16 – Idaho

Somehow Holden hadn’t imagined he’d be spending the afternoon laying in bed with a hockey player, smoking a joint and watching a Mythbusters marathon, but things had been so weird lately, in retrospect it was inevitable.

The Falcons didn’t have a game until Thursday night, which was good timing, as it allowed Grey to fly home for the wedding of “brother number two” (Grey was one of several, which may have explained a lot), and it meant Scott had their apartment all to himself. He invited Holden over for lunch – lunch! Seriously!- and it was such an odd thing that Holden agreed, just to see what he had in mind.

As it turned out, Scott really meant lunch. He made them grilled ham and cheese sandwiches with apple (he said a girlfriend’s mother once taught him to add apple slices to a ham and cheese, and he really liked it), with a side of rather intense salt and vinegar chips, and a decent Canadian beer. He told him, in all sincerity, “You’re fucking adorable.” Scott suspected he was being sarcastic, but no, he was serious – he made him lunch. No one made a prostitute lunch, certainly not one as homely and homey as this one. It actually was quite good; he made a mean ham and cheese.

It was good, much to his surprise, and they talked about everything but what was or wasn’t going on between them. Sure, they had sex, but they didn’t talk about it beforehand.

Afterwards, neither of them were all that tired, so Scott pulled out a spliff from his nightstand and they watched TV, with Scott finding a Mythbusters marathon, which they both seemed to agree was acceptable to watch. When he asked if he wasn’t worried about the pot showing up in a drug test, Scott smirked, and said, “It’s not a performance enhancing drug.” He then added they hadn’t him piss in a cup for a long time, and it just wasn’t a priority.

They were laying side by side, naked on his bed, just the sheet haphazardly pulled up, mainly to avoid any possible ash or ember somehow finding a tender spot. Holden took a toke, not actually sure why, but the way it hit him he figured it was B.C. bud. “You toke a lot?” Holden asked, exhaling a cloud of smoke and handing the joint back. They were shoulder to shoulder, thigh to thigh.

He shook his head. “Makes me break my diet too much. I just save it for special occasions.”

“What’s the special occasion here?”

“No game for a while, and my bruise hurts.”

Ah. Scott had a big purplish-black splotch on the back and side of his right shoulder, which apparently came from being checked into a stanchion during his last game. It looked super ugly and painful, but also oddly endearing.

Much like Scott’s room. It was kind of small, but relatively neat and austerely appointed, with a queen sized bed on a plain metal bed frame, a dresser that looked like a Goodwill special, a bookcase/media rack that looked Ikea (save for the hockey pucks used as bookends), and gauzy but opaque curtains on the one window that let in filtered sunlight. The television was one of those smaller ones that could double as a computer monitor, and sat on the low dresser, besides a smattering of loose change and condoms from various clubs. On the screen, the Mythbusters guys were shooting guns into a swimming pool.

“I broke up with my girlfriend,” he said, resting the joint in an ashtray shaped like a bear’s head that sat on his nightstand. The ashtray had something about Saskatchewan painted on it, so he assumed it was Canadian kitsch.

“Really? Why?”

He shrugged his bruised shoulder and shook his head, sending out contradictory messages. “I just realized that we didn’t have much in common, and didn’t even like each other that much. The sex was fun, but when we had to talk we could hardly stand each other. I think I knew last month I had to break it off before it went on too long, but I just never got around to it. I coast if allowed to, I’m kinda lazy.”

“Says the guy who told me he spent two hours running on a treadmill this morning.”

“That’s just endurance training. It’s part of my job. If I coulda gotten out of it, I would have.”

Holden didn’t know if he believed that or not. It was possible that Scott was just exhausted by his own training regimen, so when he had no one forcing him to do it, he wouldn’t. That wasn’t lazy, that was normal. But was he going to tell him that? Nah.

Scott picked up the joint, took a drag, and offered it to him again. He took it, but he only took a small toke before handing it back. He didn’t need much to feel stoned. Actually, just being in his little bedroom was enough to make him feel unhinged from reality. What was he doing here? “What do we have to talk about? You talk hockey, I talk hooking, but not the kind done with sticks.”

