus one equal ten."

David stayed crouched. "It's not fair. We've done everything right. We've kept this place open through every threat—when everybody else said we couldn't"

"Doesn't matter." Abby looked around the shelter. "They've already decided this place doesn't matter."

He rose slowly. The photo in his pocket scraped against his hip, a physical reminder of everything that did matter. Johnny. Noel. Micah. All of it tangled together now.

"You're not going to do anything stupid, are you?" Abby asked.

David didn't answer right away. The overhead light buzzed. Shiloh's tail thumped once, then went still again.

He sat cross-legged on the kennel floor, and Shiloh immediately army-crawled toward him, ninety pounds of German Shepherd trying to make herself small enough to fit in his lap.

She managed to get her massive head and front paws across his thighs, tail sweeping the concrete in slow, content arcs.

"You're not exactly lap-dog material, girl," David murmured, but he wrapped his arms around her anyway.

She twisted to lick his chin—once, twice, then settled with a contented huff that ruffled the donation papers scattered nearby.

For a moment, just this moment, everything else faded.

No Johnny.

No missing kids.

No shelter closing.

Just the warm weight of a dog who thought he hung the moon, even though all he did was show up and care.

Shiloh's eyes started to close, trusting him completely. David felt his throat tighten. In six weeks, this might be—

No. He pushed the thought away and buried his face in her fur, breathing in the smell of dog shampoo and hope.

Then David's phone buzzed.

Unknown number.

The message was strange—the kind of thing that would look like spam to anyone monitoring:

Your package arrives Saturday. 10AM pickup at the old rose garden spot in Witherhorn Grove. Single signature required. Documentation regarding recent lost packages available.

David read it three times before the meaning clicked. Witherhorn Grove. Come alone. Information about the kids who'd "moved away."

David's heart slammed against his ribs.

The empty-eyed kids in the photo. Johnny at the center, looking half-gone already. Was someone trying to warn him that Johnny was next?

Or—his breath caught—was Johnny already gone, already staring glassy-eyed from some church-sanctioned prison?

The thought made him dizzy.

His fingers found the prayer bead automatically, thumb working the smooth surface like Johnny used to do when he was nervous.

Whoever sent this knew how to hide in plain sight. How to say everything while saying nothing that could trigger the city's content filters.

"I'll finish closing up," he said quietly.

Abby hesitated, then nodded. "Don't stay too late."

"I won't."

She didn't press. Just walked off, clipboard in hand, back into the fluorescents and barking.

David stayed where he was, memorizing the message before deleting it.

Someone out there was scared enough to speak in code, desperate enough to reach out, and smart enough to make it look like nothing.

Saturday morning. Four days away.

Four days to figure out what connected those empty-eyed kids in the photo to Johnny's party, to Noel's name being whispered, to whatever made someone desperate enough to reach out through bloody photographs and coded messages.

Four days before someone trusted him with truth too dangerous to speak plainly.

His phone buzzed again. This time, just punctuation:

.

A period. Nothing more. But David understood—end of transmission. Don't respond. Wait.

He pocketed the phone and gave Shiloh one last scratch.

"Guess we're both waiting for someone to come back," he whispered.

But maybe, just maybe, someone already had.

Micah's words echoed: "You'll probably do something stupidly heroic."

David's jaw set.

If stupid heroics were what it took to get Johnny back—to see his eyes clear and warm again, to taste his name on those lips that used to whisper promises—then so be it.

Saturday couldn't come fast enough.