Roan rubbed the sleep from his eyes, still feeling a bit logy from the Demerol. But at least the head burst pain was gone. “I’m sorry, Dylan. It wasn’t a big deal, really. Just got a little bruised.”

He pointedly looked down at the cast on his left hand. “And broken. I thought you were the big time bad ass. How’d this happen?”

He looked at him through narrowed eyes. “Big time bad ass? You’ve been talking to Holden, haven’t you?”

Dylan grinned in a sheepish, appealing way that made Roan desperately want to tear his clothes off. “Wasn’t much else to do.“

“How much did he tell you?”

“Just enough to really freak me out.”

“Ah.” He sat up and rubbed his eyes, and much to his surprise, Dylan hugged him. “What’s that for?”

“For being the craziest person I know. And not dying.”

“You’re welcome.” He hugged him back and enjoyed the clean smell of his skin. He was still sick, but less so now, his body temperature almost down to normal. He was over the worst part of his cold. Roan almost envied him that, since the bruises on his face were still aching, and his hand was both throbbing and itching beneath the cast. He really wanted to push himself, make himself transform part way and make the bones in his hand heal up, but he knew he had to at least give it a couple of days, as it would look pretty funny otherwise. And he wasn’t sure he could do it with the cast on.

Dylan gently held his face in his hands, careful to avoid the bruises, and gave him a soft kiss that was very sweet and kind. “I brought you a change of clothes,” he said, nodding at a gym bag on the floor. “I heard yours got bloody.”

“Occasional hazard of the job,” he admitted. “Thanks.” He was actually proud of the fact that he managed to keep his pants and didn’t have to wear a fucking hospital gown, possibly because everyone involved just didn’t want to waste their precious time arguing with him. He lost his shirt, though, but that was no big loss.

He grabbed the bag and disappeared into the attached bathroom, not out of any sense of modesty but because he had to pee like a racehorse, Also he still had some dried blood on his torso that was kind of itchy, and he washed it off in the sink. Under the florescent lighting, his bruises looked startling Technicolor: purple, red, slightly yellow with a bit of blue. If he just had some pink and green, he could have had a gay pride flag tattooed on his face in bruises. Which would probably be appropriate if he thought about it. He wondered if he had any on his chin, cheeks, or jaw line, as he couldn’t see them clearly, mainly because he had about three days’ growth of beard. He always forgot that part about the partial transformation. It also looked like his hair had grown about two inches overnight too. It was kind of Dylan not to mention it, but he had probably grown accustomed to his weirdo infected boyfriend at this point.

As if to prove how awesome a guy he was, Dylan had brought him his “Allow Me To Explain Through Interpretive Dance” t-shirt. Kind of dangerous for an openly gay man to wear, but the smart ass sentiment of it all was just too good to pass up. It also helped that he couldn’t actually dance, but if pressed, he could make a variety of obscene gestures in a rhythmic manner.

Once he finished changing and shoved his dirty clothes in the bag, he came out to find Dylan offering him a Diet Coke fresh from the vending machine. “I assumed you’d want some caffeine, and what passes for coffee here could strip the paint off a boat.”

“You know me too well.” He took the can and pretty much chugged it, not a big fan of Diet Coke, but the Demerol had left him with cotton mouth. He crumpled up the can and gave Dylan a kiss, as he more than deserved it. He slipped his arms around him and rested his forehead against his, and Dylan smiled. He really liked him.

Did he love him though? He honestly didn’t think so, but it wasn’t personal; he wasn’t sure he was capable of loving anyone after Paris. It was too much, it hurt too much to even contemplate. He wondered if this was what would inevitably break them up.

“Do you want to stop on the way and get something to eat, or just go home?” Dylan asked, sliding his hand down to the small of his back. “I make a mean huevos rancheros.”

“I’m so glad you’re not a vegan.”

“Are you kidding? And give up cake and ice cream? Please.”

“Since when do you have cake and ice cream, Mr. Six Pack Abs?”

“Hey, since I’ve been with you, I’ve slacked off. When you’re in a relationship, you let yourself go.”

Roan snickered. “Your idea of letting go is me being in the best shape of my life. Shut the fuck up.”

Dylan grinned sheepishly, showing glimmers of being a smart ass. “You know, you’d make a cute bear.”

Roan pushed him away in a joking manner. “Okay, that’s it. Give me the car keys, ‘cause you’re walking home.”