He chuckled as he put the joint aside. “Are you kiddin’ me? We’re spending the afternoon doin’ nothing but getting stoned and watchin’ Mythbusters. I think I love you.”

That made him laugh. “Girlfriend wasn’t interested, huh?”

“No. She wanted to go to nice places and be seen, and I told her I’m not good at that kinda shit, I’m just a suburban asshole from Burnaby, nice to me is any place where you don’t hafta eat food out of a bag. I mean, I’m not a caveman, but I’ve never gotten fancy restaurants. Why would you pay a hundred bucks for a steak the size of your thumb? Or worse yet, an eighty dollar salad. Fuck me, I hate paying five dollars for a bowl of lettuce, and I hafta eat that shit half the time.” After a pause, he said, “I’m gettin’ hungry. You want anything?”

“You could get me a drink.”

“Beer?”

He shook his head. “Nah. Something non-alcoholic, I don’t care what.” He was probably stoned enough as it was. He felt oddly warm and fuzzy towards Scott, which was a huge warning sign.

Scott got out of bed and walked naked out of the room, and Holden enjoyed the view. He was one of those guys that looked so good naked it probably should have been illegal for him to wear clothes.

What the fuck was he doing here?! Oh sure, curiosity made him show up, but he should get the fuck out of here as soon as possible. He thought Roan was falling apart? He was falling apart. He was giving this guy freebies, and he could probably afford him. Since when did he ever have sex for free? The stress was getting to him.

Scott came back with a quart of ice cream and a bottle of Vitamin Water. He gave him the bottle and sat back down on his side of the bed with the ice cream, which was vanilla fudge swirl. “Did anything blow up?” He was referring to the show, where stuff always blew up.

“Not yet.”

As soon as Scott tossed the lid aside and sunk a spoon into the ice cream, he realized it looked good. After Scott buried his spoon in the carton, he handed him a spoon.

“Figured you’d want one anyways.”

“Thanks.”

As soon as they settled the quart between them and each took a spoonful – it was possibly the best ice cream he’d ever had, confirming he was stoned – Scott asked, “How’s Roan?”

“As well as can be expected, as far as I know.” He checked in on Dylan, but he got the sense that Dylan really didn’t want anything to do with him, so he was giving him some space. All he knew right now was Roan was alive, and that was all that mattered. At first, he thought maybe he blamed him for Roan’s condition, but now he wondered if it was just the fact that Dylan knew Roan was keeping him out of a chunk of his life. That had to be a bummer, even if Roan was doing it with the best of intentions.

“I heard it was bad.” Scott didn’t want to appear to be fishing for info, but he was. Scott was seriously into Roan, wasn’t he? Well, with his monstrous pheromone load, every guy who wasn’t a hundred percent straight and every woman who wasn’t a hundred percent gay probably went for him. He also had the lure of the exotic, which was inexplicable in a red haired white guy, but made more sense if you knew he was probably the planet’s only genuine shape shifter. (Never mind that he just had the one shape he could shift into; it counted.)

“It wasn’t pretty. But he’ll live. What doesn’t kill him leaves him pissed off.”

“I thought the cliché was stronger.”

“It is, but with him, it’s pretty much the same thing.”

“I wouldn’t like him when he’s angry?” he replied, with a goofy grin.

“No, nobody does. And he’s not even green or in purple pants. It feels like a cheat somehow.”

He snorted a stoned kind of laugh, before filling his mouth with more ice cream. It wasn’t until the show went to commercial that Scott asked, “You slept with him?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“He’s a serial monogamist, and he’s always with some guy. He just won’t cheat.”

“Why the hell not? He is a man, right?”

This made Holden snicker, and he wasn’t sure why. Probably the pot, although Holden had thought something similar before. “Roan’s always been weird like that. Maybe all the cheating straight people he’s forced to tail got to him.”

“See, I think I’d enjoy the show.”

“Eh, no. Even if you do catch ‘em in the act, imagine flabby white people who should probably never be naked making a really bad sex tape.”

“Eww.”

“See? If Roan hadn’t been gay before, that probably would have sent him over the edge.”

Scott briefly rubbed his leg against his, and Holden wasn’t sure if it was just an accidental gesture or a deliberate one. He decided to ignore it, just in case.

