If there had been yelling, it was done with by then. He strained his ears but couldn’t hear much except the occasional retching. The surrounding noise didn’t help. More and more people kept gathering, even sticking their heads in when they could manage it. He sent a few crashing into the wall, but he was too distracted to cause any real damage. He did some fevered pacing, but that only made him feel worse. He was hunched over and trying not to puke himself when the nurse finally came out. He pounced on him, but the man was already waving his hand. “I’ll get the fluids, but I won’t be able to hook him up until he’s calmed down a bit.”
That was all he needed to hear. He stepped out of the way but followed along to make sure the nurse didn’t divert himself away from his appointed task. By the time they returned, things were quieter. Most of the gawkers had dispersed, either because they’d been chased off or because they’d simply lost interest. It meant there was more than enough space to do his investigations, but even when all he did waslookat the bathroom’s entrance Bee put a hand on his shoulder. He wanted to slap it away. Eli needed him. Why shouldn’t he help when the man so obviously needed him? But he allowed himself to be led to the nearest bed. He didn’t know whose it was, and it didn’t matter. Not with Bee there. Bee could have whatever bed he wanted.
He allowed himself to be pushed, but he only sat. He wastoo wired to lie down. Hours passed. It felt more like days. After a while, he went again to call Nathaniel to deliver news and receive more instructions, but there was nothing else he could do. Eli still wouldn’t see him.
He thought people would insist on using the restroom. To shower. To shit. To brush their teeth. But no one did. Those who really needed the bathroom went elsewhere, and the others went without. He’d known about Eli’s influence. He knew the man was well-liked, even revered by many, but it wasn’t until that—with the bathroom—that he realized the man was prison royalty. Even the guards were accommodating him. CO Alvaro agreed to stay overnight in the bathroom after lights out just so Eli wouldn’t have to move. Towels and bedding were brought into the bathroom, on which, presumably, Eli could rest, but he didn’t think the man was resting at all, and that meanthecouldn’t rest either, not with his imagination screaming at him. He was no novice to waking nightmares, but he was used to being the one in the starring role. It turned out that Eli’s torment was much, much worse than his own.
He was in the middle of yet another set of endless pushups when he saw Eli’s legs emerge from the bathroom and stood up so fast vertigo nearly took him down again. Eli wasn’t on his own. He had his arm around Bee’s shoulders, and he was being eased forward, one halting step at a time.
He wanted nothing more than to run forward and take that weight himself, but what he wanted and what Eli needed weren’t quite the same thing. “Here,” he said to Bee, indicating their new bed. “Right here.” It was where Bee had been leading him anyway. He knew it, but he couldn’t help saying it. Couldn’t help his useless hovering either. He badly needed to touch Eli, to prove to himself that the man was warm and alive and not a zombie no matter how much he looked like one.
Eli’s face was still handsome. It didn’t know how to be any other way. But it was worn out and the eyes that usually sparkledwith mischief were glassy with fatigue. Also pain. There was so much pain. It was nothing like Eli’s usual stiff joints and aching muscles. This was something the man couldn’t hide. He radiated it, exhaling clouds of pain with every breath. He wanted to beg the universe to let him take it. To at least share it between them. But he knew better than to say such a stupid thing aloud. If the pain could be shared Nathaniel would have taken it a long time ago.
“Alright,” Eli mumbled when he came to his side. “I’m alright, puppy.” But he betrayed himself the very next moment when Bee eased him down onto the bed and he couldn’t suppress a gasp.
In that moment Samuel was so choked with fury he could think of nothing but revenge, and not cold and calculated either, but hot and bloody and full of hate. It didn’t even matter if he got the right person. He was ready to sink his teeth into anyone stupid enough to come near him. Eli was hurting, and if Eli was hurting, everyone ought to be hurting. But then Eli said, “Than,” and Samuel fell to his knees beside the bed and reached for the hand that lay open on the mattress.
“Tell him I’m alright. Soon. Couple of days.”
The words, like Eli’s breath, were also laced with pain, but the stupid asshole still tried for a smile. He wanted to hit him for it. For pushing like that. For worrying about other people instead of himself. Instead, he pressed the hand to his face and breathed it in as deep as his panicked lungs would let him. He found that beneath the usual scents of cocoa butter and soap was also acrid sickness. “Don’t talk,” he said into the hand. “You need to rest.”
“Tell Than—”
“I just spoke to him. He knows everything. Now shut up and rest. I’ll protect—” he choked on the promise before he could get the rest of the words out. Him? Protect Eli? When it was his food that had nearly killed him?
