-At Fault-
Tommy and Merton are put in a problematic situation, one of their lives at risk. One-shot. Characters not mine. Enjoy!
"Would you get the hell out of here?" Merton yelled, his eyes darting back and forth across the opening to the alley the two of them were cornered in. "If they see you..."
The werewolf pacing frantically behind him grabbed his arm, intent on taking them both away from this nightmare. "I'm not leaving you here alone! Are you insane?" Tommy protested, unwilling to risk his best friend in favor of escaping. "Not a chance in hell."
The shorter boy pulled away. "Damnit, you have to! I'm slowing you down and you -need- to get out of here. You don't want to end up in the Smithsonian or something, do you?" Merton shoved him toward the wall, the only one he'd be able to clear. "Please. Just go. I'll send them on a wild goose chase and meet you at the Lair."
"No, Merton. There's a mob out there. They're panicking – they're not rational. I am not leaving you in their line of fire." The football player argued, their time quickly dwindling away. His sensitive hearing was telling him just how close that raging mob was to finding them.
"Leave! Now!" He demanded. "Please, get away from here. I have to know that you're safe."
The mouth of the alley was breeched, several people swarming the area. "The werewolf's got a hostage!" One of them called, raising a firearm toward the lycanthrope. More and more people pushed and shoved their way into the chaos, ready to attack the teenager.
He stepped in front of Merton, protecting his friend with his life. "Go..." He hissed, daring to flash a pointed look over his shoulder at the smaller boy.
"No. Please, for me... Jump the wall, get away..." Merton begged him quietly. "For me." He reversed their positions, now standing between the crowd and the werewolf. "Please."
Tommy stared at the other for a moment before nodding. "Alright. For you." He inhaled, taking the leap over the high cement wall. He wouldn't have been able to clear it with Merton, but he hated leaving his best friend behind, at the mercy of that mob. He ran into the woods, concentrating on calming himself down enough to unwolf.
Meanwhile, Tim and Travis, the instigators of the pack of pitch-fork wielding townsfolk, stepped forward, not thrilled by the fact that their hunt had been disrupted. "Dingle! You let him get away!"
"He's not evil!" Merton yelled, standing up to the twins for the first time in his life. "He's not going to hurt you!"
"Not if we hurt him first, he's not." Someone in the crowd added, followed by a chorus of agreement.
His mind was screaming at him to get out of there, to go make sure Tommy was okay, but the mob had other ideas, slowly pushing forward, the space he had left slowly disappearing.
Something seemed to finally click in the minds of the two bullies. "You're protecting him!" Tim declared, grabbing him by the collar. "You know who it is!"
"N- no..." He stammered, fingers wrapping around the wrist that was now limiting his oxygen supply. "Let me go!"
"Tell us who the wolf-man is! You must be helping him!" Travis echoed his brother's earlier statement and Merton was silently thankful that they weren't intelligent enough to connect this idea to why Tommy hung around with him. That would be -really- bad.
"No. I'm not gonna let you go tar and feather him just because you think he's evil. He's been saving your asses from just about everything you can think of. He's protecting you idiots and you're trying to kill him for it!" Merton defended his friend, struggling against the hold the two had on him. "I won't let you hurt him. Ever."
Merton was shoved backwards into the wall behind him, his head bouncing off of the concrete, his vision clouded over for a moment, but he shook it off, running purely on adrenaline now. Travis knocked him to the ground, yelling, "Get him!" Unfortunately, Merton didn't have an angry mob on his side, the mentality of the group attack fueling the other's as they charged forward, ready to attack him, blindly following the call given by their leader.
He closed his eyes, head spinning from the earlier impact as he was buried under the swarm of people, his body trampled under the onslaught of his peers. "Stop!" He wailed, covering his head with his arms in an attempt to minimize the damage.
"Get away from him!" Tommy's voice shattered through the frantic mumblings of the mob, he pulled person after person off of his best friend, trying desperately to free him. "All of you! Stop it! Now!" He demanded, finally uncovering the beaten form, reduced to a whimpering pile.
"Dawkins, he knows who the wolf is!" One of his buddies from the football team protested, trying to reinstate the attack.
He ignored the comment, focusing on Merton's unconscious form lying motionless on the ground. "And that gave you the right to do this?"
"Yeah!" Travis replied. "The wolf-man needs to pay."
