Staying Straight
20: Meet Your Maker
Visiting hours were long over, but a few words to the nurses about wanting to stay close to his baby bro just in case, accompanied by a warm, winning smile, let Jo stay in one of the waiting rooms late into the evening. He had made himself comfortable sprawled across three chairs, listening to the punctuated rumble of noise from around the building, monitors beeping, oxygen machines hissing, wheels rattling as they rolled up and down the hall, and got used to them. That way, he could listen for anything else.
He, Steele, and Harley had plotted out all of their positions, Steele in Gage's room, and Harley in another waiting room. Harley and Jo were posted near the stairwells and elevators nearest the ICU, so that anyone coming up or down would have to pass one of them, and Steele stayed with Gage on the off-chance that this 'Holy Man' found another way in. They would text one another if they saw anything. It seemed like a solid plan, but it meant Jo was sitting in the waiting room, alone, for hours on end, with nothing but the ambient noise of the hospital settling and a babble from a television set in another room.
The time alone, though, only let Jo's mind wander. It wandered down the hall, to Harley, and Jo realized how much he'd been pushing aside when it came to Harley.
A lot of it came back to confusion. He had a few things solid in his mind, chiefly that Harley was his best friend, the closest friend he'd had. When Harley was distraught, Jo had still wanted to pick him up. When Harley talked, Jo listened. Even if Harley had seemed a little distant, he was more than likely put-out with Jo for vanishing for two days. When he'd come in to help Gage, though, after that, he'd still looked at Jo like Gage looked at double meat-lover's pizza. It wasn't want, not the way he knew it in bars, parking lots, back alleys and bedrooms, it was... it was more like the way Gage looked at Steele. Like he was something special. Like he would just tear down the sky, wrap it around the moon, and give it all to him with a bow on top if he could.
Maybe Harley's eyes were just too expressive, because his mouth, for all its pretty words and flowery phrases, always managed to wind right around what he was really trying to say. Maybe Jo wasn't as good at reading his face as he was his body. His body talked. When they were both sitting on Jo's couch, Jo watching a movie, Harley listening and scribbling away in his little notebook, Harley's shoulders were always relaxed away from his ears, his legs would curl up next to him and bend towards Jo. He'd sometimes glance over the edge of his page to Jo, and Jo would catch him, hold his gaze, and he'd smile. One of those natural smiles, the special warm smiles that Jo only saw when Harley was really happy. That smile always made Jo feel warm, it always made him smile back. When they were alone, Harley was a different person, and Jo really liked that person.
Besides that, Harley was...
Harley was so smart. Harley seemed to always have something to say, some pearl of wisdom, some light to shine on a path Jo had never considered. Jo was sure he'd never thought about things like he had when Harley talked about them. Harley could do things Jo could never even fathom, and that was unbelievably cool. Harley could keep a cool head, even when a situation was going ass-over-teakettle. (He didn't know anyone else who would have kept a straight face when strapping a bomb to himself.) When Jo got antsy, Harley smoothed things over as easily as someone pet a cat. Harley always had a kind word, a sweet smile, even when he meant neither, but they were always genuine for Jo.
Harley was... wonderful.
He seemed to think Jo was wonderful, and fuck if Jo got why.
But then it came to that night, that one twisted night, and Jo still couldn't wrap his brain around that. See, Jo didn't mind doing butt stuff. He'd met a few girls that were way into that, and the way they reacted during the act made his boner fucking jump. He got that some guys liked butt stuff too. Supposedly, it could actually feel kinda good to put a finger up in there when you were jerking it, but Jo had never tried it. He didn't care that guys were gay. He'd been hit on by dudes a few times, and shit, some of them had been outright charming and sweet, and all sincere in their expressed desire to make him feel real good. He'd usually give them about the same answer:
"You're nice and all, but I'm no fag."
His skin crawled when they touched him, gentle brushes across his back, fingers sneaking across his shoulder, and something that felt like fear crept up in his stomach like ice water when they made eye contact. He didn't care that the guys he turned down got annoyed with him, at least they left him alone after that. It wasn't like it was with Harley. At least, not like how it started with Harley.
Jo knew he was as straight as a line, straight as an arrow, straight as a ruler, but then Harley had kissed him and instead of ice water, heat had bloomed in his chest, red hot roses all through his lungs and heart, and good God, all the pretty words Harley had said with that soft mouth and in the warmth in his eyes sounded so, so true.
