Hal grunted, and Luke knew that sound, that same little grunt he’d heard when Hal pulled a hamstring playing ball in high school. Pain. “Germany.”
“Okay. Um.” Luke wet his lips. “And how did you get from Afghanistan to Germany?”
Hal breathed a laugh. “Got blown up.”
Luke’s vision whited out. It was a long moment before he realized he was gripping the receiver so hard he’d lost feeling in his hand, and that the tinny sound in his ear was Hal asking if he was okay.
He took a deep, gasping breath. “Shit. Oh, shit, shit…Are you alright? How bad are you hurt? Hal?”
“I got a little banged up. Docs says I’ll make a full recovery, in time. My arm’s sorta…broken.”
“Jesus Christ, Hal.”
“I’m okay.”
“Obviously not!”
“Luke, please, just…”
Luke bit his lip, hard, and swiped at his eyes behind the rapidly-fogging lenses of his glasses. “When are you coming home?”
“Tomorrow. I was wondering.” Hal swallowed, an audible gulp. “Can I maybe stay with you? My mom’s gonna be hysterical, and I–”
“Of course. When can I pick you up?”
And that was how Luke took the rest of the week off and found himself waiting at baggage claim at three the next afternoon. It took him almost a full minute to recognize his best friend when he finally appeared.
Hal had always been a tall, broad-shouldered, fit guy. But the Army had taken his rough clay physique and honed it into a perfect weapon, nothing but bone and heavy muscle. His Army hoodie and sweatpants hung off him, somehow highlighting his spare, strong frame, rather than hiding it. He looked sharp-edged, sandblasted, dangerous. And he looked broken, because he was. A gun disassembled into its component parts, laid out on a table under a harsh light.
Luke swallowed a pained, sympathetic noise and went to his friend.
Hal’s right sleeve was pushed up to reveal a clunky white cast that went all the way down to his knuckles, fingers and thumb protruding uselessly. He walked with an obvious limp, favoring his left side. A speckling of tiny scabs covered the left side of his face.
But his green eyes were soft and tear-filled when Luke reached him, and he opened his arms so Luke could wrap him up tight in a hug.
Luke squeezed him carefully, gently, marveling at the hard steel of his body, tears clogging his throat. He was alive, and he was here, and Luke was hugging him. Jesus. He pressed his face into the hoodie’s raised collar and breathed deep the smells of airplane, hospital soap, and Hal, that subtle note that was his skin, and hair, and him.
Hal rubbed soothing circles across Luke’s back with his left hand. “It’s okay,” he murmured. “It’s really okay.”
“No it’s not,” Luke whispered. “You’re hurt.”
Hal squeezed him back, and didn’t protest.
~*~
Luke had spent the night before and this morning cleaning his apartment stem-to-stern, but it still looked small, cramped, and dated. He experienced a flash of self-consciousness at the door, one that intensified when he let them in and Hal hobbled into his shoebox living room.
“It’s not much,” Luke said, wincing to himself. “Just the one bedroom, but Brooklyn rent, ya know? It’s–”
“It’s great,” Hal said. “Really.” He eased down onto the battered old sofa with a hiss. “You’ve got it all to yourself, and that’s a big deal.”
“Yeah.” He’d never been so glad not to have a roommate. “What can I get you? What do you need?”
Hal let his head fall back against the sofa. “Nothing.” From this angle, he looked like something Michelangelo had painted, the shadows of raindrops against the window sliding down his scabbed face.
Luke pulled a bottle of water and a Coke from the fridge, and went to sit beside him, setting both drinks down on the coffee table. “Just in case.” It came out a whisper, and he realized he was afraid. Afraid that Hal was hurt even worse than he looked; afraid this was a nightmare…or a dream; when he woke up, the phone call would be from Hal’s mother, telling him that Hal had…
Hal had rolled his head to the side and was staring at him, eyes an eerie seafoam in the underwater rain light. His throat moved as he swallowed. “What?” he asked, softly, voice full of gravel.
“Are you okay?”
Hal gestured to himself with his good hand, as if to say I’m here, aren’t I?
“That’s not what I’m asking.”