They watched the show, consuming about half the quart, before Scott asked, “So you don’t have a boyfriend now?”

“Nope. Why have sex for free when I get paid for it? That’s be like a plumber going around an apartment building unclogging drains as a hobby.”

The look Scott gave him was half amused, half incredulous. It probably struck him as unbelievably weird, which was fair enough. He didn’t expect civilians to understand. Up this close to Scott, he could see the stubble starting to come in on his face, like little iron filings beneath his skin, and for a moment he felt like touching his face to see if they really were that hard. He managed to squash the urge. “You’ve never had a boyfriend? C’mon.”

“Oh, I’ve had one. Two, actually, but that was in high school.”

“Ah. So that’s where you got burned?”

“I never got burned,” he snapped, way too defensive. Scott’s eerie blue eyes lit up at that, behind their pot glaze, because he knew he’d caught him. Holden rolled his eyes, and admitted, “Okay, neither break up was enjoyable.”

“The guy on the swim team?”

He shook his head. “He dumped me for a club kid, but no, that wasn’t the worst. After that, I got involved with another jock, Ryan, on the football team. He was even more closeted than I was, he had some manliness issues, and then he started doing ‘roids to gain mass. Something happened, I’m not sure what, but he was afraid some of his teammates might be suspicious he was gay, so instead he told them he knew I was gay and they jumped me one day after baseball practice.”

“Jumped you?”

“Beat the shit out of me, calling me faggot and fudge packer and every gay slur you can find written on the internet. Ryan made sure to break my jaw first, so I couldn’t rat him out as a fellow butt pirate.”

Scott looked as horrified as he could with a good buzz on, but there was also something stirring behind his eyes, that in game look of his, one that spoke of an incredible intensity and an urge and ability to kill. “What the fuck did you do?”

“Once I was released from the hospital? Not much. My father made sure I didn’t press any charges, because the boys were all from good homes, and he knew I’d pissed them off somehow. So as soon as my jaw was unwired, I was just sick of all the bullshit, you know? The lies and hypocrisy. I told my parents I was gay, and that was the end of that. I was out on my ass. But I survived, ‘cause I discovered that’s what I do best.”

“What’s his name?”

“Whose?”

“The guy or your dad’s. Both.”

Holden smirked. “You gonna go kick their asses?”

In spite of the pot glaze, something glittered in his beautiful eyes, tiny shards of broken glass. You didn’t see it a lot, but Holden suspected that while Scott was slow to anger, when he finally lost his temper, it was a horrific explosion. “Somethin’ like that.”

“If I wanted to kick their asses, I would. But my dad’s a pathetic piece of shit, not worth my time or yours. And as for Ryan, he doesn’t live in the state anymore, or at least I don’t think he does. He went to Montana or Wyoming – I can’t remember which, I always get those two states mixed up – on a partial football scholarship, and within two months he blew out his knee, I mean big time. He lost his scholarship and dropped out of college, but I have no idea what happened to him after that. I don’t much care either. I’m just glad the fucker never got to play football for anybody. By the way, it’s official you know, I hate all you fucking jocks.”

“Does that include you?”

“I’m not a jock anymore. Even when I was one, I wasn’t much of one. I mean, how much of an athlete is a pitcher? I just had to throw shit; no one ever expected me to hit homers.”

“Did you?”

“What, hit a homer? Maybe once, but for the most part I was lucky to get a double.”

“So you a Mariners fan?”

“Fuck no. As soon as I stopped playing baseball I never saw a game again. In fact, I used to think watching a full game was kinda boring; it was only good to play. Most sports are that way.”

Scott’s smirk was oddly knowing. “Even my games?”

“I haven’t seen that many, I can’t judge.”

“Ooh, so cold.” As if to reinforce the point, Scott trailed his hand along his chest, and it was cold from the ice cream container. He shivered a bit, even as he gently pushed his hand away.

“So what’s your deal? Any boyfriends?”

“Beyond Spencer, that Mormon lacrosse guy I told you about, I’ve never dated men. Women I date; men are just good for fucking.”

“Wow, what did Spencer do to you?”