I want you. I need you. I won't abandon you. I...
But as much as Jo wanted it to be, it couldn't be. No, it just couldn't be.
Jo could admit to himself that being with Harley, giving Harley pleasure, was a really good feeling. The way he'd come undone, the pure, unfettered joy and contentment that even Harley couldn't mask, knowing Jo had done that for him made him so goddamn proud that he forgot he was fucking his best friend.
He had a box of condoms in the bathroom, usually two in his wallet. He never ran out. He could have rubbered up and done what Harley had offered him, but every time he thought about sealing the deal, that ice water feeling came back in, and hell, he couldn't do it.
When people wanted him, wanted sex from him, he felt...
He couldn't even describe it. It just felt wrong. Shit, he liked sex and all, but the demand made him queasy. And at the bottom of all that, Harley was still a guy. Harley was a guy, and he was wonderful, and perfect, and deserved so much better, so why had he settled for Jo?
It was birthday sex. No. It was pity sex.
Jo had no delusions that you could just fuck your friend, even a pity fuck, and keep going like you had, so he wasn't stupid enough to want that, but what did he want, then? That was where he was caught. He knew he wanted Harley to stick around, but that couldn't be it, could it? Jo didn't know if he could give him more.
He wanted to, but...
Jo couldn't go there. Not right now.
He checked his phone. No new messages. Hopefully Harley was at least enjoying the magazines in the other waiting room. Maybe it would just be a quiet night. He flipped his messages up to shoot Harley a check in, but realized he still had a draft to Harley.
"I don't hate you."
Oh, shit, he'd never actually sent it. His thumb hovered over the screen for a few seconds, then tapped Send, because hell, Harley probably needed to hear that, and he stuffed his phone back into his pocket to wait for any sort of response. Thirty agonizing seconds later, his phone buzzed back, and he snatched it back out to see the delivery had failed. He had no bars here. Zero reception.
"Shit!" Jo jumped up to his feet and barreled down the hall to where Harley waited. Harley put his magazine down and rose to his feet as he entered. "Dude, Harl, we're in a dead zone. Hospitals are shit for reception. I can't text, and I'm betting you've got the same problem. Our plan's no good if we can't communicate."
Harley opened his mouth, then checked his phone. His eyebrows knit up. "Oh."
The two of them hurried to Gage's room, but just as they got into the ICU ward, the low lights went down and the emergency lights came on. The hospital came to life on the upper levels as the doctors and nurses on duties hurried into action to make sure the power jump hadn't affected anyone, and Steele rushed out into the hall as they reached the door. "Get back to your posts!"
"We can't. It wouldn't be worth puppy piss if we did!"
"Neither of us have cell phone reception. We wouldn't be able to warn you. We need another plan."
Steele's eyes and brow hardened, teeth gritted, and he flung an arm at both of them. "There's no time for another plan! Find him! He might talk big, but he's just an overgrown child who thinks he's God! I don't care what you have to do, keep him out of here!"
"But Father-" Harley started, but Steele pulled out his pistol.
"I don't want to use this, but I will if I must." He pocketed it, and pointed. "Incapacitate him, or I will."
Harley swallowed, his gaze snapping behind Steele for a second, then back to him with a nod. "We'll search the whole of the hospital. He could be anywhere, but we'll stop him, somehow."
Harley and Jo spread out around the floor, but saw only doctors, nurses, and orderlies checking the patients. They met on the opposite side of the square at the stairwell, Harley waiting for Jo at the bottom of the steps as he arrived:
"Nothing?"
"Nothing."
They bolted up the steps in tandem. Jo's every footstep pounded in his ears, but Harley, even running at full tilt in the tight, echoing stairwell, was remarkably silent but for his ever-heavier breathing. Whatever had caused that scar on his belly must have done something to his lungs. Jo got to the fourth floor, leaving Harley out of breath in his dust as he reached the third. He called down from the landing: "Search there, meet me up here!" He pushed out into the fourth floor, and found a massive hustle and bustle, gurneys and carts flying. He dodged around nurses and orderlies, doing his best not to look at the grimy, broken bodies, but heard a few snatches of conversation.
"A Med-Evac, now?"