Hal made a face and glanced up toward the ceiling. Let out a tired breath. “I don’t guess so?” It sounded like a question. And then, more sure: “No, I’m not. I’m sorry.”
Luke laid a careful hand on his upper arm, and that was when he realized the cast went all the way up to his shoulder. He swallowed down a spike of nausea and said, “What happened?” Then, thinking better of it: “You don’t have to tell–”
“Same thing that happens to everybody who gets discharged out of the sand box. A bomb.” He didn’t elaborate.
Luke squeezed his arm, the unyielding plaster that covered it. “I’m sorry.”
~*~
He let Hal have the bed, and spent the night tossing around on his own couch, sick to his stomach when he thought of Hal, his shuffling walk, the little wounds peppered across his face. Big, strong, indestructible, and spared death by a matter of inches.
The first few days were quiet. The rain closed them in, a heavy silver curtain beyond the windows. Hal was on heavy-duty prescription pain killers, and he slept a lot, and ate little. He disappeared into the bathroom for long minutes to “change bandages” on wounds he wouldn’t show to Luke. Luke went down to the corner bodega again and again, trying to tempt Hal with his old favorites: Hostess cupcakes, Kraft mac & cheese, turkey sandwiches piled high with Swiss and tomatoes. He tried to initiate movie marathons; told all their old stupid stories from school, trying to draw a grin out of the guy.
Saturday morning, he saw the burns.
Luke woke before dawn to the sound of more rain on the roof, and a full bladder. He stumbled to the bathroom without his glasses, not bothering to knock; pushed the door open and–
There stood Hal, in nothing but boxers, left leg braced up on the edge of the tub, wad of soiled bandages in his left hand. The outside of his leg was a mess of warped pink flesh, from the hem of his boxers all the way to the top of his foot.
Burns.
Significant burns.
Luke froze. He couldn’t move, or breathe, or think. Hal’s leg…his leg…
“Shit,” Hal muttered, surging upright on his good leg. “Luke, just–”
Too late. Luke fled, reaching the kitchen trash can just in time to heave all the bile out of his stomach. When he stopped heaving, his legs gave out and he sat down hard on the linoleum, hands clasped together on the back of his clammy neck.
Hal found him there a few minutes later, limping in slowly, sweatpants hiding the damage once more. He pulled to a stop just in front of Luke, hand braced on the counter.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Luke choked out through a raw throat. When he lifted his head, Hal was a blurred mess in front of him, and not because he wasn’t wearing his glasses. He wiped at his eyes, blinking furiously. “How – how bad is it? Are you…” Crippled?
Hal started to crouch down in front of him.
“Oh, no,” Luke breathed, reaching for his friend. “Don’t if it hurts, I can…”
But Hal was already down, sitting with his right leg drawn up and his left extended out in front of him, so it was pressed up against Luke’s hip. “I can fucking sit down,” he muttered angrily.
“Sorry.”
“No, I’m not mad at you, no…it’s…shit.” He wiped his good hand down his face. “I’m sorry. I’m a damn mess.”
Luke shook his head; he was pretty sure he was the mess, seconds away from tears at any given moment. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked again.
Hal’s expression wavered, totally blank a m
oment, and then collapsed, all the fatigue, and pain, and sadness, and trauma finally bleeding through for the first time since their reunion. Every terrible thing he’d been keeping to himself flashed bright and sharp in his eyes. “I didn’t want to scare you.”
Luke was so devastated by all this that he welcomed the small, warm surge of anger that moved through his belly. “That’s not your decision to make. You’re supposed to tell me shit. Be honest with me.”
Hal shook his head a fraction. “Yeah, well…you’re my best friend in the world. It’s my job to keep you safe.”
“Your job?”
“It’s what I want to do,” Hal amended.
“You don’t have to.”
“I know that.”
Luke took a deep, shaky breath. “How bad are the burns?”
“Not as bad as they look. They’re healing up real nice, the docs said. And they don’t go deep. It’s always gonna look pretty gnarly, and I’ll have to exercise and stretch to keep the skin from getting too stiff.” He shrugged. “Coulda been worse.”
Coulda been burned all over.
Coulda lost a limb.
Coulda died.
