They had to have sent me to the wrong room. There is no way in hell that pathetic mess slumped in that wheel chair, smelling like road kill, is Jasper. The docs told me that he had been, " Difficult" to deal with and that he had refused to eat and talk, but I thought they were exaggerating. I guess they weren't. From the back I could see he was wraithlike. Even though he had never been a big man, he was skeletal now, and it just looked like the life had vanished from him. When I said his name he hardly even reacted. I didn't expect much, maybe anger or resentment, but no reaction at all? That was horrible. Walking over to him I saw why, he was tied up like an animal. He couldn't have moved even if he wanted to, and it was pretty obvious he was getting less than optimum care even though I was paying through the nose for him to be getting the best. I walked back out the hall and yelled for the nurse and the doctor to get their asses to his room right away.
What the fuck is this shit? Why the hell is he tied up like a fucking dog and if he can walk, why does he still have a catheter in his dick? Why isn't he going to the john? Why the hell does he have a feeding tube? Cant he eat? You said his jaw and his gut was healed and working normally, so why isn't he eating? And is that a fucking DIAPER you have on him? What the fuck is going on here? What have I been paying you people for?
"Mr. Cullen! The patient is unresponsive. He wont eat, he refuses to move and he simply voids all over himself if we don't have him catheterized and diapered."
Oh bull-fucking-shit! He will get his ass up and he will begin taking care of himself, and you will be removing all this shit right now. You are keeping him helpless by keeping him like this, so get your ass in gear and lets get this shit off and out of him right now. I will be staying for the next week to monitor the situation and I want some damn progress. You people have had him in a holding pattern for months while you pad the damn bill, and it ends NOW! Edward reached down and began unbuckling the straps on the arm restraints as the doctor went to the hallway and called for another nurse to come and bring the equipment necessary for removal of all of the tubes and devices.
"I am going to go on record as objecting to this, I hope you know. I think this patient is a danger to himself and if not properly monitored, he could self injure or even kill himself."
Did I not just get done saying I was going to be staying here? Get a cot for this room. I have paid enough damn money to rate at least that, and if there is any extra expense, bill me for it! Edward finished unbuckling all the straps holding Jasper to the chair and carefully gathering all the tubes and devices into a bundle, he picked Jasper up and laid him on his bed so that they could be removed. Jasper just lay there, not responding or reacting at all, Simply staring at Edward until tears began rolling out of his eyes.
It almost broke me. Seeing him like that. Seeing how broken and defeated he was and how they were just neglecting him. I was angry at them, angry at Gunny, angry at myself, angry at him for quitting and angry at the fucking world. The tears rolling out of his eyes tore my heart in two and I wiped them away as gently as I could, telling him that he needed to wake up and come back to us. He needed to start living again. The nurses got all the tubes and crap removed from him and I asked them to bring me extra towels and linens as well as soap and things to bathe him with. He needed a bath and he was damn sure going to get one, and then after that was over we were going to work on getting him to eat something and hopefully talk, if he didn't talk to me before.
They finally left the room, leaving us in peace. He was laying limply on the bed, stripped and covered only by a thin sheet. I hadn't seen the full extent of all of the damage, but I could damn sure see how thin he was, and I was shocked at how light he was when I picked him up. The tears were still falling, and I looked into his eyes. They were full of pain and accusation, but no anger. I wanted to see anger, but after I got him cleaned up and eating something.
Oh Jasper, what the hell am I going to do with you? You cant just quit on me now. You have been through too much. Lets get you cleaned up and then we will talk, or I will talk and you will listen, since they tell me you don't talk anymore. C'mon, sit up for me.
I pulled him up to sitting position and it was like moving a boneless chicken. He just wasn't cooperating. Jasper, you know as well as I do that this needs to happen, so are you going to take a shower on your own or am I going to have to wash you? He didn't answer me and he didn't try to stand on his own, so I figured that was my answer. I laid him back down and walked over and locked the door to the room, and then walked into the ensuite bathroom and turned on the shower. I walked back and lifted him off the bed and set him in the chair beside it, as I stripped the bed of its smelly sheets. Guess I might as well kill two birds with one stone, huh? No response. Fine, you want to play it that way we will play it that way. I stripped off my clothes, and then picking him up like a baby, walked into the shower.
