“No hesitation?”
“Why would there be?” Rabbit had never felt anything other than companionship with Oli. He’d been older by almost five years, more worldly and experienced. He’d had stories to share and favorite movies and books and songs that weren’t classical. He’d been three dimensional, the first person Rabbit felt like he could actually reach out and touch. Everyone else treated him like delicate crystal, easily breakable and too expensive to risk getting too close to.
“Your jealousy is only justified by one thing. He was the only best friend I’ve ever had.” Not even Sila could be considered that. They were friends, but only because Rabbit hadn’t had the heart to ignore him last year, and now it seemed like their roles had been reversed and Sila stuck around out of some misguided loyalty. He liked the younger guy, but he’d never confided in him anything overly personal, and he’d never asked Sila to do so either.
“You think he knew you better than I do?” Baikal asked.
“I think you and I have never been friends,” Rabbit corrected, holding his gaze. “But that’s okay. That’s not something I want from you anyway.”
His eyes narrowed. “What do you want, little bunny?”
“Something more,” he admitted. “And it isn’t just a want. It’s a need. I need for there to be more between us, Void. I need a valid reason to feel the way I do.”
“How do you feel?”
“Like I like you.”
“You like the things I do to you,” Baikal said.
“That too.” It was hard to explain, and this late into the night, Rabbit was too exhausted to try. “Anyway. Now you know. Oli was my ex music tutor and the man my mom brutally beat. She ruined his life and all because he dared to get close to me.”
“That’s why you were so upset when you found out I’d told her about us,” Baikal stated. “History won’t repeat itself, Rabbit.” He sighed and shifted onto his side so that he was cradling Rabbit instead of hovering over him. “Do you want me to find him for you?” he repeated. “Maybe that’ll give you the closure you need to get past your stage fright.”
Baikal thought Rabbit got scared before performing because he’d watched his mom take Oli in the middle of one.
But that wasn’t it.
“You can’t,” Rabbit said, turning his head on the pillow to meet Baikal’s gaze head on. “He’s dead. Not even you can catch a ghost.”
He sucked in a sharp breath. “What?”
“It’s not about what happened outside the auditorium,” the words left his lips, but Rabbit only barely noticed now, operating on autopilot, his mind busy picturing everything that led up to the hazy parts of that night. “The reason I have panic attacks and stage fright is due to what happened after. I can’t remember much…It was dark, so dark it was hard to make out anything further than three feet away. Oli snuck over and called me. Told me to come outside…”
Rabbit’s heart started to race and he grabbed onto Baikal’s arm that was around his waist, needing more contact, something to ground him to the present so he wouldn’t get lost in the pain of the past.
“After that things get fuzzy. I don’t remember anything past the moment where I went out to meet him and saw what state he was in. How dark it was and how awful I felt…How scared…” Those things had lingered even without detailed memories to hold them.
“How do you know he’s dead then?” Baikal asked.
“I mentioned an accident before,” it’d been in passing and he’d quickly changed the subject, “This is what I meant. I went outside, met him, and then nothing. The next thing I knew, I was sitting in the hospital with my mother on one side and a doctor on the other. They were speaking to me, but I only came to part of the way in. That’s when they told me what had happened.”
Rabbit hadn’t believed them at first. He’d screamed and cried and denied it, but the doctor had insisted, and since there’d be no reason for a stranger in the medical field to lie to him…He’d been forced to accept the truth.
“My mother came out that night and tried to scare Oli off our property. Knowing that she’d already destroyed his life, Oli chose to do the unthinkable.” Rabbit took a shaky breath. “He killed himself. He’d brought a blaster and he shot himself in the head. Right in front of me. Apparently that’s why I can’t remember. My brain blocked it out because of how traumatic it was. But it didn’t do a good enough job. Whenever it’s dark or I’m reminded of that night I’m triggered.”
“Part of you wants to remember,” Baikal surmised. “The other part of you is fighting against it.”
“Why would I want to recall something so horrible my own mind didn’t think I’d be able to handle it?” He didn’t. “I want to forget. It’s callous of me to say, but I wish I could erase Oli from my memory entirely. He’s already gone anyway. The one left now to suffer is me.”
Baikal pulled him in closer and kissed his forehead. “You aren’t alone.”
“Void.” He wasn’t even sure what he wanted to ask him.
“I’ll help you,” Baikal reassured anyway. “We’ll get through this, Rabbit. You won’t always have to be afraid of the dark.”
“That sounds too good to be true.”
“You belong to the Brumal Prince. You bow to no one but me.”