Scott shrugged, glancing at the TV screen. “It wasn’t Spencer’s fault really, although that was pretty intense. I thought it would be okay since we were both interested in staying in the closet, but he had a shit ton of issues, and it turned out he was a real basket case. I mean, he thought he was bad and evil and all that shit, just ‘cause he liked guys, right? He wasn’t bi like me, he was full on gay, and some nights I found myself trying to convince him that was cool, there was nothing wrong with being gay, for, like, hours, and he was still messed up about it. I had to break up with him ‘cause I just couldn’t take it, you know? I had issues, but not like him. He took it really hard … harder than I thought he would. I shoulda known, considerin’ how messed up he was.”

“What happened?”

He had another teaspoon of ice cream, delaying an answer. “He tried to kill himself, ended up in the hospital.”

“He lived?”

“Yeah. But I never saw him again. I tried, but … he didn’t wanna see me.” He let out a long exhale that could have been a sigh if he wasn’t so wasted. “And once I started getting into semi-professional hockey, it just seemed easier to have anonymous hook ups once in a while, with guys who didn’t know me or my name, and have relationships with women. It was easier.”

“And better for your career.” He wasn’t trying to sound bitchy, but he sort of did.

Scott either didn’t notice or didn’t care. “Yeah. But as much as I think I’d like to have a girlfriend and a boyfriend at the same time, having one relationship is hard enough. I don’t know how anyone juggles two. It seems exhausting.”

“My clients manage okay, but I guess I’m not exactly the traditional boyfriend. I don’t demand they remember my birthday or take out the garbage.”

“When is your birthday?”

“Why?”

“I’m curious.”

Why would he tell him that? But why had he told him anything so far? The pot was making him chatty. “November fourteenth. What’s yours?”

“January twenty eighth.”

“Ah, I missed it.”

“Nothin’ to miss. I had a black eye from getting a stick in the face, so I just got wasted with the guys. They took me to a strip club, but I found it weirdly depressing.”

“They are weirdly depressing, but usually you have to be sober to notice.”

They finished the joint and then the ice cream, falling silent as they watched the show with half hearted, stoned attention. In spite of trying to tamp it down, Holden yawned and rubbed his eyes. “Damn it, I need to get going.”

“On what?”

“I’m finishing an open case for Roan’s. I caught a break, something happened down near the Marriott, and I know a lot of people there.”

“So you’re a detective too.”

“No, I just play one on TV. I don’t have a license, which I know Roan wants me to get. Maybe sometime.” He didn’t add that he only intended to get one if Roan died, and he had no idea why he’d decided that. A tribute to Roan? He wouldn’t be around to enjoy it, he would be beyond caring, so why the sentimental gesture? But that was just it – it was pure sentiment and nothing more. Still, he supposed he owned Roan for something, even if it was just for all the fun and unwelcome glimpses into his own humanity.

“So am I a hobby?”

Maybe it was the drugs, but he really didn’t understand the question. “Huh?”

“You said having sex for free was like a plumber unclogging drains for a hobby. So am I a hobby, or can I expect a bill in the mail?”

Oh yeah, he had said that, hadn’t he? His brain felt fuzzy, and he really wanted a nap. He probably ought to take a nap before he headed out anyways. “I’ve told you, if I don’t ask for the money in advance, I’m screwed. You’re not getting a bill.”

“Okay, so then … I am a hobby?”

“No.” He paused for a long time, trying to get his sluggish synapses to fire. “I don’t know what you are.” That was true, but didn’t he have his suspicions?

Holden was disappointed in himself, because he knew something was happening to him. He used to go through a bottle of gin maybe once a month or every two months, and now he was replacing it almost every week. He wasn’t an alcoholic, but he knew he was on the downward slide. And maybe he was just a little bit … lonely. Oh, he cringed to think of it, he valued his privacy and alone time, which you never got on the street, but … fuck, maybe it was a symptom of getting older. Sometimes he hated being alone, and gin made him forget, or at least not care. Was he really that pathetic? Oh, probably. It was embarrassing, but some people had it a lot worse.

If he had to theorize how he and Scott ended up here right now, lust would be his first bet, and loneliness would be the second. Oh sure, Scott had a girlfriend, but he could never be completely honest with her, or with anyone else. Lying all the time had the side effect of leaving you lonely. Maybe that was his problem too.