Tommy shook his head, heaving the smaller boy into his arms. "Damnit... I shouldn't have left you here..." He whispered softly. He had to get Merton away from here. "He was protecting me... I'm the wolf. I've never hurt anyone. You guys call -me- the monster. But I'm not the one who just swarmed an innocent person in all of this, am I?" Some people stared in awe as he transformed, others started to move forward again, still under the mob mentality. He backed away slowly, still carrying Merton. "If he's not okay... you will have something to worry about." And he ran.
That was four days ago, and Merton still wasn't awake. Tommy had spent the first eighteen hours beside the other boy's side, refusing to leave the room. However, he'd been forced to leave when Merton's parent's showed up, after rushing home from a business trip in England. He hadn't been allowed back in since.
His admission in the alley had not been forgotten. His own parents had been attempting to interrogate him every chance they got, and he'd finally grown frustrated with it, and escaped to the Lair, using the key Merton had given him months ago to get in.
But now... now he needed to see Merton. He'd never gone more than a few hours without seeing the older boy and three days was seriously pushing it. He made his way to the Hospital, following the path he'd memorized to Merton's room.
"Where do you think you're going?" The deep, masculine voice questioned, the figure leaning against the glass wall moving to block his path into the room. Aaron Dingle was a force to be reckoned with, an ex-Squadron Leader for the Marines, one really didn't want to be facing off with him.
Tommy tried to side-step the man, Merton no less than ten feet away from him. The boy was still unconscious, as far as he could tell, the form unmoving on the bed. "Sir, please. Just let me sit with him for a while."
The man shook is head, sleeves rolled up, proudly displaying the tattoo on his right forearm. His arms were crossed stubbornly over his chest. "I'm not letting you anywhere near my son."
"Please... I need to see him."
The woman sitting beside his best friend stepped into the doorway, tear stains on her face. "What are you doing here?" She glared at him. "You're not welcome."
"Honey," Aaron soothed, an arm around his wife's shoulders, Tommy watched, the familiar gesture one he'd used with Merton countless times. "I'll deal with him." She nodded, returning to her post next to Merton, a spot that should have been Tommy's. His attention was reverted back to the man standing between him and the other boy. "Leave. Now."
Before he could argue any further, one of Merton's doctors appeared. "Mr. Dingle? Is there a problem here?"
"Ah, Dr. Gordon. No, there's no problem, is there, Mr. Dawkins? You were just leaving, right?" He glared pointedly at his sons best friend, warning flashing in his eyes.
Afraid he'd be permanently banished from the hospital, he nodded, backing away. "Right." As he walked out, he could hear his best friends father request that he no longer be allowed near Merton, something along the lines of 'not letting that boy hurt him again.'
"Damn..." He cursed, collapsing on Merton's bed, alone in the house. He grabbed one of the satin covered pillows, breathing in the other boy's scent. "I just want to see you..." He heard a door close upstairs and decided it was time to leave, making his way back outside, wishing he could stay here just a bit longer, in the safety of the Lair. An idea suddenly came to mind, his desire to see his friend overwhelming him.
Once again he found himself at the hospital, staring into the sterile room housing the smaller boy. He was dressed in a set of blue scrubs and a surgical mask covered his features. He ducked into the room, thankful that Merton's family had gone home for however brief a time. "Merton..." He sighed, sitting in the chair beside the bed. He reached for his hand, holding it in both of his.
He looked at the sleeping boy before him, taking in the changes to his condition. Bruises were beginning to fade from the pale skin, leaving distorted shoe print shaped marks everywhere. "I'm sorry..." he whispered, eyes falling on the plaster casts on his right arm and left leg. Under the blankets and hospital gown, Merton's chest was wrapped, protecting the ribs that had been damaged in the attack.
He ran a hand tentatively through the jet black hair, careful to avoid the concussion keeping the boy in a deep sleep. "You gotta wake up, Merton. Everything is going wrong... I need you here with me. I can't do this alone..." Tommy brought the hand he held up to his lips, pressing a soft kiss to an un-bruised bit of skin. "Come back..."
"Sir, you're not authorized to be here." A sharp voice reached his ears and he briefly wondered why his wolf senses hadn't brought the eavesdropper to his attention. They'd obviously figured out that he wasn't staff at the hospital, his not-very-well-thought-out plan effectively ended. "You need to leave."