"There was a big shootout down at the docks. Seems like a knife fight that escalated. Eight in critical condition."
The docks. That was gang territory, and that was where the Holy Men liked to work. Jo flattened to the wall and scanned the chaos. The hall was crowded as the Med-Evac team came down from the roof, but Jo glimpsed a man in an ill-fitting doctor's coat that looked far too young to be a doctor. He wove through the crowd towards him and accosted him, seizing his arm, and the young man turned around. Jo only caught a glimpse of a huge, nasty scar and an unnervingly bright smile, before he got cold-cocked up the chin with the butt of a gun.
Harley heard gunshots like a drumroll from above him, harmonized with screams and cries, and hurried towards the stairs. He leaped up the stairs two at a time, vaulting up the banister and skittering to catch his footing on the landing, and pushed out into the halls just to find the screaming was only louder, and the halls were thick with human panic, people running and shouting to get away from the source of the noise. A man just down the hall had a gun pointed at the ceiling, and a familiar head of red hair laid out at his feet, his lanky limbs askew and akimbo and a bruise on his jaw. Something flared in Harley, and as the gunman pointed the assault rifle in his hand down at Jo, he lunged in and seized the barrel. The gunman looked up, eyes curious and wide, then put on a smirk and yanked the gun back. Harley recovered and grabbed at the gun again with both hands to seize the barrel and shaft. Then, he did the only thing he could think to do:
"Listen to me!" He raised his voice as loud as he could, and Jo blinked his eyes open at his feet. Harley grunted, and mustered his strength to shove the gunman back just to deliberately step over him. "Security will be here soon, as soon as they hear you!"
Jo grimaced and blinked, then rolled up to his feet. "Y-yeah!" He raised his voice as loud as he could, and cupped his hands. "Security! Se-cu-ri-ty!" He grinned back at Harley through his tug of war with the gunman. "We gotcha now!" The gunman grunted and struggled with Harley, pushing him a step back, but when Jo took a step in to help, Harley shook his head.
"Stay back, keep shouting!"
"Yeah." Jo looked back around at the hallways, still crowded in the panic, and shouted again. "Hey, he's over here! We got 'im!"
The gunman growled like an angry rabbit, and yanked the gun out from under Harley's grip and kicked him in the thigh. "You got nothing, tall man!" He shot out the emergency lights nearest them, just as the security guards came into view. Jo and Harley both shielded their eyes from the broken glass crashing down onto them, and when they could look again, he was gone. Instead, they just heard his laughter echoing from the steps. "You idiots won't be forgiven!"
"Jo." Harley tugged his hand and pushed something into it, and Jo realized one of the security guards was patting at his holster and yes, Jo suddenly had a baton. "Split up. Take this stairwell, I'll take the other and meet you at you-know-where." Harley swung a pair of ziptie handcuffs around his fingers, as if to make sure Jo knew he had them, then stuffed them into his back pocket and turned tail, careening around the corner.
"Hell." Jo didn't think twice. Harley, clever, quick, brilliant man he was, had something in mind, and Jo couldn't think of anything better. He hopped back down the stairs, vaulting down the banister back to the second floor, and circled back around through the ward. He had a quick glimmer of hope that maybe the gunman was still searching the third floor, which was crushed when something Harley had probably accounted for hit him: if the gunman was working for Jenning, Jenning would probably have drawn the guy a map of the exact door Gage had tottered out of to shoo him off. Of course, Harley had known. He was running to the stairwell closer to his room to get them out of the hospital.
Sure enough, when Jo skidded back into Gage's room, the bags were all draining their viscous fluids onto the floor behind the bed, the heart monitor was unplugged, and the gunman was tearing off the bedding to find only a stuffed pillow where Gage was supposed to be. The gunman humphed, and spun around to smirk at Jo. "Tricksy tricksy, but you can't hide from God." He cocked his gun. "And here you are. Alone again, tall man?" Jo froze, like a rabbit in a hunter's sights, staring down the barrel, the baton quaking in his grip. "Such a noble sinner, prostrating so easily, but I doubt you're worth penance." Jo ducked right as he pulled the trigger, and rolled in to knock the gunman's legs out from under him. The gunman nimbly nipped around him, and kicked Jo in the chest, but Jo sprang up to lift an elbow into his chin.