Only too aware of the painful silence between them, Holden added, “You’re not my boyfriend. I don’t want a boyfriend.”

“I don’t want one either. So we’re cool, right?”

He nodded, pretending he hadn’t noticed how quickly Scott had said that, like he was all too eager to go along with whatever he said. Trying to make him happy, or suddenly nervous about all of this? “We’re cool.” He stretched, trying to work the kinks out of his back (Scott was a big believer in a firm mattress), and suddenly felt a kiss on his chest. Holden scowled at him, but almost laughed. “What the hell are you doing?”

Scott gave him a half grin that was all stony playfulness. “I just felt like doing that.” He then crushed his mouth against his, both aggressive and strangely tentative at the same time. He tasted of pot and ice cream, but mostly ice cream. It was kind of nice. “I felt like doing that too,” he said, kissing his chin and his neck.

“I don’t have time for this,” Holden complained, as Scott continued to kiss him, softly and slowly, down his throat and chest. Scott’s hands slid slowly down his sides, while Holden had a hand on Scott’s back, feeling his spine flex as he moved.

“Tell me to stop,” Scott replied, his breath tickling his stomach in a way that was both uncomfortable and erotic. He then kissed him above the belly button, still working his way down. His body was warm, his stubble was just barely tactile, and it shouldn’t have felt as good as it did. He was stoned or losing his mind, or both. “I’ll stop if you tell me to.”

He should have, it would have been better for everyone if he said it, but of course he didn’t.

Holden supposed he never did things the easy way, and why start now?

15 – Seven Curtains

Even outside, Holden heard the thud.

It was funny how much noise a body could make at times. He went inside, mainly because he knew it wasn’t Roan (like that asshole could take him down), and started up the stairs, pausing only when he heard a sickly, angry growl that couldn’t have come from a human. “Roan, if you’re still in there, it’s just me,” he said, keeping his voice and his tone low and even. Just treat him like any other big scary cat that wanted to rip his head off and chew on his neck stump, but don’t be scared, as they could smell fear and it was a big old aphrodisiac for them.

On the second floor landing, he found a guy in a desert camo clad coat in a neat collapsed heap, like a homeless man sleeping in a doorway. Except there was no doorway, and one of his arms was bent like he had an elbow that went the other way. Since he didn’t see a shadow of Roan on the stairs, only a knife that had jammed in a broken piece of railing, he crouched down to take the guy’s pulse. But when he reached for his neck, he found a pointy bit that wasn’t supposed to be there.

His neck had snapped like a pretzel stick. No need to search for a pulse.

“He’s dead. You can smell that, right? Dead. No need to attack me instead, okay?”

There was no answer, not even a roar, and come to think of it, the growl was weird. He’d heard the lion’s “I’m gonna eat you” roar at the snuff house, and the “Don’t you try and run, bitch” growl, and this was nowhere near either. It was an almost continuous, wavering sound, low and weak, and once he got accustomed to the eeriness, he realized it was a sign something was wrong.

Cautiously, staying low, he glanced up the stairs, and saw Roan at the head of the third floor stairwell. It looked like he was partially sitting, partially laying down, an awkward posture, with his head turned towards the wall. At least he looked mostly human, that was a good sign. Or was it? That growl wasn’t good.

“Roan, can you respond? We probably oughta get outta here.”

His growl became gravelly, went down into a rumble, and suddenly morphed into a word. “-up.”

There was no way to describe how weird that was. It was almost weirder than seeing Roan half transformed, with a jaw that clearly didn’t belong to him, a straining skull, and eyes that didn’t quite fit their sockets. How could a growl suddenly become a word? But it did. Roan could switch gears, from animal noises to human noises, and the transition could be abrupt. The first time he’d heard Roan’s words slide into a growl, it was so weird it was almost funny. But when a growl became a word, the opposite, it seemed almost profoundly sad. A cry for help, an animal learning to speak human to get the humans to leave him alone.

“What? I only understood one word.” No point in telling him he only spoke one word. He might not have been aware of that.