There was a brief knock at the door, and then Matt poked his head in. “Umm, could I … umm, come in?”

Roan shot a surprised look at Dylan. Had Matt turned into a crazed stalker? Dylan guessed what he was thinking, because he grimaced, and admitted quietly, “He was at the house when Diego called me.”

“Why?”

“’Cause I wanted to apologize,” Matt said, coming fully into the room. He was twisting his hands nervously before him and casting his eyes down, like a child who knows he did wrong and expects a severe punishment. “I mean … that scene at the store, that was fucked up. I didn’t want to leave things like that.”

Roan cast a sidelong glance at Dylan, just to see how he was reacting. He wasn’t, he was simply waiting. Matt must have told him about the store thing, but did Matt mention it was basically over him? He didn’t know if Matt would dare, or how Dylan would feel about it if it was brought up. “Things could have gone better.”

Dylan shouldered the gym bag, and said, “I’ll leave you two alone for a minute, shall I?”

“That’s not necessary,” Roan told him, sending “stay” messages with his eyes.

But in his serene way, he replied, “Oh, I think it is.” He leaned in and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek before walking out of the recovery room. Buddhist bastard.

After he left, Matt seemed to twitch nervously, as if he expected Roan to lose his temper and punch him. But Matt was quickly distracted by other things. “How’d you grow a beard so fast? And what did you do to your hair? Wasn’t it shorter -”

“Matt,” Roan interrupted, not wanting to have that conversation. “I’m sorry about the store thing, okay? But your boyfriend struck me as a dick.”

Matt shrugged. “He is, kinda. But he takes good care of me.”

What an interesting way to put it. “You don’t love him?”

He scoffed. “Fuck no. Sometimes I don’t even like him. But it’s better than being alone.”

“That’s the saddest thing I’ve ever heard. Matt, you could do better.”

Again he shrugged, uncomfortable with this entire conversation. “Maybe. But right now I don’t care; I’m good where I am.”

Roan shook his head in disgust. “You shouldn’t settle for crap. I don’t care how loaded this guy is.”

“Why d’ya think he’s loaded?”

“Isn’t he?”

Matt looked away, towards the wall where the window might be if one existed, and then he scrutinized the gurney where Roan had spent the night. He was looking at anything and everything but him. “He’s not poor.”

“So you’re the boy toy of some obnoxious sugar daddy? Where’s your self-respect?”

Matt snickered humorlessly. “I think I lost that when I first did meth.”

“I don’t accept that. You’re clean now, right? Stop living in the fucking basement.”

Finally Matt looked at him, and his eyes were shining with anger. “Why the fuck should I? All the guys I fall in love with don’t love me. So it’s better to get some stupid fuck to fall in love with me even though I think he’s a dickhead. At least then I’m the one in control.”

Roan knew he was referring to him as the man he fell in love with and frowned, not wanting to have this discussion yet again. He actually imagined Matt didn’t want to either, but he wanted to make his point. “Matt, I’m sorry I couldn’t be the man you wanted me to be.”

“Me too.”

“I am grateful for all you did for me while I was …” How did he put it? He didn’t know. “Mourning.”

He shrugged uncomfortably one more time, looking away again. It looked like the light of rage in his eyes was giving way slowly to tears. “I did that for me, not for you. I thought being a private detective would be a cool thing, y’know?”

“It’s dull as shit, enlivened with a few moments of sheer terror.”

“Yeah, I know. I guess I wasn’t cut out for it.”

“You still working for that spa?”

Matt nodded, rubbing his eyes and wiping out any tears before they could fall. “Yeah. It’s funny how many women hit on me. I get phone numbers from my clients all the time, and I think, what, aren’t I obviously gay enough? Do I need to pronounce my lisp more, perhaps skip, start calling everyone girlfriend? Maybe I should just paint my nails.”

“Then they’d think you’re emo.”

“Oh, yeah. Fuck.” He finally looked at him, but very briefly, his eyes still scudding around the room like they were desperate for escape. “Toby - Dylan - seems nice.”

“He is.”

“I didn’t want him to be.” He smirked sheepishly at the idea. “It’d be easier if I hated his fucking guts, y’know?”

“Yeah, I understand.” And he did too, which was the bizarre thing. But even though they were never involved, he got the odd feeling Matt considered him an ex, and therefore things shook out that way accordingly.

Dylan knocked on the door and peeked in. “The nurses keep giving me evil looks. I think it’s time to go.”

