His eyes flicker open for the first time since I’ve been poking at him. They’re hazel, with a ring around the iris that looks like liquid gold. When we were little, I thought they made him look like he was magical or something. Sometimes I told myself he had magic powers, but he had to keep it a secret. He couldn’t tell me until the time was right.
One day, if I was patient, he would use his powers to break us both out and take us to a different world, and we’d never see our shitty, neglectful parents again.
It’s the same stupid shit all little kids dream about. But looking at his eyes, even though they’re hazy with fever, transports me right back to that daydream for a minute. I’m so distracted I barely notice he’s reached for me until I’m grabbing his hand back on instinct, like we used to when we were little. When things got really bad.
He blinks at me, and I can read the confusion on his face. It’s obvious he doesn’t know where the fuck he is and wasn’t expecting to see me. The thought makes me smile, although nothing about this is funny.
“Hey, Tadhg,” I say, his name rolling off my tongue like it still lives there. Like we haven’t spent over a decade apart. “Fancy seeing you here.”
I can see the moment he grasps that what he’s looking at is real. Something in his face crumples, and his chest lifts with thekind of tension that I know means he’s being slapped by a wave of emotion.
It doesn’t help that we’re being watched by Patrick and his parade of thugs. I’m sure Tadhg doesn’t want any of them seeing him vulnerable like this, let alone daring to have a feeling. If this crew of losers doesn’t screamtoxic masculinity, I don’t know what does.
“I’m sure it hurts like a bitch, brother,” I say. Hopefully, that will pass off any reaction he has as pain, rather than the dreaded clutch of emotion that strikes fear into these men’s fragile little hearts. “I’m going to get you fixed up. Promise. Try to stay still.”
Relief filters down into his face, and relaxation takes him just a moment before he closes his eyes and slips back into sleep.
I’m hit by my own wave of emotion. It’s incredible how much I’ve missed him, even after all these years. But there’s no time for that right now, so I pack it away along with all my other feelings.
At least I have the stuff to clean up his wounds and get a better look at how badly the infection has set in. While I pull together my supplies and make a start, I look up at Patrick. He’s still hovering, completely useless for anything apart from increasing the level of tension in the room.
“Did you find something? Are supplies coming?”
He nods but doesn’t elaborate. Great.
The smallest of the men—although that’s not saying much, they’re all unnecessarily beefy—looks even more bored and twitchy than the rest of them. He’s around my height, maybe 5’10”, but broad-shouldered and well-muscled, wearing a denim jacket with the sleeves ripped off to put all that muscle on display. Every inch of him is in constant movement, like he’s anxious or possibly on uppers. His hair is shaved into a short mohawk that was probably dyed green a couple weeks ago, but now looks faded to a bleached-out dishwater color. His face—which has several shitty, faded tattoos, probably to hide the factthat he’s even more baby-faced than I am—is making a constant series of expressions as he examines everything I own, picking things up and putting them down one after another without relent.
When his hands finally find a picture of me at Pride last year with my arms around a gorgeous man and both of us dressed in outfits that make it very clear where we were, he sneers.
“Are we really going to let Savage stay here?” he asks Patrick, while pointing to me. “What if he gets himsick?”
Jesus fucking Christ.
Patrick opens his mouth to answer, but I don’t give him the chance. Without stopping what I’m doing, I snap at the mohawk-moron who keeps touching my things.
“You did not just spout that shit at me in my own home. No way. I’m a medical-fucking-professional and you all look like you crawled out of a meth den. I bet this is the cleanest place you’ve been in your entire life. You can’t barge in here demanding help and serve me this homophobic bullshit at the same time.”
The man who spoke looks taken aback by the fact that I actually replied, while Patrick’s face seems to be contorting itself, trying to settle on whether he’s angry or amused.
“You can’t have it both ways. Either you get your free illegal medical care and figure out how to suppress your crippling homophobia for a while, or you get the fuck out and take Tadhg to the hospital. But he’s febrile, tachypneic, and barely conscious. Which means he could be on the cusp of going septic, and you took so long getting here that it might be too late to save him, anyway. So, which is it? Hospital or secret medical care from the queer ex-stepson? I don’t give a fuck as long as Tadhg gets help.”
“Savage,” is all Mohawk says to me, his expression a mixture of anger and haughty disgust.
“What?”
“His name is Savage. He’s a lieutenant of the Banna, and you should show him some respect.”
The man’s voice drips with disdain, and he says the sentence with such conviction I think he genuinely doesn’t realize how ridiculous he sounds.
I use all my self-control to stifle the urge to laugh. Tadhg is dying, my life has been hurled into chaos, and all they care about is their fabricated military-esque chain of command. As if they’re not a bunch of redneck skinhead drug dealers playing dress-up.
And people like this say gay men are melodramatic.
“Yes. Savage. A completely appropriate and not-at-all ridiculous name. Well, he’s my brother, and this is my apartment, so I think I’ll call him whatever the fuck I want, but thanks for your input.”
When the man takes a step toward me, fury written clearly in his eyes, I flinch. I can’t help it. I’ve been trying to play it all cool, but I let myself go too far, clearly.
Tadhg isn’t even my brother. Not really, not anymore. We were two kids who were stuck together in a shitty situation by circumstance and used to look out for each other, but there’s no blood or real connection between us. The intense protectiveness I feel toward him is completely vestigial, and I don’t even know if he would appreciate it, if he were conscious. It doesn’t change the fact that I feel it just as deeply now as I always did, though. These men couldn’t carve that out of me if they tried.