The water felt good on Jaspers skin. It had been months since he had gotten anything but a sponge bath and honestly he had longed for one. The contact of Edwards skin against his was also something he craved. Human contact from someone who wasn't paid to do something to or for him, someone who he thought used to care about him. As he lay there against Edward, he felt an ache in his heart begin to build, and it was going to manifest itself as something more than just tears, before he knew it, a sob ripped out of him and he was sobbing and gasping for air as Edward held him tightly to him, the hot water cascading over both of them.
I didn't know what to say. I just held him and let him cry. He needed to. From what the shrink had told me, he hadn't made a sound about anything since he had left the hospital, it was like he had shut down and just refused to process anything and until he did that, he wasn't going to begin healing the rest of the way. I let his legs down and made him stand, still holding him tightly to me, and I began to massage and wash him. He needed human contact, and he needed to know that while I hadn't been around, I still cared. Washing his hair was such an intimate thing, it had never been this long when we were together, and I liked it, and I hoped that he would keep it long when he got to Portland. I didn't know if he would want to go back to being a cop, though due to circumstances, and with a lot of string pulling, the option was open to him, so he would have to decide and if he was going back, the hair would be gone again, but if not, it was a look that worked for him. He would have to recondition himself and spend a few months working on physically rebuilding, but my connections had looked at his service records and in light of the crime against him and the on-going investigation into the department, had offered to lateral him in under his new name, so he wouldn't lose his rank, but he would have to re-establish himself and rebuild some connections.
He was shaking and unsteady on his feet, so I sat him on the shower chair, and continued to wash him, the hot water beating down on both of us. His knees were badly scarred, but the doc had told me that the surgeries had taken well and that if would cooperate with his pt he would be at 100% in no time at all. The skinned areas on his thighs where they had removed skin to graft onto his back had healed up pretty well. His package had suffered the most damage. They had gone in and removed the ruptured testicle, and then grafted his dick where it had been sliced and skinned, but it wasn't known about the function or the sensation he had retained. The scars were pretty bad, but nothing that would make him a monster. As I began to move the wash cloth towards that part of him, I saw his stomach muscles tense up, so I began talking to him.
Nothing like a hot shower to make a man feel human again. All those weeks I was laid up after my knee got crunched, that was the thing I enjoyed the most, those times you would help me in the shower. Those damn sponge baths just don't do anything for you. I put more soap on the cloth, and very gently and slowly I reached out and began to wash his package. He gasped and closed his eyes, letting his head fall back against the shower wall. I hadn't intended on feeling him up in the shower, but if that was what was needed to get some kind of response out of him, I would do it. Under my slow and gentle washing, he became just as hard as he ever did. I allowed the shower spray to rinse him and while he was still leaned back, I bent down and kissed the head of his poor abused cock. He softly gasped and I waited to see if he would allow me to continue, and when I felt his hand come up and thread his fingers through my hair, I knew he was giving me the all clear.
It didn't take long, or much effort, but it finally got him to make a sound. As he came he growled just like he used to. I sat back on my heels and looked at him. He sat there, slumped to the side, looking at me as the water beat down on us. Are you ever going to talk to me, Jasper? You cant just stop you know? You have to begin living again, even if it's a different life. I got more soap and went back to washing him, still talking to him about Portland and the future I had set up for him up there. I finished his front and then stood and lifted him to his feet, turning him around so I could wash his back. I hadn't seen the scars on his ass or how clearly the word, "Faggot" was carved into him, but I kissed each and every letter as I washed across them.
