NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: The flashback is going to start now. Not much to say concerning that.
DISCLAIMERS: See Chapter One.
Chapter Two
"The best relationships in our lives are the best not because they have been the happiest ones, they are that way because they have stayed strong through the most tormentful of storms."
― Pandora Poikilos, Excuse Me, My Brains Have Stepped Out
"As my sufferings mounted I soon realized that there were two ways in which I could respond to my situation - either to react with bitterness or seek to transform the suffering into a creative force. I decided to follow the latter course."
― Martin Luther King Jr.
"...when you are sick, you should not seek to doctors and the wisdom of the world, but rather you should exercise faith in me and minister one to another, and with wisdom use herbs and fruit and mild food and tender care that you might be healed-"
It was the bloodcurdling scream that made Luke snap to attention.
He'd been reading through The Golden Seven Plus One when he'd heard the scream from way in the distance; the noise had startled Luke so thoroughly that he'd knocked over his chair and dropped his book. Cursing under his breath, Luke set his book and study notes back and set his chair back up before daring to gaze out the window.
Bray and Erick were making their way back to the house down the gravel road that ran through the property. Erick, his face concealed by the sheep's mask, had something slung over his broad shoulders. From a distance, it looked like a bag of laundry or a sack of potatoes, but as Erick and Bray drew closer, Luke could see more details. A glimpse of matted blonde hair. Torn and dirty clothing. Long chains dangling and dragging on the ground...
It didn't take Luke long to figure out what—or who—Erick was carrying back to the house. Jay! What have they done to him? From the looks of things, Bray and Erick had seen fit to beat the older blonde into submission.
Luke turned away from the window and sat down on his bed, heart thundering in anticipation and fear. Bray's reassurances rang in his head: We all know that's he's more important to this world than he thinks. Luke, Jay is destined for something special. I knew that the moment I first laid eyes on him, but he doesn't know it. He refuses to see it. It's gonna take some time, but when I finish, he will have no doubt in his mind. And you'll have his undying love and devotion and respect as well. But you have to trust me. Do you trust me, Luke?
Luke wanted Jay for his own so badly, that he had no other option but to trust Bray. So, he did what he was told for the past week or so; he stayed in prayer, studied the Word and listened to the Eater Of Worlds as he preached.
Please let Jay be alright. Please let him be okay! Luke prayed silently, as he heard the front door open and heavy footsteps clomp up the stairs and approach his room. His mind raced. He'd missed Jay so badly the past several days that he absolutely had to see him...but at the same time, he feared what had been done to the older blonde and really didn't want to.
"Luke?" The familiar voice that reached his ears was like dark chocolate. Smooth and sweet, but with a bite. "There's someone here I think you'll be happy to see again." Bray sounded almost like a proud father as he nudged open Luke's bedroom door.
Luke heard shuffling footsteps and the familiar jangle of chains. Slowly, he turned around and was stunned and horrified by what he saw. His voice got stuck in his throat, and he had to choke it out. "Jay?"
Jay wobbled in the doorway, flanked by Bray and Erick. He looked a scarecrow that had been battered by the elements for months. He was unshaven, his face was bruised, and his lips were split. The chains that dangled from his wrists and ankles concealed what looked like raw and abraded skin. His once bright blue eyes looked dull and colorless, and his tousled blonde hair was tangled and greasy.
Jay slowly lifted his head, and Luke shuddered at the lack of depth in his lover-to-be's eyes. Something else about Jay's eyes left him unnerved as well. What's wrong with his eyes? Luke wondered in shock. Why are they darting around like that? Why won't they focus?
The expression on Jay's face was blank, yet frightened. "Luke?" he whispered, his words faint and raspy.
And that's when Jay collapsed. He'd barely been able to hold himself upright; the chains dangling from his limbs dragged him down and, too weak to support himself, he slumped against the doorjamb and slid to the floor, his body becoming deadweight as he struck the hardwood with a sickening thud. The chains attached to him clattered to the floor as well, jangling like a disjointed chorus of bells.