He'd thought he was slick, picking that trick up from Gage. Just look for somewhere to hurt him, and hurt him. He hadn't expected the guy to catch him by the forearm and flip him over his shoulder into the machines. The baton in his hand got knocked out from the shock of the impact, and landed, worthless a meter from his fingers. Jo went down in a tangle of vinyl tubes and metal poles, and the gunman stomped on his gut as he went down for good measure. When Jo could open his eyes again, it was right into the black void of the gunman's pistol, with the gunman sitting on his stomach.
"Won't you be a good boy and tell me where bad daddy priest and the little boy have gotten off to?" His smirk was as even and calm as Harley's sweet little smile ever was, as innocent and childlike, but there was victory in him. Jo might not have been able to land a hit, but he could crush that.
"Hell if I know."
The gunman cocked the hammer back- the damned thing was already primed, crazy fucker probably just liked the noise- and put it to Jo's nose. "You can't lie to me, tall man." Jo sealed his lips, focused on the gunman's thin finger resting, trembling, on the trigger. Then, suddenly, there was a CRACK, and the gunman fired a shot into the floor next to Jo's head. Jo flinched, his heart skipping a beat or ten and Jo didn't feel it start again. The gunman put the gun, hot now, into Jo's forehead again. "Tell me!"
"No, seriously. Haven't the foggiest." Jo coughed from the pressure on his lungs. Shit, he'd kill for one last cigarette. If he was going to die, he might as well have been happy.
For some reason, all he could think of was how much he'd love for Harley to just bust in and save his skin again.
The gunman trained the pistol on his forehead, the cold metal forming a ring right in the center. Jo cringed, and spat out, "They've probably gotten to the parking lot by now. Shit, I hope they're long fucking gone." The gunman's fist trembled again, and Jo squeezed his eyes shut.
That thought of Harley saving him turned into a split second of regret: that maybe his last memory of him could have been that good night kiss he never got. How if he could just see him one last time...
The seconds lasted an eternity, until the gunman suddenly shrieked indignantly, stomped his feet, and bolted up and out of the room. Jo could finally exhale, and his stomach ached. He was alive, and something in him never wanted to see any of the others again.
"Please, just be gone... Far, far away..."
The holes in Gage's skin were holding closed with Harley's rapid patch job, and keeping him swaddled tight in a spare blanket was helping a lot. Steele curled him tighter to his chest as he hunkered down on the floor against the front pew in the hospital chapel, his shoes and Gage's bare toes scratching against the cheap carpet and his shoulder blades pressed against the bench. Gage's breathing was too loud, labored without the aid of the oxygen pump, and he hugged his arms around Steele's neck incrementally tighter as he roused more and more. The darkness, cast in the dreadful pall of the crimson emergency lights, tightened each second with anxiety and wound its way into Steele's joints with tension to leave panic simmering under his skin. The only relief was the faint light from the stained glass windows, senseless patterns of greens and blues not entirely swallowed by the red panic, and Gage seemed to be locking onto them as well.
"S'it Sunday, Dad?" Steele shushed him. "But, Dad, if it's Sunday..." He started to hum into Steele's chest. Steele shook his head and clenched Gage tighter to keep from throttling him.
"Be quiet, stupid."
"But... Dad... I like when you..." Gage whimpered, scratching at Steele's collar, then sighed and let his hands fall away. Steele felt surprise like a knife between his ribs.
"Only if you'll promise to be quiet." He started to croon Gloria in Excelsis Deo, low and gentle, into Gage's ears. Gage made a strangled but happy noise, settling into Steele's arms to listen, and in the back of his mind, Steele wondered how he'd never realized Gage enjoyed listening to him sing mass.
Maybe he'd always known. Maybe he'd never wanted to acknowledge it.
Gage seemed to settle completely into a twitchy, shallow sleep after just a few minutes, and Steele did his best to listen for footsteps and gunfire over the thudding of his heartbeat and his own voice. Every second, he anticipated Harley's return, though he'd never hear his approach, a promise of relief he was sure would never come, but God, he could hope with the tiniest, most fragile hope there was.
Hope was too easily strangled in its swaddling. Steele heard his hymn echoed from behind him, and knew that reedy timbre at a blink. The gunman was striding down the center aisle like a proud and particularly sassy bride, pistols in both hands and pointed heavenward, grinning gracelessly as he sang along. He stopped three pews from the front, and Steele heard the pistols cock as the last strains of Amen echoed out. "You should have known you couldn't hide. I am the Holy Man. You can't stand against God."