Roan nodded, and even Matt looked grateful for the interruption. “Is it me, or are they very mean at this hospital?”

“No, it’s just due to me,” Roan admitted. “They’re tired of all the chaos I drag in my wake.”

“You can’t be a trailblazer without causing some chaos,” Dylan said philosophically.

Matt looked at him in open confusion. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

Roan couldn’t have put it better himself.

****

He and Dylan had been home for barely ten minutes when Randi called him. She’d been poring over the Winters’ files - she even took a day off sick to do it - and she found what he needed. So he told her he’d meet her at the office in an hour - there was no way he was missing the huevos rancheros. They were quite excellent, but Roan barely had time to properly shower and change afterwards. Shaving would have to wait until later.

Roan arrived at his office to find Fiona and Randi talking, sharing cups of coffee while Randi admired the riding crop Fiona had brought into the office. Randi looked at him and said, with genuine enthusiasm, “You now have the second best assistant ever.”

“Damn right,” Fiona agreed, taking the riding crop back and snapping it on the edge of the desk. Roan assumed that Randi had told her about Paris, who was presumably the “first best” assistant. But then Randi had loved him too, in her own way. “And by the way, congrats on nailing that safe word ignoring motherfucker. I called Velvet as soon as I heard, and she was so relieved.”

“It is a relief to get the bastards off the street,” he admitted, glad no one had mentioned the bruises on his face or the cast. The nice thing about women was sometimes they had more tact. (Well, Randi usually didn’t, but she was probably on her best behavior for Fiona.)

He ushered Randi into his private office, and she showed him what she had discovered. She was saying words in English and using what sounded like complete sentences, but as soon as she mentioned math, he automatically tuned out. He tried his best to tune back in, though.

The basics: yes, Eli’s brother and the family lawyer had been embezzling money from his share of his parents’ estate for some time, in ways small and sneaky, ways that a “civilian” (in Randi speak, a non-accountant) probably wouldn’t notice. They also concocted a phony tax and slapped it on there, but probably overstepped their bounds when they invented two. She was sure if the IRS heard about this, they’d be curious, and equally greedy. She’d put together a seven page print out detailing every instance of fraud and on what date. It was perfect fodder for a lawsuit. He cut Randi a check for her services, and put in a call to Eli. He got his machine, so he left a vague message that only Eli would understand, indicating he’d got what he wanted and he could come pick it up.

Once Randi left, he finally got to checking his email, and found that some of his state office contacts got back to him. It looked like Zoë Williams ended up much like him - she got passed from foster home to foster home, never settling for long in one place, unless you counted state group homes. He’d gotten to her teen years when Fiona knocked on the door and came in, asking what he wanted for lunch.

He looked at the clock on his computer - it was barely past eleven. “Isn’t it early for lunch?”

She shrugged. Today she was wearing jeans, biker books, a blue leather jacket, and a very old Evil Dead t-shirt, with the cracked image of a bloodied Bruce Campbell holding a chainsaw over his head. Her hair was back in a ponytail again, but it was looser than when she was “Bellatrix”, and she wasn’t wearing her extensions either. She didn’t look like a secretary more than she looked like a bouncer, and he actually found that appealing. “Yeah, but I have no idea where anything is around here, so I figured I needed to factor in finding the place, and possibly getting lost.”

“There’s a pizza place down the street, along with a deli. There’s a Chinese place a couple blocks away. They all deliver.”

She looked at him expectantly. “You couldn’t have told me that to begin with? Maybe left a Post-It?”

“Check the top drawer of your desk. The menus should be there.”

“Oh.” She paused, giving him a slightly reproving frown. “Don’t I feel like a dumbass.”

“It’s your second day on the job. You’re free to make mistakes for the first two weeks. Then I start worrying about your exposure to lead paint.”

Before she could give him a smart ass reply, the phone on Fiona’s desk rang. She sighed and rolled her eyes, as if she’d been answering the phone all day, and went to answer it. After she did, she pressed the “hold” button, and asked, “Are you in for a woman calling herself Chief Matthews?”

That made him sink down lower in his chair. Oh shit. Was she going to chew him out for the Hakes collar? Oy gevalt, he really wasn’t in the mood for this. “Yeah, I guess so,” he said, giving in to a minor sense of defeat. As Fiona transferred the call to his phone, he got up and closed the door, as he didn’t want her to hear any part of him getting chewed out. And to think, if he was smart, he’d have taken the day off, and could have been home in bed with Dylan right now. But if he was smart, would he be living his life? He’d be somebody else entirely.