Bray quietly removed a key from the pocket of his pants and unlocked the chains binding the semiconscious blonde. He smiled up at his First Son. "You won't have to worry about him running off now. He's all yours."
Luke climbed off the bed and fell to his knees in front of the broken man he'd wanted as his own from the moment he'd first saw him. Jay managed to rouse himself, twitching visibly. He didn't even flinch as Luke placed a big hand under his chin to lift his head. If Jay could see the look of horror on the face of Bray's First Son, it didn't register.
"What have you done to him?!" Luke demanded, the softness in his voice a stark contrast to the rage and shock that was cascading through him.
"He needed to learn that I don't tolerate disrespect," Bray explained, simply. "It took some time, and some effort, but now he knows never to talk back. He knows now that this is his home. He knows to listen now, he knows to understand what I teach, and he knows to respect and obey me."
Luke studied Jay's blank expression, desperate to find a spark of life, of charisma, of anything that reminded him why he was drawn to the blonde in the first place. "You promised me that you'd help me win him over and make him love me."
"And I did, Luke. You now have his undying affection and love." Bray smiled. "Finally, you have what you wanted. He's your reward for your loyalty and hard work." He paused thoughtfully and clapped a big hand on Luke's shoulder. "I'll leave now. The two of you need some privacy so you can reconnect." With that, Bray turned and slipped quietly out of Luke's room, closing the door behind him.
Luke waited until Bray's footsteps clomped downstairs before he picked his broken angel up bridal style and carried him to his bed. His heart was an aching wasteland as he surveyed the damage that Bray and Erick had inflicted upon Jay's body.
The First Son sat down, with Jay cradled in his lap, and he brushed a stray lock of hair from Jay's forehead. That seemed to rouse the fallen blonde a little more, and his pale lips quivered. "I'm so sorry," Luke whispered, his voice thick with emotion. "I promised you that they wouldn't harm you, and..." A lump rose in Luke's throat, and he forced himself to swallow it down. "I fucking failed you, Jay. I just wanted someone who'd love me. The last thing I wanted was Bray and Erick breaking you like this. You didn't deserve this, you don't deserve this, no matter what you did."
Jay's eyes darted around, vacant and unfocused. Finally, his lips parted, and he spoke:
"Luke...Luke, where am I?"
"You're back in the house. Bray and Erick brought you back to my room," he said, gently, trying to coax the broken man into following his gaze. "C'mon, Jay. Focus. Look at me."
Jay shook his head. The next two words he uttered shook Luke to his very bones:
"I can't."
Luke smoothed the disheveled hair from Jay's forehead. "What do you mean, you can't?" he asked gently.
"Bray and Erick dragged me out of that God-forsaken garage," Jay managed, his voice weak. "The place was so dark...I just wanted to look around, and I wasn't thinking...I glanced up, and I looked right at the sun. There was a huge flash of light. It felt like a white-hot dagger sliding through my skull." A pause, and then Jay's face scrunched up in pain. "It hurt so bad. Now it's like there's a huge black cloud dropped in front of my face. I can see maybe a few shadows, but that's it." Another pause. "I'm blind, Luke."
Luke's heart sank. His would-be lover was beaten, weak, and at the moment, as helpless as an infant. He felt anger boil up inside of him, but it wasn't directed towards Jay. "Bray didn't have to do this to you!" he spat. "How dare he!" He took a slow, shaky breath. "I'd snap him in half if given a chance, but he probably thinks he did nothing wrong." A pause, and then Luke's voice softened. "Jay, you know how I feel about you. And someone once told me that love means seeing someone when they're at their absolute worst, at their lowest and darkest and weakest, and staying with them anyway. I'm staying with you as long as it takes to bring you back. I'll take care of you as best I can. I won't push you into anything you don't want. I won't hurt you, and I won't let Bray or Erick hurt you again. But you absolutely have to trust me, because right now you don't have a choice. Do you trust me, Jay?"
