by SJ Himes
“I’ll put it in the fridge, don’t worry. I’ll make you a sandwich later after you wake up,” Gael said, and Silas gratefully accepted the helping arm that wound around his waist and guided him from the stool. He put his tea down after taking one last drink, and let Gael take him from the kitchen and down a dark hall.
He looked up, and Gael’s face in the shadows brought a memory up from the depths of his pain-rattled mind.
“I saw you,” Silas breathed out, as Gael stopped at a closed door at the end of the hall, opening it and flicking on the light with his free hand. Gael all but carried him into the bedroom, to a perfectly made bed covered in a thick blue quilt. “It was you who found me in the alley. You’re a paramedic.”
“I am, yes,” Gael confirmed, pulling back the bedspread and sitting Silas on the edge of the bed. He knelt on the floor, and Silas bit back a moan wholly unrelated to pain at the sight of the incredibly sexy Gael on his knees in front of him. Thankful he was too tired and pained for an erection, Silas let Gael take off his bedraggled shoes and lift his legs up and under the covers.
“Thank you,” Silas said, earnest and sincere. He needed Gael to know how much he appreciated everything. “I don’t know why you’re helping me now, but thank you. You saved my life twice.”
“I’ll take credit for the first time,” Gael murmured, helping him lay back on the pillows. Gael pulled up the blankets, and gently tucked him in. “I’m assuming the second time was getting you away from your father. Would he have hurt you if he found you there, Silas?”
Silas took a moment to enjoy the warmth and pleasant softness of the bed, and looked down, realizing they were holding hands. Gael’s thumb was rubbing circles on his palm, and Silas’ whole body hummed.
“Silas?” Gael’s voice broke him out of his absorption in how good it felt to be touched with care, and he looked back up, meeting the older man’s dark gaze. There was worry in those eyes, and something else. Something that made Silas trust, and yearn to be safe. Gael was safety.
“He’s been hurting me for years.”
…
“He’s been hurting me for years.”
The resigned weariness in Silas’ words gave veracity to his statement. Said simply, without embellishment, without anger. Just stating honest fact, and it spoke volumes.
The immaculately dressed man surrounded by his cronies at Boston General was such a quality of man that he drove his own child to run from him, fresh from being shot and operated on. From the state Silas was in prior to being shot, he’d been running for days, injured and alone.
Gael crouched beside the bed, putting himself at eye level with Silas, still holding his hand.
“I’m a freshman at Boston College. First day of break a week ago, I went to Dad’s townhouse in Back Bay since the dorms are under renovations,” Silas told him, voice quiet and thin, his face pale, even more so against the dark blue of the pillowcase.
Gael nodded, listening.
“Dad has always been quick to…discipline me,” a sneer, a twist to his lush pink lips. A glimpse of emotion now. “But he hasn’t really beat me in a couple of years, not since he made District Attorney of Suffolk County. Can’t risk his wife or son showing up on the news sporting bruises.”
Anger, frustration, helplessness. Gael was intimately familiar with those emotions, though he did his best not to feel them in his daily life. Yet he felt them all now. For this battered angel. He took Silas’ hand in both of his, rubbing it, trying to warm him. Silas stared back at him, eyes aglow. If he’d dared to hope, he might even believe he saw a small measure of the same yearning he felt for Silas in those true green orbs.
“Your father is Franklin Warner,” Gael stated, and Silas gave a short nod.
Well, shit. Gael knew Warner had to be someone important, but for him to be the second most powerful man in Boston after the mayor just made hiding Silas an even more difficult task.
“Go on,” he encouraged, and Silas gave him a small smile, eyes watering. But he went on.
“I met this really great guy in my Economics class. Smart, funny, liked a lot of the same things I did. He was the son of the Dean, and his dad caught us kissing….just kissing. We weren’t dating or anything, it didn’t mean much. The Dean was furious, and made me leave. That was the last day of classes, and I went home. His dad must have called mine, since I got a fist in the face for a welcome home.” Silas gestured to his face, and there was indeed a bruise on his right temple, most of it hidden in his light brown hair. His whole body was a patchwork quilt of multi-colored bruises, and Gael’s heart hurt for the younger man. He probably could tell Gael how he got each and every one of them in the last week.