And suddenly it was too much. The adrenaline had kept it back before, and the blunt numbing of his fear, but now there was nothing between him and what he’d done and when he choked again, it was on a sob. “Eli.” He was so sorry. He had never been sorrier for anything. But what did that matter? Even if he apologized a thousand times it wouldn’t matter.
The hand closed over his wrist, the grip weak, unrecognizable, but the words were Eli. “Puppy, it’s okay.’
It was such a stupid lie he wanted to scream. but Eli was still tugging at him, weak, but insistent, and he was saying, “Lie down with me. Right here. Just lie down.”
He knew better than to climb up, or at least, he should have. Eli was sick. He needed to rest. But the hand tugging at him wouldn’t give up, and he couldn’t breathe, not until he had his face in Eli’s neck, and then he was crying, sobbing like he had after The Android—except he preferred The Android to this. And just like after The Android, Eli was holding him close, his hand heavy in his hair, too weak to stroke it, but the weight was what he needed, and the feeling of him, of holding him. He clutched at Eli and knew he was supposed to be the one comforting, not being comforted. If Nathaniel were there—but Nathaniel wasn’t there. If he were, he’d have been helping Eli and making him comfortable and knowing exactly what to do.
“I want Nat.” The words were so stupid. No doubt Eli wanted Nathaniel a hell of a lot more. Would probably trade anything to replace the sobbing mess on his chest with his husband. But knowing that didn’t stop him. “I want him right now. I want Nat.”
“Shh,” Eli said again, and his voice was so scratchy and weak, but he still tried to pull him closer. “Shh.”
In the end he had to stuff his hand into his mouth just to shut himself up.Rest, he kept thinking,Eli needs to rest. But he was the one who fell asleep. It was the stupid side effect of crying his eyes out. When he woke up the dimmers were still on,and Eli’s breath was fast and shallow. He sat up, terrified of what he might have missed, and Eli’s hand slid down his back with the motion. “Eli?” he asked, softer than a whisper. But Eli didn’t answer. He slid his hand to the pulse point on the man’s neck. Too fast. It should have been too fast for sleep, but he hoped Eliwassleeping, and not just too hurt to answer.
The empty IV stood on the pole. Someone must have disconnected it. Bee was still standing over them, a much better guard than he himself had proved to be. “Thank you,” he said, and his voice sounded rough as roof shingles. “I won’t forget this.”
But Bee said nothing. He never spoke to anyone but Eli. Besides, what was there to say? There wasn’t much to do either, except to lay back down with his hand on the pulse point, and count and worry and wait for morning.
Eli slept only fitfully, but he didn’t come fully conscious either. Samuel knew it because awake, Eli would have better controlled himself, but asleep he would gasp and make soft sounds of pain that twisted guilt like a knife in his gut. “I’m here,” he whispered to Eli every time, much goodthatwould do him. He was the worst thing that had ever happened to the man. Well, maybe right after that shithead partner Andrew.
Eli did wake up when they were connecting him to the fluids again, and when he said, “I need to pee,” he rolled off the bed instead of waiting to get kicked out and went to call Nathaniel. It was clear from the moment the man picked up that he hadn’t slept.
“How is he?” was the greeting Nathaniel used, and he was forced to tell him how much pain Eli was in, and how useless he was being. That should have been it. The whole report. But then he clutched the receiver even closer, until he was almost eating it, and vomited forth with, “I can’t stand it. I want to die.”
It was more selfish drivel, and once again it meant beingcomforted, because Nathaniel said, “I’m sorry, Sam.”
And he was horrified at himself but not horrified enough to stop. He had practically crawled into the phone cage, but he couldn’t crawl into Nathaniel’s arms. “When does it get better? When does he stop hurting?”
And Nathaniel said, “Oh, Sam.” Which was the worst kind of answer because it told him that Nathaniel didn’t know. He’d promised not to cry again, but there he was weeping like a goddamn pipe. “Take him back,” he begged. “Just come and take him. He can’t stay in this awful place anymore. Please, Nat. Please don’t let him hurt anymore.”
And then Nathaniel was crying with him, and that was even worse, because even more than the glutening, he knew Eli wouldn’t forgive him for making Nathaniel cry. But he didn’t know how to make it stop, not his own tears and not Nathaniel’s, and then he made it even worse—his worst, most stupid mistake—because he said, “Tell me how it will be when we leave.’
And Nathaniel told him a fairy tale. A story about a place far away. He spoke about a big cozy bed with a wonderful mattress and sheets washed to freshness but still smelling of Eli. And lights that turned all the way off, and a shower that lasted as long as he wanted and then coffee—real coffee—with milk and cream and whatever the hell he wanted to put in it. And Eli. Eli’s arms. Eli’s smiles. Eli singing in the morning while he cooked eggs in the pan.