"Please, just let me stay with him for a little while...?" He begged, his eyes pleading with the woman hovering in the doorway,
"I'm sorry, sir. But the boy's parents have requested that only family be allowed to visit." She replied, rather hostile. "You'll have to leave."
Before he could respond to that, to point out the fact that he should be included in that listing, Aaron and Laura Dingle appeared in the doorway, rather surprised to see him there. "Get out." Aaron demanded, quite tired of his son's friend's attempts. "I warned you that I wouldn't tolerate anymore of this nonsense. I don't want to see you here again."
Tommy shook his head, still holding onto Merton's hand. "Why? Why can't I sit here with him? I'm not hurting him... I just need to be here with him." He protested, unable to deny to himself the fact that Merton had already been hurt. Because of him… Merton had gotten hurt protecting him.
"Merton needs people who care about him, right now. Not the one who put him here!" Laura shouted, pointing an accusing finger at the teenager.
Tommy stood, and he found himself fighting off the wolf. If his best friends parents knew that he was the wolf, they didn't seem to care, he noted, as he calmed himself, his eyes flashing to golden for a moment. After recomposing himself, he looked up at them. "I don't need to be reminded that it's my fault Merton's in this situation. Trust me, I'll never forget that." The guilt that wracked through his brain upon seeing the smaller boy so abused was constantly seeping through his heart. "But don't -ever- tell me I don't care about him."
The two adults did not seem overly thrilled with his outburst and it was a wonder they had yet to send for security to come and have him escorted off hospital property for good. "You're not family. You have no right to see him!" Laura shot back at him.
He shook his head. "He means more to me than anyone." Tommy was starting to think they'd never understand. "You don't get it! We're in love. We've been together for months now. I tried to protect him! I didn't want to leave him there. He begged me to get out. I wish more than anything that I'd stayed. He doesn't deserve any of this... Please, I just need to be with him. He's mine, you can't keep me away from him like this..."
Aaron, as Tommy had predicted some time ago, did not seem to accept this information very well. The man was fuming. "Don't -ever- come near my son again." He demanded, and the dagger-like glare was all it took to make the football player back off. Even as a werewolf he didn't dare take this guy on.
Merton's eyes flickered open, the pale blue walls in front of him blurring into focus. He knew he wasn't in the Lair – the day he painted that anything lighter than the blue it was now was the day he checked himself into a mental institution. His whole body hurt, his arm and leg rather uncooperative in his attempt to move them. "Tommy?" He glanced hopefully at the chair beside him, rather disappointed to find that it was his mother. Not that he wasn't glad to see her either, but he wanted his lover.
The sleeping form in the chair sat up, jolted back to consciousness. "Merton!" She smiled, hugging him.
"Where's Tommy?"
"I'm going to go get a doctor." Laura ignored his question, hurriedly darting out of the room. He didn't like this situation. Tommy should be here... Tommy should have been in that chair, or at least in the room. Something had happened in that alley.
He grabbed the phone off the table beside the bed he was currently confined to, dialing the number he knew by heart. Fortunately, Tommy's familiar voice was the one that answered.
"Tommy?" Merton questioned. If Tommy was at home it meant he wasn't in the hospital or some lab. He was safe. "What happened?"
There was a brief pause on the other end of the line. "Merton, you're awake?" He could hear the other boy scrambling around, doing what sounded like attempting to get dressed. He heard a loud 'Thunk' followed by a string of curses. "I'll be over there as soon as I can, baby." Tommy assured him.
For the first time, Merton glanced at the window in the room, the curtains were drawn, but he could tell it was dark out, glancing at the clock on the wall, he realized it was well after three in the morning. "No. Go back to sleep. Come in the morning, you don't need to rush over here for me." He argued, though he wanted nothing more than to fall back to sleep curled up in his secret lover's arms.
"Not a chance. Are your parents there?"
"Yeah, well, my mom is. She went to go get a doctor. She should be back soon if you want to talk to her." Merton replied, surprised by the question.
Growling under his breath, Tommy climbed out his bedroom window, cell phone still glued to his ear. "Damn... I'll be there as soon as possible, Merton. Love you. See you in a few." He hung up the phone, finally on the ground again.
Merton stared at the phone in his hand, the resonating dial tone all he could hear. "That was strange..." He sighed, waiting rather impatiently for his Tommy to show up. "Mom." He spotted her returning to his room, a man not much older than his father behind her.
"Hello, Merton. I'm Dr. Gordon. Are you feeling okay?" The man inquired, shining his penlight into each of Merton's eyes, checking for reaction and dilation.