He sat back behind his desk, took a deep breath, then picked up the receiver. “If I apologized now, could we skip the lecture?”

Chief Julia Matthews paused before she even replied. He heard her suddenly still a breath. “What? Oh … no, Roan, I’m not calling to lecture you. Although I suppose I should.”

“He got that Explorer from the impound lot, didn’t he?”

“Hakes? It seems he did. But I need remind you you’re a civilian?”

“I can still perform citizen arrests. I even have my own handcuffs.”

“That’s too much information, Roan.”

“I meant police standard ones. Jeeze, you have a filthy mind.”

She made an amused noise as she audibly sipped her coffee, but didn’t actually laugh. That told him there was some very serious shit going down. Maybe she was going to ask him to turn himself in. “Can I be brutally honest, Roan?”

“Please.”

“We’re fucked,” she said, and it was really shocking, because Matthews almost never cursed, and he couldn’t remember when she ever dropped the F bomb. “It didn’t happen in time to hit the morning papers, but it’ll be on the evening news. Hakes is bad enough; this will be so much worse. Do you remember Chief Riley Goodman?”

Roan had to think about that for a moment. “That was way before my time.”

“But you know who he is.” It wasn’t actually a question.

“Yeah. He used to run the cop shop, and he was part of that PR thing with schools, wasn’t he? That whole outreach thing was his baby.”

She sighed like a deflating balloon, the air gushing out of her in a rush. “Yes. A woman - his niece, in fact - came in and leveled some charges against him. We checked it out … and oh my god, Roan, it’s a nightmare. He’s a serial child molester.”

Roan was so surprised by that he almost fell out of his chair. “What?”

“He had a room full of boxes and boxes of tapes, and had some converted to digital files on his computer. He abused his niece and two other children for certain, and we’re not quite sure how many others yet. But some of these tapes go back twenty five years.”

It wasn’t hard to do the math. “When he was on the force. When he was going to elementary schools as part of the outreach program. Oh holy shit.”

She groaned as if in pain. “Could this fucker have gotten away with it without some complicity somewhere? Did someone know and help him cover it up? You’d think there must have been.”

“He was a police chief. He could have simply frightened all his victims into submission.”

“Perhaps. No, probably, but I’m just sitting here getting angry and disgusted in turn.” He heard a thud, which he assumed was her hitting her fist on her desk. “If I didn’t think it would look bad, I’d quit, you know? I’d turn in my badge now.”

“You can’t quit. You’re a good cop. Don’t let some asshole fill your seat.”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

There was a long, drawn out pause, which made Roan wonder why she had called him. “Is there some way I can help?”

“Yes. That’s why I called you. This is going to be a nightmare. What little community trust we have will be gone. One of our active cops turns out to be a sadist who enjoys beating young gay men half to death, and a generally respected former Chief turns out to have been a child molester. Along with the infected woman who’s decided to sue us for unlawful imprisonment, things just couldn’t be more shitty. I wouldn’t blame anyone for thinking we’re corrupt and incompetent. That’s why I want to try and get ahead of this disaster as much as I can. We need to start building new bridges now with the community.”

“Wow, those PR classes are paying off.”

“Be serious, Roan.”

“I was. Look, Chief, I’d like to help, but I don’t see what I can do.”

He pinned down his wrists and roared in his face as he felt his muscles spasming, twisting under his skin like angry snakes, the taste of blood in his mouth making him both enraged and hungry. The roar seemed to rip through him, up his throat with a force that tore tissue and stretched muscles, and blood dribbled out his mouth and down his chin. The guy was already wincing from the volume, trying to twist and squirm away, but Roan had the steroid monster nailed to the pavement like a butterfly on a mounting board, knees bracing his broad chest, hands pressing his wrists down so hard he probably should have been surprised they hadn’t broken yet.

(And wasn’t one of his own hands broken? It was odd, but he was so overload on pain right now he couldn’t feel any of it - the system was short circuiting and nothing was getting through.)