Gael lifted a hand and ran his fingers through Silas’ light brown hair, the strands feather soft and flowing like silk as he did his best to soothe the pain and grief he could hear in his angel’s words.
“Dad…Dad told me I wasn’t going to be an abomination. That he would make me repent, and that I would either marry a nice girl from the church he goes to, or I would…he would…send me south.”
“Send you south? What do you mean?”
“There’s a pray-away-the-gay retreat in South Carolina,” Silas whispered, shutting his eyes for a moment before slowly opening them. “Dad’s church sends money to it, and sometimes teenagers go away for a few months, and come back different. Sadder, less real. Like shadows of who they used to be. Dad was going to send me there.”
“That fucking asshole,” Gael swore, and he fought to keep his hands gentle as he continued to stroke Silas. Anger filled him, eclipsing every other emotion but for the desire to keep Silas safe. “Why didn’t you call the cops? Get help?”
“Dad locked me up, but I got out of the house. He took everything, my cell, wallet, coat. All of it. I went to the local precinct, but I saw one of his golfing buddies, Lieutenant Helms. He tried to grab me, but I ran. I can’t trust the cops. They’ll believe Dad over me. They have always been on his side.”
“Your mother?” Warner had a wife, and surely Silas’ own mother would help her son.
“Mom does what Dad tells her to do. She spends all her time pretending to be the perfect wife, and drinking. She hasn’t been sober for years. Dad hits her…or worse, if she disappoints him. Mom has never been able to stand up to him. And he hurts her worse if I stand up to him.”
“How the hell did a man like that make DA?” Gael asked, indignant, though he knew the answer. Money and power let men get away with a lot of sins.
“No one cares about the truth,” Silas told him, eyes blinking slowly. He was falling asleep, his body at the end of its reserves.
“I’d like to know more,” Gael whispered, rubbing Silas’ cool fingers. His angel needed sleep, rest to recover from everything that had happened in the last several days. “But you need rest. Go to sleep, and we can talk when you wake up.”
Gael stood, but Silas held his hand when he tried to back away from the bed.
“Stay with me?” Silas begged him, and Gael’s determination to let Silas rest alone went up in smoke. He nodded, helpless to resist the plea in those pretty eyes, and toed off his boots.
He crawled over Silas, and curled up along his side in the big bed on top of the covers. He pulled the covers up to Silas’ chin, and Silas turned to him. They stared into each other’s eyes for what felt like forever, until thin lids fell over green eyes, and Silas fell swiftly asleep.
Gael lay there, the sun cutting through the heavy autumn cloud cover and the dark blue curtains, the hour growing later. He let himself drink in the sight of the beautiful young man sleeping so peacefully beside him, and for the first time in Gael’s troubled life, he found himself enjoying the experience of just lying next to another human being. He never stayed over on one-night stands, and he never brought anyone home. He rarely had people over to his house. Even when he was dating Michael, he spent all their time together over at Michael’s. His place was too…sterile… to fill with sex encounters that le
ft him unfulfilled and relationships that felt more like burdens than a safe harbor from the trials of life.
It felt wrong, in some odd way, to have something in his house that wasn’t memories of war, blood, and death. He left everything here, in the hollow echoing rooms that stood dressed for company that never came, and he only returned when exhaustion left him unable to dream.
Gael felt hunted by his memories, and they came out when he was alone, so he spent all his time at work. He’d been dreading this vacation, because it meant forced time with the flashbacks and the bouts of fear and anxiety. While he was working, while he was focused, he could forget the past and live in the present.
Silas stirred in his sleep, and Gael moved in closer, sharing his body heat. Silas relaxed, and his breathing went slower, deeper. He might have been in a lot of pain, but exhaustion and blood loss were actually helping him stay asleep.
He wanted to hold Silas in his arms, but his injuries would make that painful for him. Silas seemed to feel something akin to what he was experiencing, but Gael was afraid it was gratitude and the exuberance of youth. Silas was nineteen. Once he was better, once he was safe, would he want a jaded veteran who suffered from PTSD and spent too much time healing others, instead of himself?