Luke swallowed the lump in his throat. “How did it happen, Hal?” he asked, softly, so softly, just a breath.
He didn’t think Hal would tell him, and now he knew it wasn’t because Hal didn’t want to, but because he felt like he shouldn’t. But Hal took a deep breath…
And told him about a dry desert afternoon. About the weight of a pack, the heft of a rifle, the liquid layer of sweat beneath his clothes. Told him about the cluster of children on the side of the road, waving and shouting, smiling at the soldiers.
“Griggs was the one who…stepped on the charge,” he said, voice low and strained. “And he just…he was just gone.”
“God,” Luke whispered, stomach rolling.
“The kids…Jesus Christ, those kids…” Hal closed his eyes. “I wasn’t close. The blast threw me against a wall. Burned me.” He gestured to his leg. “Broke my arm on impact. Pretty good concussion.” He bit his lip and didn’t say anything else.
Luke moved through the space that separated them and put his arms around Hal’s neck. Hal hugged him back with his good arm.
They sat like that for a long time.
~*~
It was easier after that. They slipped back into their old skins, as damaged and tarnished as they were, back to living out of each other’s pockets, hiding nothing. Hal was quiet some days, and sad, still grieving for his brothers in arms. But they didn’t tiptoe around one another anymore. Luke knew when to give him space, and when to sit shoulder-to-shoulder with him on the couch. When it was okay to mix a little beer with the pain meds, and when a hot mug of cocoa would be a better alternative. Hal kept shooting him these deeply grateful, emotion-heavy looks. “Thank you,” he’d say, almost a whisper. And Luke would muss his hair, or pat his hand, or say, “You don’t need to thank me.”
Luke went back to work, and in the afternoons he went with Hal to doctor’s appointments. The terrible cast came off, and physical therapy started. The burns faded from the juicy hue of watermelon flesh to something softer and pinker, the color of healing.
He felt like a heel for it, because his friend was in pain, and he’d lost fellow soldiers, but it was the happiest Luke had been in recent memory. No more waking to nightmares of Hal dying overseas; no more staring out his office window, wondering where Hal was, what he was doing. He knew Hal was at home, watching bad daytime TV, eating all the Cinnamon Toast Crunch. He knew he’d turn at the sound of the door opening, later, and he’d smile at Luke from across the room, and Luke’s heart would do somersaults in his chest.
Because the thing was: Luke was madly, desperately, pathetically in love with his best friend. Madly because it gave him life. Desperately because sometimes he couldn’t breathe, just thinking the words. And pathetically because Hal was straight, and Luke wasn’t brave enough to put himself out there and risk rejection. Especially not now that Hal was so vulnerable. He needed a friend – his best friend – and he didn’t need a bunch of complicated drama.
But…nothing had ever been complicated between them. In high school, Luke had dreaded coming out. He’d worked himself into a state of such anxiety that by the time he told Hal, he was sobbing like a baby. And Hal – big, sweet, wonderful Hal – just pulled him into a hug, his arms warm and strong, and told him he didn’t care, they would always be best friends, he loved him, and he wasn’t going anywhere. They’d always been tactile friends, and that hadn’t changed after. Hal had never pulled away, never flinched, never looked at Luke differently. And so Luke had decided he couldn’t ever risk losing that, not ever, not when romantic love was an unlikely gamble anyway. Much better to have Hal’s love in this way, as an innocent friendship.
Except Hal had almost died.
And Luke hadn’t been able to bring himself to date anyone in months.
And now Hal was here, and he just…just…
It happened on a Thursday.
The Incident.
“You know what the best part about this movie is?” Hal asked as he leaned forward to set his plate on the coffee table with minimal wincing.
Together, they both quoted: “Get away from her, you bitch,” and then laughed.
Hal settled back against the couch cushions again with a sigh, letting his weight fall to the left, so he was leaning against Luke’s shoulder. He was so solid, and heavy, and warm.
“You okay?” Luke asked.
Hal nodded, his hair rustling against Luke’s hair, their skulls sliding along one another. “Yeah. Tired. Just glad I’m here, you know? Together like this.”
Luke swallowed, throat tightening. “Yeah. I know.”