Drops of his own blood spattered down on the man’s face, and he made a noise of disgust. “You fucking freak! What the hell is your -” he didn’t finish the sentence. He opened his eyes and just stared at him, his eyes wide, pupils contracting with fear, and Roan couldn’t even imagine what he was looking at. All he knew was he wanted to tear this man’s throat out with his teeth, dismember him, rip his limbs out and gut him like the fucking beast he was, spread him out for the vultures to pick clean -

“Roan!” a voice shouted, briefly distracting him. He looked towards the noise, and saw a familiar looking guy standing maybe fifty feet away. There was another guy beside him, less familiar looking (although he smelled enticingly like blood), and as Roan looked at them, the smaller man actually jumped and ducked behind the larger one, the sharp smell of fear a further enticement.

“Roan,” the bigger man said. “The cops are coming. Calm down. Don’t let them … pull yourself together.”

He snarled at them, sure the bigger guy was making sense, but the words didn’t seem right somehow. They sounded funny, or maybe he wasn’t hearing them right. They meant something, right?

“Get him the fuck off me!” the man beneath him screamed, partially enraged, but mostly just scared in a wonderfully pungent way. “He’s a fucking monster!”

“Shut the fuck up!” the big man snapped, then dropped his voice. “Roan … c’mon man, I don’t know how to talk you down …”

“What, um, what’s wrong with him?” the smaller man asked the bigger one, quietly, but Roan heard it.

“He’s infected.”

“Umm … yeah … infections don’t work like that -”

“His does. Now be quiet.”

Again, this probably all meant something, but right now he couldn’t understand it. The sound of his own breathing was like bellows, the growling a non-stop counterpoint that rumbled through his head like the sound of thunder. His muscles felt like coiled springs with electricity coursing through them, sparks flying off the surface and burning his blood. He needed to sink his teeth into something, dig his fingers in warm flesh -

“Paris,” the big guy said suddenly. “Roan, what would Paris think of this?”

The name struck sparks in him, even though he didn’t recognize it at first. But it meant something that left him feeling almost dizzy. His mind started making connections, and things started making sense. Suddenly he realized he had gone way too far; he’d let his rage get too far ahead of him. His jaw ached terribly, nearly as much as his broken hand, and his head was throbbing like an infected boil on the verge of bursting. Even his eyes burned, like the sockets were full of salt.

He then realized his blood was dripping onto the prick cops’ face, where he had broken skin thanks to his broken nose. Oh shit.

Roan released the guys’ wrists, but put his good hand on his forehead instead, pressing down with all his weight. “Move and I’ll rip your fucking arm off,” he growled, his voice gravelly with damage and the problem of trying to speak with vocal chords that had started changing into something else.

“Roan - “ Holden began, taking a step forward.

“Shut up,” he snapped, closing his eyes and trying to will back the molten anger that threatened to burst the confines of his fragile skull and spill out all over. The lion didn’t want to go back in its cage; it wanted to tear and rip and bathe in blood and flesh. The real problem was how tempting that thought was. He concentrated on the pain, which was jagged and hot and filled his body like shattered glass. If his bones were all broken, he wouldn’t be surprised.

“You’re a fucking freak,” the cop began, using anger to cover the fear that Roan could still smell, as sharp as adrenaline and vinegar. “They should lock you up and throw away the key. You’d probably enjoy that, queer boy -”

Roan grabbed his throat with his broken hand, almost relishing the way his bones ground together beneath the thin layer of skin. “One more word, and I gut you like a trout,” he grated through gritted teeth. He could feel the pain of his fangs in his mouth still, the blood still oozing from his gums, metallic and salty.

He must have believed him, because he shut up.

The more the adrenaline and the lion faded, the more he ached; the pain filled him relentlessly, his head pounding as bad as any migraine he’d ever had. He wasn’t sure he could move; it hurt to breathe. He wished shape shifting was as easy as it looked in Terminator II.

He heard the hiss of tires against asphalt, and Holden said, “They’re here,” as headlights burned through the paper thin skin of his eyelids, stabbing deeply into his brain like knives. He heard a car door slam, and shortly afterwards heard Murphy exclaim, “Jesus fuck, Roan! What happened to you?”

He opened his eyes and the light made his eyes tear up as he looked up at her. “Got a little angry,” he admitted, really not feeling well at all.

He really wasn’t surprised that she barked at someone to radio in for an ambulance. He bet he looked almost as ugly as he felt.

****

Demerol was one of the greatest drugs in the world.

They took the cop - whose name was Russell Hakes - to the emergency room along with him, although only Roan got the ride in the ambulance. Hakes was checked out at the scene by EMTs, and then taken to the hospital in a patrol car, cuffed and everything. Along with Murphy had been Wilson and Lozano, who actually had the hustler beater case in the first place.