A man who was fourteen years older, and scarred by countless nightmares.
For hours he rested beside Silas, listening to him breathe, watching his eyes move under thin, bruised-looking lids as he fell into dreams. Silas whimpered, a painful, lonely sound that tore at Gael’s usually impassive heart, and with a thumb he smoothed away the stress-line that developed between his angel’s brows. Silas was growing warmer to the touch, and he pressed his hand to Silas’ forehead. No fever. He would bear watching though, since Silas had removed himself from the hospital and the antibiotics course he would have been receiving after surgery.
Chapter Six
Gael opened the front door before Jim could knock, catching the captain with his arm raised and startling him. Gael leaned out, swept the evening street with a quick glance, and yanked Jim inside, shutting and locking the door behind him.
“Gee! What the hell, boy?” Gael shut him up with a glance, and held a finger to his lips as he backed down the hall to the kitchen. Jim grumbled, but let Gael drag him into the kitchen.
Jim took off his jacket, tossing it over a chair, and Gael looked down the hall to the guestroom where he left Silas sleeping. There was nothing from the back room, so Jim’s arrival hadn’t woken his angel.
“What the hell is going on? I get a text to come over, which has happened maybe once in the last ten years, and since the Apocalypse didn’t start yet…” Jim said, thankfully keeping his voice down, noticing where Gael was looking. “And who is back there you don’t want me waking up? You bring home a date or something?”
“Or something,” he said softly. Gael sat down at the bar, and Jim leaned a hip on it, side-eyeing the hallway that led to the guestroom. “I have a situation, and I need a wiser, older perspective than my own.”
“Har-har, Gee. What’s going on?” Eyes faintly lined by time, Jim was still an imposing figure, and Gael found himself wanting to lean on the other man. “Tell Big Brother Jimmy.”
Gael smiled, and told Jim everything, from finding Silas in the alley to helping him escape early that morning. Keeping Silas safe right now was easy—rest, proper wound care, therapy for his shoulder, all of which Gael could handle himself. Keeping Silas safe after he was healed? Realistically speaking, Gael couldn’t hide a nineteen year old college student in his guestroom forever, regardless of how much he wanted to keep the younger man.
Jim’s face went from his usual half-smile, to confused, to angry, and then shocked. Gael spoke evenly, holding nothing back, and he felt a good deal validated when Jim swore angrily when he recounted how and when he found Silas in the alley. When he got to the ambulance ride to BG, and how once he got a good look at Silas and then mentally checking out, Jim’s expression became thoughtful, and Gael shifted uneasily under Jim’s searching regard.
“A little early for Christmas, isn’t it, Gee? Never expected you to fall in love on a call, but it couldn’t happen to a more deserving man.” Jim held up his hand and stopped Gael from speaking, not that he knew what he was going to say. Love? Was what he was feeling love? He had never been in love before, he had no basis for comparison. “But if he’s that important to you, that’s one helleva present to yourself,” Jim quipped and Gael gave him a glare he usually reserved for new BLS-EMT who failed to listen. Jim just gave him a grin and shook his head, unperturbed. “Now give me a beer and keep talking.”
Gael got the beer from the fridge, and slid it down the kitchen bar to his friend.
No matter how much he wanted Silas to stay with him, he couldn’t keep Silas hidden from the world. Silas wasn’t a present for Gael to keep for himself. So that meant dealing with the problem of Franklin Warner, DA for Suffolk County. Gael had faced everything from marauding Iraqi National Guardsmen in the deserts of the Middle East, to an all-out gang war on Boston’s streets, but keeping one injured angel away from his own bastard of a father was a wholly different beast. Franklin Warner had power that Gael was in no position to counter. A lieutenant in Boston EMS was no shield-wielding detective in BPD. He held bodies together long enough to get them help, he didn’t solve cases and stop bad guys.
Yet even though he knew he was in no position to take on Franklin Warner directly, Gael knew, he felt it in his very bones, that he would do anything to save Silas one more time.
