"This is embarrassing."
"What, getting your nuts fried?"
"You are not helping, you know."
An observer into the Royal Guest Suites of King Abdel-Salam bin Al Yapheth of Khadra might, if he had a bird's eye view and a very long zoom lens, have been able to see Kelly Robinson, honored guest of the King, sitting on the very edge of the couch, knees wide apart, bandaged hands awkwardly at his sides, as his partner Alexander Scott, also honored guest of the King, knelt between his legs. Said hypothetical observer might think the position was compromising, but it was, in point of fact, perfectly innocent.
"Careful," admonished Kelly, feeling nervous. "Careful."
Scotty huffed in exasperation. "I have not touched you yet!"
"No, but you're going to!"
"I am putting on ointment, not performing open-heart surgery."
"Says you."
"Ah, I had forgotten."
"What had you forgotten?"
"That the little head means more to you than the big one."
"Give you a big head when I get these bandages off. Give you a fat lip."
"Now that is no way to talk to the man who holds in his hand your family jewels."
"I knew it! I knew it! The man is threatening me. And I'll thank you to take your hands off me."
"They are not on you yet, really, I…" Scotty fell silent as he pulled Kelly's bandaging off and he saw the full extent of the burns for the first time.
Kelly shifted uneasily. "I'm getting old, here."
But Scotty had to pause. Sweet Jesus… Kelly had always made light of it, like it was no big deal, when the male nurses had changed his bandages, and Scotty had looked away so as not to embarrass him. It wasn't like he hadn't known what the voltage had done to Kelly, from the screams and from the shattered, shaking body he'd treated for shock and trauma after the torture. But he'd never looked at the burns, and now his insides turned cold as he saw the damage. White and scabbed like skin cancer, layers of dried skin were peeling off to reveal purple hollows of charred flesh, networks of destroyed blood vessels and damaged capillaries branching out around the sites and turning Kelly's testicles, his penis and inner thighs mottled blue and purple. Good Lord, how did the man deal with the pain, never mind sit and stand and walk around? He must be in agony the whole… Scotty squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed them, as though to erase what he was seeing. 'I think I may play the violin again,' Kelly had said, that's right, make a funny, make a joke, Kel, what else was there to do in a miserable situation, but make a…
"…all right," Kelly was murmuring, and he'd clearly been doing so for some time. "Hey. Hey, Stanley, it's all right, no harm done."
"No harm done…" Scotty muttered furiously, and blinked hard. Cool, Kel wanted to play it cool. Not much to do but oblige him. He reached out and gingerly, fearfully applied the ointment to the shocking burns.
"Ah—" Kelly flinched, pain flaring through him at even that gentle touch. He could still remember the alligator clips as they clamp onto his tenderest flesh, the current running through him, killing him every time— He clenched his fists and the pain in his hands reminded him, battery acid, all over the floor, the dungeon, the desperate urgency to destroy the horrible device, can't let it be done to Scotty, not to Scotty—
"…lly?"
"Yeah!" He blinked. It felt like it wasn't the first time Scotty'd called his name. "Present," he muttered.
"Hey, Jack." Warm brown eyes were looking into his, his partner's face close to his, too understanding and too, too sad as Scotty crouched up to face him. "All done."
Kelly just looked at Scotty, feeling lost. After a moment of that gentle gaze, Scotty moved across Kelly's field of vision to sit on the mattress next to him, and placed an arm round his shoulders.
Scotty's hiss of breath as he raised his sore arm snapped Kelly out of his trance. "Shouldn't be doin' that," he muttered, "and anyway, isn't it time for your medicine?"
Scotty's fingers found Kelly's shoulder and held on for a moment, until his battered arm and shoulder muscles gave out and his arm flopped back down. "Well, if it ain't, it oughta be," he muttered, fatigue plain in his voice.
"That is the most correctest thing I have ever heard you say, Professor." Kelly found the strength for a grin as he eased up off the bed, walking bowlegged to the closet. After a second, he modified his walk to a Charlie Chaplin shuffle. "Think I'll make it in the movies?"
"Only if you put a paper bag over your head."
The reply was flat, by rote, and Kelly risked a glance back; yup, Scotty's face was as tight and pained as his voice, staring at him like Kelly was some kinda victim. Like Scotty hadn't been – Kelly's skin crawled – beaten real bad, worse than he had gotten by far. There was little doubt who'd sustained the most damage. Not that it was any kinda competition.
Using the tips of his fingers, all that poked out from within the bandages, Kelly liberated a couple of pills and snagged the salve. "You really know how to wound a guy," he whined as he returned and held them out.
"Indeedy do," Scotty muttered as he accepted the pills and painfully raised an arm to take them, "I have a higher degree in that skill."
"From the University of Hard Knocks?"
"One and the same." Scotty closed his eyes. "We both gotta scholarship to there, didn't we."