Again with this Holy Man nonsense. Steele rose up, Gage still cradled in his arms, and stared the man down. Then, he let his mouth fall open to unleash further song. "Kyrie Eleison. Kyrie Eleison."
The gunman joined in just the same, not in tune but on-key, then laughed as Steele crooned the rest of the cantata and swayed Gage in his arms as if he were still very small. "There's no mercy for you. Close your eyes and hold your breath, and this won't hurt. Benevolent as I am, I'll even let you choose which of you two die first."
"Veni, Sancte Spiritus, et emitte caelitus lucis tuae radium..." He sang louder now, his voice echoing to the rafters, and even the gunman fell silent to listen. Like any child might. He must have been well trained by someone to listen when someone else was praying, like any good little Catholic might, and Steele had a very good idea just whom. Gage smiled from his arms, though, and Steele, ever attuned to that raspy little whisper, heard him.
"This one's good."
Steele nodded, and raised his volume a little louder. "In labore requies, in aestu temperies, in fletu solatium..." He'd liked this one, too, when he was young, because Connor's voice was a delight to his very soul, and flooded him with light more than any sacred spirit could.
The gunman had listened, but spoke again as he trailed off. "Do you pray to me? I'm not the type to answer prayers."
"I never prayed to have answers." Steele began again, launching into Confiteor loud enough to fill the room and echo into the hall. "Confiteor Deo omnipotenti..."
"You can't confess. You've wronged me!" The gunman waved one pistol. "Stop praying! You're getting annoying!"
Steele shook his head, because he wasn't praying to him, not to God, not to anybody. If his sin was of defiance, then so be it. He'd happily burn for that. He was singing for Gage.
"Mea culpa, mea culpa." He raised his volume. "Mea maxima culpa."
Gage, gazing up at him, rapt through the haze of sedation and exhaustion, as if he were something special. Sun, moon and stars. If there was no God, or only a cruel one that taketh and taketh, at least something in this forsaken universe had given him Gage, and Gage, for whatever stupid reason, adored him.
"I'll put the boy out of his misery first, if you'd like." The gunman was quickly running out of patience, as consumed with the song as he was. "He won't have to watch you die. Answer me! I am your God now, priest, I demand an answer!"
"Kyrie eleison, Kyrie eleison. I have no answers for you." Steele made eye contact with the gunman for a split second, then chanted, at the top of his lungs. "Kyrie eleison! Kyrie eleison!" His voice still echoed, and he took a step back. "You will give me nothing and receive nothing. There are no Gods here. There are no Holy Men, either, least of all you."
The gunman nearly retorted, until there was an arm wrapped around his neck and then a heel in the back of his knee. Harley had slipped up behind him under the cover of Steele's confessional, and now, Harley had him stumbling. "Imagine," Harley mused as he wrestled with the gunman again, working one hand forward. "Caught flat-footed by a sinner." The gunman tried and failed to work his hand around, but managed to squeeze off four rounds into the rafters, the walls, the ceiling, but nowhere near his targets. He pinched the gunman's inner elbow, and the gunman dropped the pistol when his hand locked, but as he tried to spin around to fire the other one at him, Harley grabbed his wrist and twisted it up towards the ceiling. His hand spasmed, and the other pistol fell to the ground. He tried to go for a knife with his free hand, but Steele had set Gage down on a pew and rushed in with his prayer shawl in his hand, and before he could get to his holster, Steele looped the shawl around his wrist and yanked it back. The gunman screeched, wriggling as Harley held one arm fast towards the ceiling, locked the joint at the shoulder and twisted for good measure, then worked it down to meet his other hand behind his back. Steele wound his shawl tight around his wrists, effectively immobilizing him all the way up to the shoulder, and though the gunman thrashed and shrieked, between Steele and Harley, he wasn't getting loose. He lifted his head and screamed fit to bring the chapel down around him, but all Steele heard was Gage's weak applause.
"You're the best, Dad."
Steele nodded, and Harley could have sworn he caught him smiling.