Merton cringed. "Maybe if you stopped blinding me with that thing I would." He commented, his eyes landing on his immobilized extremities for the first time since returning to consciousness. His ribs felt kind of strange as well, a brief look at the tape covering his chest verified why. "I'm a little sore, but otherwise I'm fine."
The doctor nodded, satisfied with the answer as he glanced at his patients vitals. "You seem to be recovering nicely. You'll be here a few more days, and barring any unknown factors or changes, you should be out of here soon. I'll be back in a little while to check on you again. Just stay in bed and don't stress yourself out too much." He scribbled something in illegible handwriting and stuck the chart back in its place at the foot of the bed before exiting the room again.
"Is there anything you need? Water? Food? Another blanket?" His mother questioned, her constant movement was making him nervous.
"No, I'm fine. Thanks." He assured her, eyes on the door, waiting for Tommy. A smile lit up his face at seeing his best friend in one piece as he rounded the corner, coming into view. "Tommy!" he called out, arms open for the taller boy the second he stepped into the room.
"You have no idea how much I missed you..." Tommy whispered, holding tight to the other boy as if letting go would separate them again.
"Ahem..." His mother cleared her throat, trying to refocus Tommy's attention, remind him that he wasn't supposed to be here. The teenager glared over Merton's shoulder, still clutching his best friend fro dear life.
Noting this odd exchange, he pulled back. "What did I miss?" He questioned, looking between the two. "And why did you miss me? Weren't you here?"
"No, I was that first night, but they haven't let me back in since." He told the smaller boy, reaching for his good hand. "I've tried sneaking in here about ten different ways."
He turned to his mother, wondering why on earth she had barred the only friend he'd ever had – his lover, from his hospital room for however long he'd been out. "Why?" He demanded, "Why would you try to keep Tommy from me?"
"It's his fault that you were attacked. You shouldn't have been protecting him, Merton. He's a monster." She explained as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
Merton stared at her in disbelief. "You know?" He gasped, turning back to his lover. "They know?"
The taller boy nodded. "Yeah... everyone knows."
"Damn... what happened back there? I only remember one of the psycho twins yelling 'Get him' after that it's kinda hazy. Did you get away okay? How'd I get out?"
"I came back for you... I heard you screaming. I un-wolfed and came back, pulled everyone off of you. I told them that you were protecting me... I wolfed out and carried you here." He summarized the events of that evening. "I knew I shouldn't have left you alone there. I knew something bad would happen."
Ignoring the ramblings of his mother in the background, warning Tommy that he should leave before she paged Security, he maneuvered his injured body to wrap his arms around the other's frame, head against the curve of his lover's neck. "It wasn't your fault. No one should be blaming you for this. You're no monster, Tommy. You never could be, not ever. The people in this town treat you like some kind of evil creature, they don't know how many times you've saved them, risked your life for them. Vampires, Invisible friends, The Werewolf Syndicate, Sloane, witches... Hell, Tommy, even Death! If they knew... they'd be worshipping you..."
"I'm not doing it for them, baby." Tommy ran his fingers through the other boy's disheveled black spikes. "I do all of that to keep -you- safe, Merton. I do it to make sure I never have to fight without you."
The injured boy smiled, leaning over to kiss his lover softly. "Can… can you just hold me, please. Even after sleeping for however many days-"
"Five."
"-For five days, I'm exhausted and all I want to do is sleep…" Merton rested his head against the taller boy's chest, relaxing as soon as the familiar arms carefully wound their way around his torso. "I love you so much…"
"Love you, too, baby." Tommy pressed a kiss to the top of Merton's head, at ease for the first time since the whole mess had started.
The smaller boy's pain medications were kicking into effect, causing him to start babbling. "You always save me, Tommy. You put up with me even though most of the time I just get in your way, I'm just something else to distract you when you're fighting…" He whispered, head buried against the other's neck. "You gave up your most prized possession to get the antidote for me when I was turned to stone. You saved me from Sloane's kiss of death, you would have given up the wolf for me… And for the life of me, I can't figure out what the hell I did to deserve you."
Amazed at how oblivious the other seemed to be, he took a minute before speaking. "You're everything to me… I knew from the beginning of all of this. The wolf was always drawn to you, it hated Stacey and Lori, it wanted you and so do I." He maneuvered them until Merton's back rested comfortably against his chest. "And who knows what would have happened if you hadn't figured out I was a werewolf. I could've been killed or been captured straight off. I owe you everything, love."