The silence that followed was excruciating, and for a moment, Luke thought that Jay had slipped back into the unresponsive state he'd been in when he fell to the floor. But then, Jay nodded. His voice was barely above a whisper. "I trust you."
Luke dared to smile at his fallen angel. "Alright. Let's get you washed up. You'll feel a thousand times better once we get that dirt and grime and whatever else off of you, and once we get some food in your stomach. You're skinny as a rail." He paused. "You think you can walk?"
"I can barely raise my head, let alone get up and walk," Jay groaned as Luke climbed off the bed, Jay in his arms. The weary blonde sighed and rested his head on Luke's massive chest.
In the bathroom, Jay sat quietly on the closed toilet seat as Luke drew a bath for him. He didn't fight or struggle as Luke helped him undress. In fact, he almost looked ecstatic as his clothing was removed.
"Get rid of these clothes," he said to Luke. "Burn them, bury them, throw them away. I don't want them anywhere near me." He paused. "I have no clue what I look like right now, I suspect I look as bad as I feel. Maybe it's best that I can't see myself for a while, huh?"
As he removed Jay's clothing—first his pants, then his shirt, then his unmentionables—Luke took a visual inventory of the damage inflicted upon the shattered man. A gasp escaped Luke's lips. "Good Lord, Jay. What did Bray and Erick do to you?"
"I got a whuppin'. I was mouthy and disobedient," Jay shrugged, the tone of his voice sounding like he was merely talking about the weather. "So they punished me."
"This is more like torture, Jay." There were bruises on Jay's legs and ribcage, and choke marks on his throat. His wrists and ankles were scraped and abraded all to hell from the chains that had circled them. The bruises and cuts on Jay's face were in various stages of healing. There were even lash marks on his back. Granted most of them had scabbed over and were healing, but that wasn't the point. The point was that Jay had been whipped like some defenseless animal. Eater of Worlds or not, Luke was going to find Bray and pummel him, along with Erick, into bloody smears on the wall after he was finished taking care of Jay.
He added a nice sized amount of liquid soap to the bathwater—it was nothing fancy, but it would do nicely—and then lifted and placed Jay into the hot soapy water like he was a small child. A slow sigh of relief escaped Jay's lips as he felt the water touch his skin, and he lay back against the edge of the tub.
"Water's not too hot, is it?"
"No." Was there the faintest hint of a smile on Jay's lips? "It feels good. And what'd you put in the water? I smell oranges."
"Castile soap. Has tons of uses," Luke shrugged before he picked up a clean washrag and began the arduous task of bathing the weary blonde. If he was bothered by the fact that he was naked, blind, and being bathed by one of his captors, Jay didn't seem to let on. He just accepted it as part of his new existence. Little whimpers of relief escaped his lips as the overwhelming stench of the garage faded from his body and the hot water eased the physical pain.
"Got a huge bottle of it on sale at Walmart," Luke explained, as he ran the soapy rag across Jay's back as gently as possible so as not to cause the beaten blonde any further discomfort. "I'll give you one of my old shirts to sleep in. I'll go into town tomorrow and pick up some other things for you to wear. Until then, you'll have to make do."
"You shop at Walmart?" Jay's voice, though weak, sounded surprised.
"There's one over in Crowley. There's a few dollar stores there, too. Crowley's the closest town in these parts. And I'm the one who usually does the shopping." Luke paused while he wrung out the washrag and soaped it up again. "Hey, we're not in the boonies. Just a few miles from the city limits." He heard an odd sound and realized that it was Jay snickering. "What's so funny?"
"I'm sorry," Jay was trying to hold in his giggles, but failed epically. "I've got some weird images in my head right now. The thought of you pushing a shopping cart is just too amusing."