Hakes it turned out was a traffic cop, one who got busted down because he got in a fight with another cop, so you knew he was top drawer material. But now he was pretty fucked. Not only was Roan happy to press assault charges against him, so was Kai, who knew he wouldn’t be arrested retroactively for admitting he was a prostitute. Kai also decided to make it worse for Hakes by claiming he tried to rape him, which made the homophobic dickhead fly into a screaming rage that required Ativan sedation and probably added charges to his already interesting charge sheet (he destroyed some equipment in the emergency room and smacked a nurse and an orderly; he also threatened to murder the “little faggot” loud enough that everyone in the waiting room and down in the MRI wing could hear him). At this, Kai only grinned in a really disturbing way and turned towards the wall to laugh. When a female cop came to check on him, he suddenly started openly sobbing. It was creepy how quick he was able to turn it on, but child abuse victims were often fantastic actors - they had to pretend to be whatever their abuser wanted them to be so they would get hurt less. Kai was probably loving having some power over someone else for once.

The puzzled EMTs - whom he didn’t know (thankfully) - handed him over to one of the ER doctors on call, which happened to be Doctor Singh. He knew her in a vague sort of way, having encountered her several times over the years. She had a matronly figure but an attractive face, round and dusky, with large dark eyes and black hair always pulled tightly back in the most microscopic ponytail he had ever seen on anyone this side of a ‘90’s record company executive. She gave him a weary look, and said, “What exactly happened, Roan? Clearly you have some contusions and a broken hand, but that doesn’t explain the blood that was on your shirt or your pain response.”

Luckily it was just her beside his gurney, so he told her quietly, “Look … and I know this is gonna sound crazy, but … I partially transformed. The blood’s from my jaw changing and my teeth growing out. You may want to make sure Hakes is tested, because he has a broken nose and I don’t know if my blood splashed on the wound or not.”

Her already weary expression seemed to grow even more tired; it was like she was going to collapse to the floor, but she didn’t. “Partially transformed?” she repeated, with the blasé’ disbelief of an ER doc who has heard and seen absolutely everything at least twice, sometimes on the same shift. She seemed to consider and discard about a half dozen responses or questions, then turned away and barked at a nearby nurse to give him a shot of Demerol. The nurse questioned the dosage she ordered, but Singh shut down the argument with, “He’s an infected. He can take it.”

When the nurse came over to give him a shot, she looked down at him like he was a bit of potentially perilous fungi. The orderlies who moved his gurney to a recovery room off the ER at least joked with him about being an action hero. A big guy with a white boy ‘fro who partially resembled a thinner Seth Rogan in scrubs cracked, “Man, you took down a cop. The other cops are gonna love you even more now. Hope you kept your Kevlar.” He was joking, but there was a sad kernel of truth in it.

Usually the recovery rooms had a couple of patients in it, but he was all alone, which was kind of nice. Either it was a slow night for the ER, or Singh had given orders that he was to be put in one all by himself. Because he partially transformed? Because hiding him was the best thing for him now? Hard to say really, especially since the Demerol was taking hold and slowly carrying him away on a wave of tidal warmth, to a place where the pain was obliterated under a calming layer of narcotics, and he didn’t give a flying fuck about anything.

He was sort of asleep and sort of not, a strange drug induced state that he was reasonably familiar with. He knew he was asleep, which actually meant he wasn’t asleep. The gurney was far from comfortable, he could feel it beneath him like an ironing board, and yet it really wasn’t all that bad. Of course it had the smell of all hospitals everywhere - disinfectant and blood and sickness and vomit and piss and something totally unidentifiable, maybe soap mixed with flop sweat - but pumped full of Demerol, it was surprising how acceptable it was. Or maybe not. Hospitals still freaked him out terribly, but there was no way to feel freaked out on Demerol; it was impossible to feel anything but good and sleepy on Demerol. He wondered if he could get Singh to give him a sample to take home.

He didn’t know when he ceased being alone. He was laying on the gurney, sure he was asleep and yet sure he was awake at the very same time, when Paris slipped his arms around him and kissed him softly on the neck, murmuring, “We have to stop meeting like this.”