It was then that Holden noticed part of the growling was Roan’s labored breathing. He hadn’t otherwise moved; he certainly hadn’t looked away from the wall. “I can’t move. I can’t get up.”

Oh shit. Holden came up the stairs, carefully, as Lee’s dive had damaged it even more. Soft spots in the treads were now actual holes. “Are you hurt? Where?”

He grunted, which had a slight gravelly growl to it, and Holden took that as a no. “It’s pain. I hurt too much.”

Hence the growl. Fuck. He went to him, and asked, “Can I touch you? Will it kill you if I do?”

Again that grunt. Maybe he was in so much pain that any more pain couldn’t possibly be noticed; it’d be like spitting into a tidal wave. He slid an arm beneath Roan’s shoulders – shaking, probably due to the pain – and eased him up into a full sitting position. Blood caked the lower half of his face, made the front of his shirt glistening damp. He looked mostly human, maybe the jaw was a little swollen still, but his pupils were way too large. It made him look like he had no irises at all, and the pain made the part of his face not covered by blood kabuki white. This wasn’t good.

“Come on, let’s get you out of here,” he said, trying to be chipper as he put an arm around his shoulders and helped him to his feet. He was very unsteady, still shaking, and could barely stand upright. He had to lean against Holden, and almost collapsed several times before they reached the bottom.

“Something’s wrong,” Roan said, his voice still mostly growl.

“No shit.”

“I couldn’t turn all the way. I almost did, but something stopped me. Something in my head … ripped.”

Holden couldn’t help but wince at the description. Something ripped in his head? Oh god, how could you feel that? How could you know? You didn’t have nerve endings in your brain, right? So you couldn’t feel that. Except he somehow did.

It was a struggle to get Roan to the ground floor. He thought he was going to have to carry him, but while Roan was still semi-conscious he knew he wasn’t going to allow that.

Standing this close, he couldn’t help but notice Roan was giving off heat like a blast furnace, and he smelled like blood and wet cat. This was beyond feverish; this was brain baking temperature. How was he still alive?

Once they were outside the building – which seemed to take forever – Roan said, “Tell Dylan I’m sorry.”

“About what? You can tell him yourself.”

It was then that Roan crumpled, heading for the asphalt until Holden just barely caught him, and it was such a near, sudden thing that he was afraid he’d dislocated Roan’s shoulder. But the noise he heard, of liquid spattering down on the ground, made him forget all about that.

It was blood spurting from Roan’s nose. It wasn’t a nosebleed, it was a blood gusher, and no fucking way was that normal. “Goddamn it, Roan, don’t die here and incriminate me.” Okay, yes, that was selfish, but just telling him not to die seemed maudlin.

He hefted him over his shoulder, instantly feeling warm blood trickle down his back, and wondered if someone could bleed to death through their nose. Probably not, but no one should be losing so much blood through their nose either. It occurred to him it was probably a brain hemorrhage – that thing that tore in his brain – but if he thought about it he’d panic, so he didn’t think about it.

He found the car he’d brought (not his; he’d borrowed Moon’s junker, so in case anyone caught a license plate number, it wouldn’t lead anywhere good), so happy it wasn’t his, and so happy he was in the type of bad neighborhood where no one thought anything of a man carrying a bleeding man around. Hallelujah for apathy and distrust of police.

He laid Roan out on the back seat, and put him on his side so he wouldn’t drown in his own blood (what a lovely thought). He checked, but he was still out cold, and bleeding from at least one ear. Yeah, that wasn’t a good sign.

He briefly wondered if he should worry about leaving any evidence at the scene, but he would have time to return for it. It wasn’t like people swarmed over this area (and again, ever called the cops). As soon as he got in the driver’s side and started the car, he said, “You’re going to be okay, hear me? You’re gong to be fine. You’re not going to die like some stupid pansy ass.”

He hoped Roan could hear him. And he hoped that it was true.

****

When Dylan came home, and found that Roan had packed a bag for the hospital, he was both heartened and deeply depressed. Heartened because he finally got sensible and knew he had to go. Depressed because it finally dawned on him he wasn’t well, suggesting something really bad had happened, but Roan was unlikely to tell him about it.