Luke had to chuckle at that. The fact that Jay had found something to laugh about, even at his lowest and most vulnerable point, gave Luke an odd sort of comfort. It reassured him to know that the Jay he'd fallen for-the charming, charismatic, sharp-tongued one-was still there. Damaged, yes. But still there.
"Luke?" Jay asked, cautiously, after a brief silence. "What's today's date?"
"Does it really matter?"
"It does to me. I wanna know how long Bray kept me."
Luke hesitated, his heart beginning to race. "Do you really wanna know?"
"Please," Jay pressed on, his voice soft but imploring. "I live here, Luke. I'm not gonna panic or freak out. I just wanna know. How long was I out there?" When Luke refused to answer, Jay snapped, "How long was I out there?!"
Luke, startled by the volume and tone of Jay's voice, stared down at the floor to compose himself before he spoke. "Bray took you to the garage July 23rd. It's July 31st. You were out there eight days."
"Eight days," Jay whispered, convincing himself. "I was out there eight days?"
"Yeah."
Jay sniffled, and tears leaked from his sightless eyes. He said something beneath his breath that Luke could only catch wisps of.
"Jay." Luke drew closer. "Talk to me, Jay. What'd you just say?"
"This was my fault. It's my punishment for me being so disrespectful. I wouldn't have been out there eight minutes if I hadn't been so mouthy-"
"Jay, don't talk like that-"
"No, Luke." Jay interrupted him. "It's true. Bray's just trying to set me straight and teach me, and I refused to listen to him. I deserve this. This is my fault," he warbled before falling silent. Luke sighed. As far as Jay was concerned, he'd brought this suffering upon himself, and nothing Luke could say or do would convince him otherwise. It made his heart ache.
Seeing Jay like this made Luke think of one of Bray's sermons: You're not perfect. Not at all! None of us are, in fact. We're no better than the prostitutes out on the street, no better than the homeless people. That's why I have to do this. That's what I have to teach you, and the rest of the masses. We're no better than any trash on the street. And remember this: the Bible says that before you can rise above all these things, you have to descend below them all. You have to experience everything. That's why I'm doing this. You have to sink to the lowest level before you're cleansed.
It took the better part of an hour, as well as a change of bathwater, but Luke managed to wash away all of the dirt and grime from the garage where Jay had been disciplined/tortured from hair and skin. Luke found a razor and shaved Jay's face as best he could. He was even able to find a new toothbrush so that he could help Jay brush his teeth. All the while, Luke kept up a steady stream of soft talk, speaking about anything and everything and nothing. It seemed to soothe Jay, and the exhausted blonde relaxed as much as he could without falling asleep.
Once Jay was out of the tub and dried off, Luke helped him into one of his shirts. It was a black t-shirt, old and faded but clean; on Jay it was enormous. It came down to his knees and hung on him like a trash bag, but at least he was covered. Then, Luke picked him up again and carried him back into his bedroom. Jay sighed and curled into the arms of the larger man, wrapping his arms around the behemoth's neck. That gesture, small as it looked, warmed Luke's heart.
Jay eventually said something, but it was muffled against the red flannel of Luke's shirt.
Luke glanced down at the weary blonde. "What was that?"
Jay inhaled deeply through his nose. "You smell good."
"I don't think I smell that good," Luke chuckled as he gently placed Jay on the bed.
"I think you do," Jay sighed in return. "It's comforting." He was aware of retreating footsteps. "Where are you going?"
"I'm gonna get some stuff to doctor the scrapes on your wrists and ankles. I'll be right back."
Luke ducked back into the bathroom. After a few minutes, he lumbered back to his room with another clean washrag, cotton balls, a roll of gauze, a roll of bandages, a nice-sized tube of antiseptic cream and a bottle of rubbing alcohol; these items he managed to hold in the crook of his massive arm. He balanced a basin full of warm water in his free hand. He set these items down on the nightstand and helped Jay sit up in bed before pulling up his chair and dampening the washrag.