Jo staggered in behind the police, milling around the bullet-riddled chapel and taking pictures of the scene, to find Harley and Steele talking to a detective who looked far too young to have white hair but did, and stumbled out of the way just as two police hauled the gunman, shackled and screaming, out.
"You can't! You can't do this to me!" He kicked and writhed against his bonds, only to be grappled again by the peeved cops. "I am the Holy Man! I am the Holy Man!"
"Christ, we get it," Jo groaned, holding his head and staggering to Steele's side. "The hell did I miss?" Harley noticed him, and gasped.
"Oh, Joel!" He quickly ushered Jo to the pew and took some first aid supplies from a kit left on the floor nearby. Jo grimaced as Harley started to patch him up, and spoke a little louder.
"Who the hell was that, anyway?"
Steele scoffed and gave Jo a hard look. "He keeps screaming it, dumbass." He turned back to the detective. "That all?" The detective nodded and departed without another word. Steele faced Jo and Harley, as Harley examined Jo's scrapes and bruises. "They didn't find an ID on him, and every time they tried to get a name, he wouldn't answer. I'm starting to wonder if the little creep had a name at all."
"Jo, you've ripped your stitches," Harley whispered, despondent, and Jo set his jaw firm when he saw him digging out the iodine.
"That fuckass beat the shit out of me twice." He shrugged Harley off, and lifted his chin just enough to study his face from under his slumped shoulders. Harley's expression was unreadable, mixed relief, concern, and lots more Jo just couldn't suss out. He extended a hand to touch the tender bruise on Jo's chin, then let his hand rest on his shoulder.
"I'm so sorry, I wish I'd helped-"
"It's fine, it's fine." Jo brushed Harley's hand away again, and forced a faint, muscled-out smile. "We all survived, right?" Harley didn't respond, instead studying Jo's face with his eyebrows knit up, and Jo's heart sank. "Wait, where's the kid?"
"Gage." Harley's mouth moved automatically, his tone strange. Jo had heard Harley depressed, happy, or when he was masking his emotions, but there was something robotic in him now. "He had to be put back on machines, and there'll be a security guard outside of his room now." Harley abruptly shut the first aid kit. "I suppose I should check on him." He hurried out, face low, and Jo knew there was something wrong.
Nothing he could fix. He'd been useless at fixing everything, anything else, hadn't he?
He waited for Steele to scold him, but only received an icy glower and an apprising stare. Finally, Steele scoffed and broke the silence. "I need a smoke. You look like you need one too."
"I need a lot of stuff, man," Jo admitted. "Right now, I ain't sure that's one of 'em. 'M just gonna... y'know..." He trailed off, his voice echoing, his thoughts echoing in his head, as Steele waited, staring, as he obviously didn't know. Finally, Jo sighed and threw his hands up in surrender. "I'll be back." He trudged out for the entrance, ignoring Steele's baleful expression at his back. He was just too stuck in his own head, and that was never a good idea.
Still, Harley thought there was more going on in his head than he thought, and for once, he could see why. He'd been useless dealing with the gunman. He was useless at everything else. Not smart enough, not strong enough, not good enough, never good enough. Even so, he had picked up on something that none of the others had, and maybe it would give him a chance to do something the others couldn't: warn them in advance.
Out in the four-in-the-morning air, smothering and oppressive with smog, steam, and humidity from an oncoming storm, Jo yanked his phone out. He saw that his message to Harley had failed, but Jo ignored it and scrolled into his contacts. Without another second's hesitation, he dialed, because he knew the guy on the other end didn't keep sane hours.
He didn't keep sane at all.
"Yo, Benny."
Notes: A quick translation note! The songs Steele is referred to as singing are all Latin hymns, and the phrases he is quoting translate as follows:
"Gloria in excelsis deo" - "Glory to God on high"
"Kyrie eleison" - "Lord have mercy"
"Veni, Sancte Spiritus, et emitte caelitus lucis tuae radium" - "Come forth, Holy Spirit, send forth the Heavenly radiance of your light"
"In labore requies, in aestu temperies, in fletu solatium" - "In labor, rest, in heat, temperance, in tears, solace"
"Confiteor Deo omnipotenti" - "I confess to almighty God"
"Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa" - "My fault, My greatest fault" (That's the easiest/most direct way of translating it, but it can also be interpreted as "I am to blame, I am to blame to the greatest degree.")
Let me know what you thought!