What you learned right away was Roan wasn’t stubborn; stubborn was too flimsy a word for what he was. To survive all he had and not crumble, from childhood on, he needed to be made of sterner stuff, and be able to ramp his game up to be one of the most aggressive assholes you’ve ever met, just to keep going. It wasn’t an insult, though it sounded a bit like that. No, he admired him, because he was sure he wouldn’t be able to survive what he did and still be a decent human being. It took more than stubbornness, it took a will to triumph that was nearly awe inspiring. But it was such a pain in the ass when he was your husband, because once he made up his mind not to do something, there was virtually no way to make him do it. Except when something went so wrong in his chosen course of action he had no choice but to do something else, and his definition of wrong was surprisingly narrow.

He went and had a shower, just to wash the paint off (he never meant to get paint on himself while painting, and yet he always did), wondering what could have happened to make Roan decide the hospital was a good idea. Did he pass out? Have another aneurysm? Both? He suddenly wondered where he was, it was getting late, and he wasn’t back yet. Was he passed out somewhere?

He was downstairs, wondering if he should make dinner or drop by his office to make sure he wasn’t laying on the floor in a pool of his own blood (oh god, he could see it in his mind’s eye), when the phone rang. He knew then, instantly, that it was bad news. How he wasn’t sure, but he just knew.

He steeled himself mentally before picking up the receiver. “Hello?”

“Yeah, Dylan, it’s Holden. Listen -”

“How is he?”

“What?”

“Roan. Is he still alive?”

There was a rather lengthy pause, and he was fairly sure Holden was taken aback. Which was fascinating, because he had no idea he was capable of such a thing. “Yes, but you need to get down to County General now. He’s hurt.”

He closed his eyes, mentally counted to five, and then decided he just couldn’t be Zen about this. Something in his chest constricted, making it feel like someone had just stabbed him. “What happened? How bad is it?”

“He partially transformed, and all hell broke loose. I think he may have had another aneurysm.”

He hissed a sigh through his teeth. Damn it! “Why did he partially transform?”

“Come down and I’ll tell you in person.”

Yes, that was probably for the best. He hung up and grabbed his coat before heading out the door, tears making his vision blurry. He should be used to this by now, but somehow you never did get used to it. How could you?

He did most of his crying in the car on the drive over, mainly so he got it out of his system and could work up a good rage instead. The only problem was he wasn’t sure who he was angry at. He wasn’t sure if he could or even should be angry at Roan in the state he was in.

Traffic was worse than it should have been, and the hospital parking lot was packed. By the time he made his way into the hospital, he was more frustrated than angry. He also realized how late it was getting and that he had to get to work in a couple hours. Fuck work. He was on the verge of quitting anyways.

Holden was waiting for him out in the main lobby, and as soon as he noticed he was wearing a black sweatshirt and blood stained jeans, he knew Roan and him had been up to something that was probably illegal, or at the very least unethical. He’d never seen Holden wear something as plain as a sweatshirt before. And the blood on his jeans? He was willing to bet it wasn’t Holden’s, and that made his chest hurt again. “Why did he partially change? “ Dylan asked him. “And how is he?”

“He was helping me out, I have a friend in hock to some violent asshole, and we decided to put the fear of us into him. But Roan collapsed, blood just started spurting from his nose … I brought him here as soon as I could get him in the car, and I called Doctor Rosenberg on the way over so she’d meet us here.”

He had a feeling Holden was lying to him, but he always had the feeling Holden was lying to him. He just set off his liar‘s radar all the time. “How the hell did you get her phone number?”

“I grabbed Roan’s cell. She’s in his phone book as Dr. No.”

Okay, yeah, that sounded true. “How is he doing?”

Holden grimaced and looked away, as if he could physically duck the question. “I don’t know. They haven’t told me anything, not since they rushed him back there, and Doctor Rosenberg hasn’t come back either.”