"Aren't we the lucky ones." With an effort, Kelly forced the bitterness out of his tone. "Hokay, Mr. Higher Degree." He settled beside Scotty on the bed. "Let us see about some of these marks."
"Full marks."
Kelly lightly smoothed the cream over the tramline welts on Scotty's shoulders, double lines of tight, precise swelling surrounding a livid white line. "Hm?"
"You said…" Scotty's voice was unsteady and Kelly gentled his touch even more, trying to control the clumsy, bandaged paddles that were his hands. "Marks. I said, full marks."
Kelly frowned, fingers moving softly over a particularly vicious welt, bisecting the skin and bordered by blossoming bruising all over the surrounding area. He'd sworn once he'd kill anyone who ever did that to Scotty, and the list was fucking growing. "Pardon me, sir, but you appear to have lost me, somewhere along the primrose path that is…" The lightbulb went on suddenly. "Marks. You mean grades."
"Well," the deep voice took on a fake-British accent, "for those of you who have not been educated in the Mother Country, old chap…"
"Why would anyone call grades marks?"
"Why would anyone call marks grades?"
"Because they are graduated."
"No, indeed they are marked."
"You get marked," Scotty said self-righteously.
"You get graded."
"You get marked."
Kelly's hand slowed in its ministrations, his voice taking on a darker timbre despite himself. "That, you surely did."
''No worse'n you."
"That is a matter of opinion."
Kelly's tone was light, but Scotty could tell his state of mind from the sudden tenderness in his touch. He opened his mouth to say they'd both been lucky, or something of the sort. Instead, he found he'd blurted, "You were screaming."
The gentle hand stilled, then resumed. "You weren't." Pitch-dark now. "I—You had me chewin' on my nails, wondering if you were even still alive."
There was no answer to that.
"Do you think…" Kelly's voice was hesitant, even as his hands were sure. "…you could just let loose and holler next time, Fred C? Save me havin' a heart attack?"
"Nope. Can't do that, Hoby." Even he was surprised at how flat and hard it came out. "Can't do it."
Kelly finished his back, the combination of the salve and the pills making it hurt a lot less already. He reached for the gauze, and began to wind it around Scotty's torso.
Scotty stared down as the white bandage was wrapped around his stomach, overlapping in layers, covering up the cuts and welts on his back. Kelly kept working, slow, careful, meticulous. He didn't look up once.
"You wanna hear about it?" Scotty heard himself saying.
Scotty drew in a breath; his mouth was running ahead of his brain today. He didn't know what had gotten into him. Only he did; one day long ago, Kelly'd had his heart broken by some dame, and he'd made Scotty the same offer. "You wanna hear about it?" he'd asked, and Scotty had shot back, "You wanna talk about it?" Kelly had said No, whereupon Scotty, like any good friend, though consumed with curiosity, had said, "Then I don't wanna hear about it." Not that there was any similarity between the two situations; losing the woman you'd wanted to marry was a lot more serious than some childhood discipline gotten a little too rigorous. He wondered if Kel would give him the same reprieve.
"I don't," Kelly said.
"Don't…?" Scotty blinked, looking at Kelly's open face. He kinda had the notion that Kel had been waiting for him to come out of his reverie for some time. What the heck was wrong with him, anyway?
But Kel wasn't done. "No, I don't wanna hear about it. I don't even wanna imagine anything even remotely similar ever happening. I wanna forget I ever heard it, I wanna just go into my head and scrub that knowledge out." He dropped the bandage, kneading at his eyes. "But I can't do that, man. I can't unhear it and I can't unlearn it, and – hell, whatever you want. You know anything you want is fine by me, Scotty." Kelly took up the end of the bandage again, fingertips tenderly smoothing it along the deep cut on Scotty's chest, winding it carefully under his arm and around his back again. "You wanna talk, that's cool. You wanna pretend I never heard a thing…" and there was the agent's tone, hard, discreet… "I never heard a thing."
They were silent for a long time, Kelly finishing up Scotty's back, angling the gauze to wrap the welts on his shoulders. Scotty saw him flinch as he bound up a particularly deep cut. Finally it was done, and Kelly gathered up his supplies, walked bow-legged to the chest of drawers. I heard you screaming. Those horrible burns on Kelly's testicles… And those poor hands of his, scorched with battery acid. To protect him, Scotty, from the same fate, and then Kel said Scotty'd got it worse than him.
"If…" He choked it back once it was out, but mercifully, Kelly stayed still as a statue, back to him, fiddling with the contents of the top drawer. Scotty took a deep breath. He couldn't do this. He could not. Every man had his limits, right? Of course, right.
After enough time had passed that it became evident he wasn't going to finish that thought, Kelly turned away from the dresser. "Lie down on your side for a while?" He seemed to take Scotty's lack of an answer as an affirmative, and as Kelly eased him down to the couch with those damaged hands, piled pillows underneath his head, and draped a bedspread over him, it was only the uncharacteristically soft and gentle movements that betrayed Kel's emotion.