"What the hell is going on in here?" Aaron demanded, entering the room. He'd rushed over upon getting word that his son was finally awake. "You. I thought I told you not to come near him."
Merton stared, clinging tightly to his lover. "Dad, I want Tommy here."
"I don't care. I don't want him near you." The older man shot back, glaring daggers at the boy holding his son. "Get out before I have security show you out."
"Dad! I'm eighteen, you don't get to make that call any more than you get to decide where I go to college or," He looked pointedly at Tommy. "Who I choose to sleep with. Which is what I'm assuming this is about since you've always been such a homophobe."
Tommy's hand landed on his shoulder. "Baby, you should calm down…"
Aaron was seething with anger, it seemed as if his head was about ready to explode. "Don't touch him."
"With all due respect, sir, Merton and I don't need your consent to be in a relationship, though I'm sure your son would appreciate it. He's amazing and if you ever took five minutes between business trips to actually hold a conversation with him, you'd see that." Tommy retorted, one hand possessively landing on Merton's hip the other claiming his good hand.
Merton's father stood frozen in place, amazed that this boy had stood up to him. "I've warned you. And, if you must know, this isn't about your relationship. That was painfully obvious months ago." He ignored the identical looks of shock on the teenager's faces. "Might I suggest being a bit quieter when you want to be left alone… This is about you," Aaron pointed at Tommy. "Nearly getting my only son killed while he tried to protect you."
Tommy started to speak but Merton cut him off. "It wasn't Tommy's fault! Tommy's saved me more times than I really want to count, most of which resulted from my own stupidity… He's always been there to get me out of trouble."
"Great, so this happens often?" The man was less than thrilled to learn this.
"More than you know…" The football player shrugged. "He and Lori were the only ones who knew about the wolf. They knew I wasn't evil and out terrorizing the town. They protected me, helped me keep the town safe."
"I begged him to get out of that alley. He didn't want to leave me there, I made him leave, Dad. Don't you get it? I needed to know that those pitchfork wielding brutes couldn't hurt Tommy. You have to understand…." Merton pleaded, willing his father to stop blaming Tommy for what happened.
Aaron shook his head. "Son, you could have been killed by that mob. And I am grateful to Tommy for getting you away from them, but, he wouldn't have had to do that if it weren't for him in the first place."
Merton groaned, they were talking in circles. "Dad! Stop! It wasn't his fault."
"It wasn't his fault!? Are you kidding?" Laura broke into the conversation, pointing an accusatory finger at the boy holding her son. "You almost killed my baby, and he's telling me it's not your fault!" She cried, grasping her husbands arm.
Tommy's head dropped, and he relinquished his hold on Merton. "None of this was supposed to happen! I know that I'm at fault here, please stop pointing that out. I -know- it's my fault that the single most important person in my life was nearly killed trying to save me, I'll never forget that… I shouldn't have left him there, I should have gotten him the hell out of there as soon as I could, I never should have left."
"All of you stop, now." A voice boomed from the doorway, Dr. Gordon tapping his foot impatiently. The four occupants of the small room turned to stare at him. "I only gave Merton here simple instructions: Stay in bed and stay calm."
Laura opened her mouth to speak, but Aaron beat her to it. "We specifically requested that Mr. Dawkins here not be allowed in here."
The doctor shook his head. "The only reason we agreed to that was because Merton was uncurious and therefore not able to make that decision himself, as the next of kin, you had tat right. However, now that he's awake, I'm afraid it's up to him whose allowed in his room. And I highly suggest making that decision quickly, he needs to be sleeping." He took note of his patients elevated vitals, marking a few notes on the chart.
"Bye Mom, Bye Dad." Merton grabbed Tommy's arm, falling back into the pillows, glad to have the argument over and his lover still there.
Tommy carefully folded the smaller boy into his arms, as Dr. Gordon escorted the two adults out of the room. "I really do wish I hadn't left you there, I can't stand seeing you in pain, love…"
He groaned, lacing his fingers with his lovers. "It wasn't your fault, alright? I'm okay, it's over now, and it's not your fault." Merton whispered, leaning back enough for Tommy to press a chaste kiss against is lips before letting sleep wash over him.
"Okay…" He smiled, watching as the boy in his arms drifted off to sleep, holding him close.