And a part of him was clamoring to be heard, but he squashed that lone voice. A whisper taunted him as he spoke to his closest friend, and it was wondering when he went from spur of the moment heroics, to helping Silas escape his father’s clutches and get on with his future.
Gael held back that whisper of cynicism, and hoped that once Silas was safe from his father, that he would want to stay. They knew nothing of each other, but something in Silas called to Gael. Made him wish for things he had never wanted before.
It was an errant wish that his angel would have mercy, and stay with a man worn down by his past.
…
Silas yawned, whole body shaking as he stretched, only sparing his right arm. The bed was wonderful, comfortable and warm, and if he hadn’t needed to take a piss so bad he would roll over and go back to sleep.
Silas pushed back the covers, eyeing the indent where Gael had lain next to him. It was cool, so Gael had been up for a while. Grateful he’d stayed long enough for him to fall asleep, Silas was clear-headed, if in pain, from the first decent rest he’d gotten since leaving school a week prior.
Voices, indistinct, rumbled down the hall from the kitchen, but he recognized Gael’s sexy timbre, so he didn’t get nervous there was someone else in the house. Somehow he trusted Gael more than he’d ever trusted anyone before in his life, and it had nothing to do with the fact he didn’t trust anyone. Until now, at least.
Gael saved his life. Gael got him out of the hospital, and made no attempt to judge him, or even doubt his recounting of the last week’s events. Silas knew many people would have trouble believing that DA Warner was an abusive, religious zealot who beat his son and wife on a regular basis. If it wasn’t for his mother and the absolute certainty that she would suffer the brunt of Warner’s anger, Silas would have gone to the media or found a cop who would listen to him about his father. He’d even thought about going directly to the mayor, the only man more powerful that his father in Boston, but the two men were old friends, and Mayor Baskins was aware of most of Warner’s failings.
Silas trusted Gael…and wanted him. Now that the drugs were gone and the pain quiescent for the moment, Silas was well on his way to being infatuated with Gael Dominic, and he’d never felt anything like it before.
Silas slid out of bed, swaying a bit on his feet before padding barefoot out of the guestroom, heading for the lights in the kitchen. It was dark out, and must be around supper time, since his stom
ach as aching again from hunger. He paused at a door a few feet from the kitchen, and eagerly used the toilet when he found it was a bathroom. Washing his hands, he swept back his wild hair, wetting the strands into some semblance of neatness before walking into the kitchen.
The lights blinded him, and he squinted, trying to see. A big hand reached out, and Silas put his own in it without hesitation, and Gael guided him the rest of the way into the room. His hand was warm and callused and so strong, and a tension he didn’t know he was carrying in the center of his chest loosened and fell away.
“Is this your boy, then? You could do worse if you start bringing home calls like this. Not your usual type, but I guess he’ll do,” a deep, profoundly powerful and arresting voice said, and Silas looked up and up, to see the biggest man he’d ever met before in his life. This giant wasn’t fat—he was BIG.
Gael tucked him gently in along his side under his arm, and Silas gulped, very glad to be in the protective embrace of his sexy medic, since if he hadn’t been, he would’ve run back to the guest room.
The man in front of him was taller than Gael, wider in the shoulders, and while he was older, he was in no way weaker. He was a beast. Muscles stretched the short sleeves of his dark blue polo, and his jeans showcased thick legs that would shame tree trunks. Dark red hair, dark blue eyes, and pale skin lightly lined graced a very handsome personage, and Silas was torn between appreciation and terror.
Some of his trepidation must have been noticeable, because the joking sneer on his handsome face morphed into a kind smile, and the big man slowly lowered himself onto a stool at the bar. While he was still huge, just that little bit was enough to let Silas breathe easier. Gael hugged him closer, and Silas instinctively curved into the embrace. Gael smelled like body soap, sweat, and pure male, and he discreetly sniffed, briefly pressing his nose to Gael’s shoulder, watching the big man from the corner of his eye.
“Name’s James Riley, Captain of Engine 29. Call me Jim, no one calls me James. I’d shake your hand, kiddo, but Gael tells me you have a world of hurt on your thin frame right now, so a hello will have to suffice. And since he just glared at me for thinking about touching you.”