He was laying on his side, facing a wall painted a pale blue that he imagined someone thought would be soothing to patients, but it reminded Roan of cyanosis, someone not so much dead as moldering, their flesh no longer a shade considered remotely human. But it didn’t really seem morbid. He could feel the heat and weight of Paris against his back, feel his body conforming to his, and it felt so good he would have cried if not for the drugs in his system. “You always say the corniest things.”

“Hey, I have no shame. I thought we covered that.”

“I miss you so fucking much.”

“I know.” One of Paris’s hands cradled Roan’s broken hand in his own, the cast so fresh he was surprised he wasn’t leaving prints in the plaster. “You could heal this. Why aren’t you?”

“Evidence. Holden lived up to his Fox nickname and concocted this surprisingly plausible story about how I intervened to save Kai from an assault, and was assaulted by Hakes in turn until I overpowered him. Hakes supposedly threw me into the car door so hard it shattered the passenger window, and when I was on the ground he stamped on my hand and broke it. The breaks in the bones, according to the x-rays, could be consistent with that. They also couldn’t be; really there’s no way to say one hundred percent. Hakes denies this series of events, of course, but everybody thinks he’s fucking asshole right now and no one cares. They’re testing Hakes right now to see if matches up with the little physical evidence they found on Michael Gilpin. I’m sure it’ll match. Hakes had some sort of psychotic break. He never should have joined the force.”

“How much time will he get for all of this?”

“That’s the bitch of it. Assuming a plea bargain and the dropping or downgrading of some charges, probably a year or two. But at least he’ll be off the force, and the guys on the street will know who he is. He’ll also be banned from the S & M clubs for life, as no one likes a guy who ignores the safe word.”

Paris rested his head against his, he could feel it, and covered his broken hand with one of his big, warm hands. This wasn’t real and he knew it; Paris wasn’t actually here and talking to him. But he still felt better having him here with him, which is probably why his brain coughed up this hallucination. Your own mind was actually more than happy to placate you when things started to go totally fucking wrong. “You know why I’m here,” Paris said.

To make him feel better, to make him feel less alone in this special level of hell known as a hospital … but no, those weren’t the real answers. “I need you back because I can’t control it,” he admitted. “You always understood it better than I did. I thought I could use it, you know. If I’m a total fucking freak, then there must be some way of using it to my advantage. But I can’t control it as well as I thought. I almost … I was going to kill him. I was going to let the lion out and let him just do what natural selection should have done to him before we got to this point. I was just going to rip his throat out and be done with it.”

“You don’t need me to control it. I didn’t understand it at all. I understood you. You just admitted the whole problem, Roan. Listen to yourself.”

“Do I have to? I’m an asshole.”

Paris slapped him on the shoulder, just hard enough to get his point across. “Knock that off. The problem was you wanted it to happen; you wanted the lion to come out. You’re the stronger one; you only totally lose control when you allow yourself to do so. The only reason you almost lost control tonight is because you wanted to.”

Roan closed his eyes and sighed, sure that was probably the truth. How could it not be? His subconscious was talking to him in the guise of Paris, a man he wouldn’t fail to listen to. “I’m crazy, aren’t I?” There was a certain liberation in crazy, a freedom from responsibility. No one expected much out of the crazy.

“No. You just need to start talking and keep talking. Stop bottling up things until they burst. I mean, taciturn is kind of sexy, but then it gets annoying.”

“That’s me in a nutshell.”

“You are so lucky I can’t punch you.”

“The pain is supposed to fade, right? Why isn’t it? I still miss you so much I can barely stand it. I keep expecting to see you every time I open the office door.”

Paris wrapped his arms around him and gave him a squeeze that he could almost feel. “Oh sweetie, it doesn’t fade. No one should know better than an infected that pain doesn’t ever really fade - you just get used to it.”

He knew that was probably true, but he didn’t want wisdom right now - he wanted to be miserable, or as miserable as Demerol would allow him to be. Which wasn’t actually, come to think of it.

Roan was vaguely aware of noises in the real world, and he resented them, because it meant he’d have to pay attention to them, and Paris would go away. But just acknowledging the existence of a real world had made Paris go away, although the ghost of his warmth lingered. Roan held on to it as long as he could before he was forced to open his eyes. Holden was in the room, near him but not so near that he could reach out and touch him. “Are you okay?” he asked.

Roan thought that was a funny question. No, he was not okay; he had never been okay. He had been born not okay. “I ‘m completely stoned.”

“Yeah, you look it.” He gave him a very serious look, and then said, almost kindly, “You are the scariest fucking dude I have ever met.”