Part Five: The Morning After
Sticky lashes pried themselves apart, hardly greedy, as they often were, for the sunlight they were to face. Lips, kiss-bruised, parted; a groan passed.
"Ngh."
The heavy weight of one of Gene's scarred arms was flung over Fred's waist, nestled in among the torn hospital robes. For a moment, Fred wanted to jerk free. Then, with an uncharacteristic reverence, he touched the sinew that stretched from wrist to elbow, feeling the soft red hairs, the marred skin beneath.
The night before was something Fred did not want to think about. Later, when morning faded from his head, he would have to. For the time being, Fred listened to Gene's breaths rather than his own, and nursed the hurt that encased his heart.
At the touches, Gene stirred, and Fred could not bring himself to move, still, on bated breath.
If he moved, he might hurt himself. If he moved, he might wake Gene. And, truth be told, he was terrified of waking Gene. The pain, he could handle. What might be said later, he could not.
"...wha' time 's it?" Gene mumbled out, a few odd minutes later. Fred took in a breath, and closed his eyes.
Don't answer, don't answer don't answer don't answer, maybe he'll go back to sleep.
"...mngh...?" The groan in Gene's voice was a question, a little louder, closer to waking.
Don't answer, don't answer don't answer don't answer, of all things, for Gene to see me like this...
Color touched Fred's cheeks, and he waited. And he waited. And he waited again, watching late morning sunshine speckle the plain white ceiling above his eyes and praying to it, that he might be spared, granted extra time, a reprieve.
"...Jesus Christ. Fred...?"
And that was really it, then.
Closing his eyes, Fred licked suddenly dry lips and swallowed down a terrible lump in his throat, trying to find his voice which had, in the manner of deserting a crashing ship, left him completely. Perhaps, he was simply paralyzed with fear; perhaps, his muscles, in a seizure of despair, had all tightened up within him.
Oh, no, his voice was still there. Well, at least, he hoped so, because someone was talking now, and it wasn't Gene.
"Yes?" Fred heard himself say, light and airy and trying very, very hard not to care.
"Jesus fucking Christ, Fred, what the hell...?!"
"Can't trick a man into sleeping with you, Gene," Fred murmured, voice just as detached, as he felt Gene tense up against him.
"Um."
"Yes," Fred replied, "I agree."
"Um. Shit," Gene elaborated.
Fred was silent.
"And I'm supposed to fucking be looking after you here, fuck!" Gene said, pulling himself roughly away.
"Ow," Fred said, pain shooting through him, between bruised thighs, burrowing up into the depths of him.
"...did I...?" Gene asked. His voice sounded absolutely as terrified as Fred himself felt.
"I think so, yes," Fred answered carefully.
"What the hell do you mean, you think so, yes?" Gene exploded. The bed shook with the force of his anger, the burst of his words.
"Ow," Fred said again.
"Fucking Christ, Fred, fucking answer me!"
"I don't really see where you have the right to be so angry, Gene. I asked you, I asked you to stop." The very undignified tremble at the end of that in Fred's voice was proof enough that Fred was telling the truth. Gene wanted to throw up.
"Shit," Gene said, stunned.
"Yes," Fred agreed, "shit."
"Listen, Fred, ya gotta believe me, that I didn't want to--"
"Didn't want to what?" Fred was bordering on hysterical. He didn't care. "Didn't want to come in here drunk out of your mind and shred my ass to pieces? Didn't want to come here not knowing what the hell you were doing and fucked me so hard into my hospital bed that you drive any memory of it at all from your mind? Well, yes, Gene; I'm sorry, too!"
"Fred, fuck, believe it or not I don't want to hurt ya!"
"Well you sure do an excellent job of it, Gene," Fred answered tiredly, "but it doesn't matter now. Please. I'd like it very much, if you'd get out."
"Don't do this, Fred."
"I think I have every right to do this, Gene."
"I know ya do, Fred. Please. Don't."
"I think you have no right whatsoever to ask me that, Gene."
"I know I don't, Fred. Please. Please."
"Gene, get out."
In the silence that followed Gene could feel Fred's body trembling, rustling at the stiff hospital sheets. Gene licked his lips, closed his eyes, and tried very, very hard not to throw up. Only for Fred's sake did he succeed.
"Fred, there's blood on the goddamn sheets."
Silence.
"Fred, Christ, I didn't know what the fuck I was doin'."
Silence.
"Fred, just fuckin' talk to me, please."
Still silence.
"Fred I never want to hurt ya."
It was no surprise that there was more silence.
"You just don't get how goddamn crazy you make me sometimes, around ya!"
"And the way I behave with you is perfectly fucking sane?" Fred's voice cracked. "In case you hadn't noticed, you pathetic excuse for a man, I am in love with you, and if walking all over me is what you intend to do, if making me bleed all over the sheets, is what you're going to do with that love then I'm just pathetic enough to let you. So stop apologizing, Gene! I know you didn't mean it; you wouldn't touch me at all of your own accord that way, so stop fucking reminding me of that!"
Gene thought for a moment that maybe it had been far better before had convinced Fred, driven him to speak. Now, he felt sick to his stomach and a strange constriction in his chest.
"...I guess I'll be goin', then," Gene whispered tiredly.
"Perhaps you should," Fred said helplessly, "just leave."
"I'm fuckin' sorry, Fred."
"Leave, Gene."
Without another word, that was exactly what Gene did.
Fred lay there for a while, thinking, very hard, and crying, too, when the numbness was sliced away and all he was left with were raw wounds, both physical, and emotional.
He'd known Gene since they'd were children, young and silly. He'd been head over fucking heels in love with the idiot and his cocky, selfsure grin, since he was ten and Gene was eleven and a half. He'd spent his life thinking about Gene, doing what he could for Gene, getting into trouble for Gene, fucking up his life for Gene, getting hurt for Gene, watching his mother look away from him because all he could think about was Gene, knowing all his father wanted to do was disown him because he could not stop loving Gene. Being in love with Gene was a burden but he had been more than willing to bear it; he had loved it, had loved Gene, had ached and had cried himself to sleep nearly ever other night from age thirteen to seventeen, but it had to do with Gene, now didn't it, and so it had been worth it, to him. The pain and the hatred and the self-hatred and the inevitable despair. The way people looked at him, it was like he was some sort of basket case and, in a way, he knew damn well that he was. One grain of tenderness from the other, that was all he ever asked. One word to make him feel not like a burden but at least like a friend. But then, drunk on such small things, he knew all he would only be able to ask for more, and, like a foolish child, like the fable of the camel's nose, be denied the warmth he hungered for so greatly.
"So that's it, then," Fred told himself. "Wake up. You hurt. Get over it."
With steady hands, Fred Luo rang for the nurse.