Jasper, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I didn't save you in time. I'm sorry I failed you. I'm sorry that I haven't been able to get anything on that bastard yet, but I am working on it and he will fuck up and someday I will get him, but Jasper, you have to live and move forward. He was shaking again and I was afraid he was getting tired, but I realized he was crying again as his arms came up and clasped around me and a raspy voice choked out, " Why didn't you come see me sooner?"
Why hadn't I come to see him sooner? What the hell was I going to tell him? That I had been afraid of what I would find? That I couldn't stand to see him so broken and beaten or that I was afraid to face what might be an invalid? I didn't know. It was hard to see him that way and I was a coward when it came to facing seeing him so hurt. I still had nightmares about finding him, and in the dreams he wasn't alive. I made sure he was rinsed off and then I shut the water off. I managed to grab a couple of towels to wrap around him and then I sat him on the seat of the toilet while I dried his hair and myself off.
I was a fucking coward Jas. I was afraid of so many things, not the least of which was leading Gunny right back to you. I was afraid you wouldn't be you anymore, I was afraid that you were going to die, I was afraid you blamed me for what had happened, because I damned sure blamed myself. I failed you. I didn't protect you from someone I knew was a monster. I didn't take Emmett's threat seriously and I didn't do like you asked me to do and leave. I still cant because I want to get that bastard.
"Its not important. I survived. I'm alive. We could just leave and never look back." Jaspers voice sounded so defeated and broken, I knew that he had lost so much, but to lose his will to fight and see justice done? That made me even more resolved to get Gunny.
But Jas, what about the next victim? What about when he does it again? What about the kid that they burned at my gate so that I would think that you were dead?
He looked at me in shock then. "What are you talking about?"
Jas, they kidnapped some runaway the night before they dumped you because they got worried I was onto them. They murdered him, cut off his hands, destroyed his teeth and then set him on fire outside my front gate. The department and most people except for Emmett, Rose and Alice think it was you. You were declared dead 6 months ago, that is why you have a new name and identity. I dumped a bunch of bones in the desert where they dumped your body so that when Gunny and them when back to check and see if you had been found, they would think they had succeeded. You have a do over. That is why I have been telling you about Portland. You own a house up there now, and your things are already up there. Emmett and Rose have been going up and checking on things from time to time to make sure its in good shape and ready for you. it's a nice place with 4 bedrooms and a huge yard, back in the trees in an old neighborhood near some private college. The department up there has a position for you with the same rank and everything. They have just been waiting for you to arrive. You cant come back to Arizona, its not safe. They will kill you. The entire command structure of the department, except for me is under investigation, and they don't know if other agencies are involved or what, but they think those bodies we have been finding in the barrels in the desert are linked to your case. The problem is, with all the damage you suffered, your testimony wont be enough to build a case against the bad guys. We have to have more evidence. Did you see any faces or hear any names?
"No. They either wore masks or I was blindfolded the entire time. But he has barrels in that building, along with tools that he likes to use on his victims. The drain in the floor…there is likely to be evidence in it, and his cuffs, my dna should be all over his cuffs."
His voice was a whisper as he related the information to me, but it still wasn't enough. There wasn't going to be anything to really build probable cause to even get a search warrant for his place. Jaspers DNA might be on his cuffs due to training exercises, the drain had probably been flushed a million times over with all kinds of acid and shit in the last six months, and as for Gunnys voice? Whiskey/smoker rasp is very common and an attorney would be able to get that ripped to pieces in a heartbeat.
Jasper, we don't have a case. He was too smart and had probably been planning for years what he was going to do. He left nothing to chance and we haven't been able to uncover any other evidence against him or any leads on who was helping him that night.
"You mean you don't have any clues about the other 3 guys at all?"
THREE guys? Oh fuck…until he has said that, I had no idea there had even been three other guys, I thought maybe one other guy, but 3? My heart about stopped. That meant he had survived being brutalized by four men, over a period of 3 days. He was stronger than he gave himself credit for, even stronger than I gave him credit for. It also meant that there were 4 times the amount of people who would be willing to kill him to keep their secret safe if they knew he was alive.