Support System
DISCLAIMER: Don't own Gulcasa, Roswell, or Nessiah (Sting does). I own the idea for this living situation, though.
(10pokes prompt #1 – scribble; no more sense than wisdom in knowing)
The call had woken Gulcasa out of a dead sleep, and so he'd already been pissed when he heard the news. Shock had set in then, and powerful rage—the desire to hurt the one who'd done this. The medics wouldn't answer his questions about what was being done there, but they'd told him that he was listed as a contact and could he please come down. And then they'd hung up on him.
That had been three in the morning. He'd gone from shocked to worried to enraged to just plain tired and back all down the drive, and now it was three-thirty and he'd pulled into the hospital lot five minutes ago and after navigating his way through the crowded lobby and the rabbit's-warren halls towards the room, he was back to pissed. Pissed and scared.
Pissed, because Nessiah had gone through enough crap already that whoever was pulling the strings up there really needed to cut the shit and give him a break, not heap on worse. Scared, because the people he'd talked to had made it sound pretty grim.
Not a good combination for three in the morning. But, God, what could he do?
Gulcasa found the room and hesitated for a moment before going inside. Nessiah was curled up tightly on the pathetic excuse for a bed they always had in hospitals, wearing nothing but a baggy examination gown that fell a little past his hips. His hair was disheveled and he looked like he'd been crying; there was a cut on his cheek and a bruise blossomed around it. His lower lip had been split and his throat was ringed with bruises and looked swollen. There were bandages on his arms and one high on his thigh; a needle was taped into his arm, a cord leading from it to an intravenous drip. The bag was filled with blood.
In a chair next to the bed was Roswell—one of Nessiah's best friends, and as Gulcasa understood it, an old lover as well. He leaned in close to the bed, holding Nessiah's hand; he looked as tired and worried as Gulcasa felt.
Nessiah turned and reached out; Gulcasa crossed the room quickly to be at his side, taking the outstretched hand and gently pressing his lips to his friend's knuckles.
"What did they do to you?" he murmured, trying to tease Nessiah's hair into some kind of order with his free hand. Nessiah leaned into his touch and didn't answer.
"He can't speak right now," Roswell said exhaustedly. "His throat's too bruised—he's been trying since he got here, I think, but…" The young man shook his head.
"Why are we the only ones here? Shouldn't more people've been called?" Gulcasa asked, looking directly at Roswell now, knowing his voice was rough with sleep but not giving a damn.
Roswell shook his head again. "You and I were the only ones on his contact list, the hospital says… we're all he has."
Gulcasa was silent for a while as that sank in, and as he wrestled down the fresh surge of anger it provoked.
"What now?" he asked at last.
Roswell leaned back in his chair and sighed, looking forlorn. "We have to wait until the tests are done… and even though Nessiah keeps trying to tell the doctors that his attackers didn't touch him, they still say that they're going to run a rape kit later. After that… after all the results are in and he doesn't need blood anymore… they're just sending him home."
"What?" Gulcasa glared incredulously—and a bit accusingly—at Roswell. "Are they insane, or just stupid?! He won't be able to handle being alone this soon—why are they just throwing him back out like this?!"
Roswell closed his eyes, kneaded his temples. "It's not so simple as that. Do you realize that in this part of town, at least four or five people are attacked like this every day? The doctors have to deal with that along with all the accidents, illnesses, and terminal diseases they have to treat. Nessiah's injuries aren't severe enough to warrant his keeping this room—and I know it's not fair, there's no use sniping at me." Opening his eyes, he stared up at Gulcasa reproachfully. "Nessiah's always told me you were temperamental, but he never once implied that you were this unreasonable."
"I'm not being unreasonable. I'm being pissed off—there's a difference." Gulcasa wanted to start pacing, but wasn't willing to leave Nessiah's bedside for it. Maybe he was biting at Roswell a little too much, but—God, it wasn't like he could help it. Nessiah didn't live too far away from here—Gulcasa had never really realized how unsafe the neighborhood was, and the new knowledge was making him anxious. He wanted to scoop Nessiah up that second and just take him back home, where the streets were safe to walk after sunset.
"He can't just go back to his apartment like this," Roswell went on. "He shouldn't be alone even if it was perfectly safe—but I'm not sure what to do."
Silence, but for a thin scratching sound that made no sense until Gulcasa found himself being prodded with the tip of a ballpoint pen. He looked down—Nessiah had been poking him with it, and now held out a thin pad of paper insistently.
Gulcasa couldn't help but be surprised and a little dismayed as he took the note—Nessiah's handwriting had always been neat and meticulous, but the words here were light and shaky and written in such a slanted scribble he almost couldn't make them out.
Once he had, he passed the pad to Roswell, who read the note with an inscrutable look on his face.
"It's up to you," he remarked at last, handing it back. "You're the one we'll be imposing on."
Gulcasa considered the half-legible scratches on the paper, then looked back down to Nessiah, who was staring up at him, shivering in the thin gown.
"If it's what you want," he finally said. "One of us will get your things… you can stay as long as you like. I don't mind."
Nessiah shuddered and closed his eyes, relaxing back onto the pitifully thin mattress.
--
Take me back to your place.
I don't want to be alone.
I need you both.