"The marks on your face should heal by themselves," Luke said, as he took one of Jay's scraped-up wrists in his massive hand. "The scrapes on your ankles and wrists...that's another story. I'll get these as clean as possible," he continued, running the damp rag across the wounds. "Then I'll bandage them up. Now I'm gonna put some alcohol on this and clean it up a little further, and I warn you. This may hurt."
"Won't hurt any more than what I've already gone through," Jay assured his caretaker, before he winced. "Ow!" Jay's sightless eyes squeezed shut, and some more tears trundled down his cheeks. "I'll have to go through this three more times, won't I?"
"It'll be over soon. I promise." After swabbing alcohol across the scrapes on Jay's wrist, Luke spread a generous layer of the antiseptic cream across the damaged skin, and then wrapped the treated wrist with the gauze, and the bandages. He treated Jay's other wrist, and then helped Jay lie back so that he could treat the beaten man's ankles.
"You have a light touch," Jay murmured, as he folded his arms across his stomach.
"I don't think I've ever heard anyone say I have a light touch." Luke chuckled softly, as he gathered his things. "I'm trying my hardest not to hurt you any more than you've already been hurt."
Jay dared to let a grin cross his face. "I don't think you could hurt me. Even when I was all wrapped up in chains, you never did. Now, here I am, blind, beat up and defenseless. You had every opportunity to harm me then, and you have every opportunity to harm me now, and yet you haven't."
"Like I said. I don't wanna push you into anything you don't wanna do. And those chains were put on you for a reason."
Jay nodded. "I know that now. I was never in any danger, Luke. The only danger I was in was the one I got into myself because of my big mouth and my bad attitude."
"Jay, don't go talking like that-"
"It's true." Jay's voice, while soft, was full of conviction. "I know it. You know it. Bray knows it. Hell, even Erick knows it, although he won't say it." He paused. "I'm supposed to be like Bray. A creator. Someone who brings change, who unites the masses and brings down the fist and changes the world. And I'm supposed to be an angel in the dirt, like him." A wry chuckle escaped Jay's lips. "Funny thing is, I don't feel very angelic. I probably don't look very angelic either. And how can I possibly bring down the fist and change the world if I can't see my hand in front of my face?"
"Changing the world is the last thing you need to worry about," Luke assured Jay, pulling the bed covers up around the tired blonde's shoulders. "You have more important matters to take care of. Now, get some rest."
Jay nodded. "I will. Thank you Luke," he managed, before he fell into a dreamless sleep.
Luke nodded, an unexpected lump rising in his throat. He watched Jay sleep for a while, wondering what to do next. There was no way in Hell he was going to cast Jay aside, not after all the effort that he and Bray and Erick had put forth to capture him. And he certainly wasn't going to cast him aside now.
He carded his big fingers through Jay's hair (it was longer now, and somehow it suited him better), and then bent down to kiss Jay on the forehead, the way a father would kiss his little boy at night. He inhaled the faintly soapy scent of the bath, which mingled with the pleasantly lingering bite of the citrusy castile soap he'd shampooed Jay's hair with, and the slightly cool edge of peppermint toothpaste. "I love you, Jay," he whispered. "And I'm gonna fix you and bring you back. I'm in this for the long haul. And I won't let you down again. I promise."
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: I had planned to make Jay catatonic in this story, but I think him being blind works better, because now he's going to HAVE to trust Luke to take care of him. And it works better with Luke's philosophy about love as seeing someone at their absolute LOWEST and WORST, and still being there. And poor Jay blaming himself for his predicament. Granted, Jay was being a mouthy little brat, but Bray really DIDN'T have to punish him like he did.
BTW, if the chapter sounds familiar, this is because much of it is from an earlier work of mine called Broken Angel, which was inspired by and based on In The Beginning by theytalktome. I cannot stress this enough, especially after listening to an excellent podcast by Rhiannamator and Natalie. I got permission from the author/artist/etc. to use their respective works.
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