Lesser Evils, Part 15
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.