He had been afraid of that. He inquired with the nurse at the check in desk, but she had no information, or at least none she would share with him. He knew this would be agonizing waiting time, so they found some seats, and Dylan decided to call Robin and let him know he wasn’t coming in tonight. He waited until Holden went off to get a cup of coffee, then called, and Robin wasn’t thrilled with the short notice. That’s when he decided to give him notice over the phone. No, it probably wouldn’t get him a good recommendation, but right now he didn’t give a shit. All he cared about Roan, and if he didn’t make it … what point was there in staying? In this state, in fact. Yes, his sister was here, Tommy was down in Oregon, but he realized if Roan died he couldn’t stay. He would have to leave; there were too many memories here. He had no idea where he would go, but that wasn’t important right now. Roan was the only thing that mattered.

Holden came back with a paper cup of coffee, and had brought him a paper cup full of tea. Dylan hadn’t wanted it, but thanked him anyways. He was trying to be thoughtful. He tried to get Holden to tell him what happened again, and he did, fleshing out his story more, but Dylan still didn’t completely believe him. He got snappish with him, he couldn’t help it, he hated the idea of Roan being with Holden and not him at his time of need. “Maybe you two do belong together,” he snapped. “You’re in his life more than I am.”

“No, I’m in his second life. You’re in the first.”

Dylan looked at him askance. “Huh?”

“Roan separates himself, cuts himself in two. His good life, his human one, is with you, and I think he doesn’t want to taint it or you with his second life, his darker one, which is where I come in. He loves you, and he wants to protect you.”

“Protect me from what?”

“Himself. You’re part of his good life, what he wants, and I’m representative of a darker reality.”

Holden paused to sip his coffee and grimace, and Dylan stared at his profile, a brief flare of anger making him imagine that it might feel good to punch him. Of course he didn’t. “You working on that psychology degree?”

“All hookers are psychologists. Some of us are just better at it than others.”

Before Dylan could think of an appropriately scathing response to that, he saw the small figure of Doctor Rosenberg coming down the hall towards them. She wasn’t in scrubs, which may have been a good sign, but a visitor’s badge dangled from a cord around her neck, and if it wasn’t for the grim, determined look on her face, you could have mistaken her for someone’s grandmother. Dylan got up and met her near the elevators, Holden trailing behind.

“How is he?”

Rosenberg sighed explosively, and she ran a hand through her curled salt and pepper hair, as if trying to comb it with her fingers. “I’m gonna need you to sign some papers, so I can transfer him to the university’s hospital as soon as he’s stable. You good with that?”

“Grand, if you answer my question. What happened to him?”

Her lips, already thin, thinned even more, almost disappearing. She grabbed his arm and pulled him aside, away from the crowds near the elevator. “He’s suffered a brain hemorrhage. He’s in surgery right now.”

It was like someone threw ice water on him. He was suddenly so cold he thought he might be getting frostbite. “How did it happen? How bad is it? Is he going to be all right?”

“It’s unclear how it happened, at least for the moment. Coulda been an aneurysm, coulda been a result of skyrocketing blood pressure from a transformation, coulda been a result of a tumor, or some combination of them. Right now they’re closing off the bleeders and reducing the pressure on his brain. If all goes well, and why wouldn’t it, he should be fine. Well, within reason. That’s why I want to transfer him to the university hospital, so we can do the follow ups.”

“Follow ups to what?” Holden asked. “Are you taking out those tumors?”

So he knew about that, did he? Sure, why not? Holden probably knew as much about Roan as he did, or possibly more. He felt an irrational stab of jealousy towards him, and realized he’d prefer it if Roan was sleeping with him. He could understand that, and it would seem like less of a betrayal than having this whole other secret life that he wasn’t a part of in any form.

Rosenberg looked surprised, as if she hadn’t expected Roan to mention that to anyone. Yeah, Dylan was surprised too. “He was scheduled for a biopsy, so yeah, we can get that done, maybe take out some tumors if his body is up to the surgery.”

“His body is up to anything,” Holden replied, almost dismissively. “His bones break and heal all the time. He’s physically resilient beyond anyone I’ve ever heard of.”

“Yeah, I agree. But can his brain take the stress and strain?”

She let the question just hang there, rhetorical and somehow damning. And it was, how could it not be?

Roan could take a lot of damage, but his brain couldn’t, and that’s what would eventually kill him. The only question left was when. Dylan just hoped it wasn’t tonight.

This is the Panic mix. You’ll have to supply your own shirtless bartenders, though.