“Here.” Hal gave him a gentle shove. “Move around that way.” He sat upright and steered Luke around with his hands until he was leaning back against the arm of the couch, legs open, and Hal lay between them, resting against Luke’s chest.
So this, Luke thought, was what it felt like to get hit with a cattle-prod. Huh. Through the numbness of combined shock and delight, he registered Hal’s substantial weight pressing along his pelvis, his stomach, his sternum. The press of Hal’s shoulder as he breathed. The glow of the TV flickering across his face. The relaxed curve of his mouth which meant he was content, and safe, and completely at ease, here in Luke’s arms.
Luke’s brain tipped sideways, and when it did, the carefully-stacked box of Things He Knew to be True went tumbling and rearranged itself. That long-applied label of Best Friend slipped, smudging the line between What Was and What Could Be.
They’d had beer with dinner, and that had been a bad idea. It didn’t feel like, one, though, because his body hummed with a quiet, alcohol-fueled energy. A low vibration deep in his gut, somewhere beneath the strong cage of Hal’s ribs. Electrical currents in his fingertips as he slowly, carefully, raked them through Hal’s hair.
Hal hummed and lifted into the touch like a cat.
Sudden tears pricked his eyes, and he blinked them away. “Hal.”
“Hmm?”
“Henry. Look at me.”
Hal shifted just enough to rest his chin on his hand, eyes wide and luminous in the dim light. His face close, so close. And Luke loved him, loved him so, so much.
“What are you doing?” Luke asked around the lump in his throat.
Hal stared at him, his expression soft, full of warmth, of…love.
“Oh shit,” Luke whispered. He laid his hand along the side of Hal’s face, cupped the firm plane of his cheek. Hot skin and rough stubble. “You almost…”
“I know. But I didn’t.”
“What if you hadn’t made it back?”
“I did, though. I’m here right now. With you.”
Luke traced Hal’s eyebrow with his thumb. The slope of his nose. “I love you. I love you so much.”
Hal braced both hands on the couch cushion, grunting with the strain it put on his bad arm, leane
d up and kissed Luke. A fleeting touch, like butterfly wings. Soft enough to have been imagined.
Hal pulled back the smallest fraction, and when he blinked, his lashes fluttered against Luke’s, tangling together. Luke smelled beer on the rush of breath that touched his chin, his lips, his cheek. A dozen lines formed and were rejected in that fragile moment: protests, encouragements, desperate questions, declarations. But Luke voiced none of them, his fingers knotted in the cotton of Hal’s shirt, his breath lodged deep in his throat.
“I just,” Hal said, and kissed him again.
Deeper this time. Lips pressing and sliding. The shy stroke of a tongue. Nip of teeth. Quiet gasps drowned in more kisses.
Luke had known this was never a possibility, so he’d allowed himself the guilty pleasure of imagining it. Over and over, waking and in dreams. But this, the real thing, was nothing like what he’d thought, and he wasn’t going to waste this chance.
He catalogued every detail: the rasp of Hal’s stubble, under his fingertips and against his face; the spit-slick slide of their lips; scrape of teeth; the strong flex of Hal’s tongue in his mouth.
Hal’s tongue in his mouth. Hal’s big, warm, strong body between his thighs. Pressed together: hips, and stomachs, and chests. Breathing into each other’s mouths, hungry and hot and gasping.
Luke tugged Hal’s lower lip between his teeth and Hal groaned. A low, guttural sound that went straight to…
Oh. Oh. Luke was half-hard. And his hips were moving in slow little undulations, keeping rhythm with their kiss. A mindless grinding against Hal’s thigh.
Oh God, he thought, stilling. But Hal made another of those sounds, and angled his head, deepening the kiss. Oh God, oh God, oh God…
Luke found the hem of Hal’s shirt and slipped his hands beneath, palms skimming across smooth, impossibly warm skin. He explored the knobs of Hal’s spine, the strong muscles that flanked them.
Hal kissed his jaw, scraped teeth along the bone, kissed and nipped down his throat, sucked at his thundering pulse. Luke let his head fall back, weak with want. He shoved his hands down, down, under the waistband of Hal’s sweats –
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