Scotty turned his face inwards, facing the back of the couch. Kel adjusted the cover over him accordingly. "Guess we could both use a nap, huh?"
"Got that right," Scotty answered gratefully. The painkillers were already starting to make him feel a little loopy.
"Good night in the daytime, then?"
The bed made little noises as Kelly settled into the mattress. Scotty didn't have to look to imagine him lying with legs spread, doing all he could to spare his burns. He opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again and said doggedly, "I tried not to think about it."
Kelly's response was immediate, voice shifting as he moved around in bed. "You don't gotta talk about it on my account, man. You…"
"Shut up," Scotty said mildly, and girded his loins. "We… You gotta… It's not like… You try not to let your mother know about, about somethin' like that. She knew a little, not… Mom never… It ain't that she never knew, it's…"
Kelly's breathing was soft and constant, but he'd apparently taken Scotty's injunction seriously, and never said a word.
"Back then, you know," Scotty began again, "I mean, now – you got the, the sexual revolution and Women's Lib, and divorce… Back then, it was a scandal. You just didn't leave your – your family. In those days." He swallowed. "You made your bed, you lay in it."
Kelly was silent, patient. Maybe he'd fallen asleep. That was good.
"You…" It was more comfortable talking in second person, so he went with it. "You made it worse if you… cried. Or made a noise." He paused. "Or, or maybe, it… the thing's kinda, if you're gonna be a crybaby I'll punish your kid brother instead, teach you a lesson, so you can hear how a real…" He found he had to swallow. "How a real baby cries."
Kelly's breathing hitched, but, bless him, he didn't say a thing. "And…" It was hard to find words, but some kinda sense of duty propelled him on. "And – if your mom is out, and you don't make a noise, then nobody hears, and she don't find out when she comes home, from the, uh, the neighbors."
He could hear everything Kelly wasn't saying. "Pretty thin apartment walls. And, and then, see, on the times when…" He backtracked. "Not a neighbor in his right mind wanna mess with a neighbor who's six-foot-five, big Marine, tell him how to raise his own kids." Where was he? "You know how the cops are about domestic affairs. And, if she don't know about it, she don't fight with him over it, and then you don't gotta see her being…"
He swallowed hard at that. He'd not thought about it for years, knew he was over it, but for some mysterious reason, it was stirring things up to recall it all over again. He clamped his eyes tight shut, trying not to see a worm's-eye view of a hulking brute throwing her against the wall, see her swinging a vase at him, being easily overpowered—he'd broken her arm, that time… He'd sent Russ over to the neighbors', and he'd gone, and when Alexander had tried to intervene, he'd been knocked unconscious. His head had hurt less than seeing his Mom in a sling, knowing he hadn't been able to protect her. After that, he'd always been careful to stay out of the way of a punishment until she was out…
Kelly was still silent, and for a heart-stopping moment, Scotty thought he'd walked out. Don't be a dimbulb, he admonished himself; no shame in it, he told you that… But maybe he'd wanted to see if Kel would still be here when he told the whole story. He was so tired of being ashamed, so tired of half-truths and smokescreens, so tired of it. Bad enough on the job, but with Kel…
Maybe it was too much for Kel to handle. Maybe—He jumped at the feel of Kel's hand on his forehead.
"Just checking for fever," Kelly said smoothly. The best agent, his partner; better than the best. The gentle touch lingered a little longer than necessary, Kel's forefinger and thumb parting the roots of Scotty's hair. He slowly removed his hand, letting it caress softly down the side of Scotty's face, finishing with a brisk, gentle pat to his cheek. "Think we oughta take in some liquid refreshment like the doctor said, don't you?" Kelly's brightness was a little forced, but welcome for all that. "What say you to some hot chocolate, or you prefer iced tea or somethin' like that?"
"Hmm." Scotty reveled in the touch of Kel's hand, now resting lightly on his elbow. "I think I might partake, but after I have awoken."
"I shall await your pleasure, then."
Don't you always? Scotty closed his eyes, feeling the warmth and contentment steal over him as Kelly made a production out of adjusting the covers around him, fluffing his pillows, and generally making him feel like the King of the Casbah. "Do that, peon," he muttered, smiling.
"Just for that," Kelly ruffled his hair, "I won't take you with me to meet the pretty Khadran girls tonight."
"I thought you was gonna await my pleasure."
"Pleasure waits for no man."
"Or woman."
"You've lost me."
The pleasantly bemused sound of Kel's voice as he tries to backtrack through the layers of their banter was probably put on for Scotty's benefit, but it made him laugh for all that. "I could never do that, Hoby," he muttered as sleep claimed him. "No way nohow."
He knew Kelly had heard him. But then, he always did.
