by Quil Carter
Poor guy. Sasha sighed and smiled, then when Kel began to shuffle to the side of the hospital bed, Sasha hopped onto the bed and swung his legs over so he was lying beside Kel. “This has been pretty fucked up, huh?” Sasha said quietly.
Kel nodded. “I was so happy that Master Kheva was home from his trip, and then I was lying at the bottom of the stairs all in pain. And then I was in the woods and Kheva was so mad at me. I just want to go home. I just want things to go back how they were.” Kel sniffed. Sasha shifted further towards Kel, hoping to give him the comfort he needed.
“I know, and it wasn’t your fault,” Sasha said. “Everything will be back to normal soon. Why don’t we just eat a lot tonight and watch television. You must be feeling a bit better now that your leg and arm are fixed, right?”
Kel shook his head. “I feel nauseous and icky. I don’t even want food.”
“Oh, I didn’t know that,” Sasha said. “Was that why you weren’t bouncing off the walls when I brought in the KFC?”
Kel nodded. “But I didn’t want to make you sad.”
“Aw, jeez, right in the heart.” Sasha rested his head against Kel’s and grabbed the remote to turn up the television. “How about we call the nurse to give you something for the nausea, and we can watch some television.”
There was a nod from Kel, so Sasha showed him where the call nurse button was and soon Kel was given some liquid Gravol. After that, they both laid in the hospital bed together and watched several episodes of The X-Files, until eventually the Gravol had Kel slipping off to sleep.
There was a two-seater couch pushed up against the wall, near the door to the bathroom, but Sasha decided he was just fine where he was. The nurse had given Sasha an extra green blanket anyway, which was good enough.
Sasha fell asleep to Kel’s light breathing, the whirs and the occasional muffled announcement from the hospital’s loudspeaker a contrast to the dense, quiet experienced at Ciel Lake. You never really realized just how loud the world was until you were in complete and total silence. Well, all except those noisy crickets outside and Jye going in and out of his cat flap.
One thing that was also different about this sleep, was that for the first time in a long time, Sasha had a nightmare. He didn’t typically have them, but tonight they stalked the outskirts of his mind like a pack of wolves.
It was about Jobe and Lex. They were at Ciel Lake. Jobe was in the dungeon bedroom screaming, Kel was laughing, and Kheva had Lex on his knees, whipping him with the same stick he’d whipped Sasha with. Not only was the visual something disturbing, but there was this overwhelming sense of dread, of foreshadowing in the pit of Sasha’s stomach. Every justification he’d had previous, every conclusion that Kheva wouldn’t hurt them was gone, all that remained was guilt, a feeling in the pits of his stomach that told him he should know better.
Then, a simple voice, one he’d been hearing for the last several years.
‘Kheva will kill them, you have to escape.’
Suddenly, Sasha was thrown from his dream by the sound of wheezing and vomiting. His eyes snapped open and he looked to his side.
“Oh, fuck, Kel!” Sasha cried. Kel was still lying down on his back, but his face, his front, was covered in vomit and his skin seemed flushed and red. His eyes were open but glassy, staring off into space; there was barely any awareness in his eyes.
Sasha jumped up to press the emergency call button, but just as his finger was pressing down, Kel’s heart monitor began to beep loudly. With a panic in his chest, he turned Kel’s head to the side and began cleaning the vomit out of his mouth.
A nurse rushed in, a doctor behind her. They took one look at Kel and ran to him, and Sasha stepped back with a hand clasped over his mouth.
“He has a fever,” the doctor said rapidly. He pulled Kel’s eyelids up and then drew down his lips. “Does he have any allergies? Is he allergic to penicillin?”
Sasha stared at the doctor. “I – I don’t know,” he said, a terror gripping his heart with both hands. “He never mentioned anything like that.” How the fuck would Kel know? This wasn’t something that Kel knew, it was something that Rob knew.
The doctor swore. “We need to get him out of here. He’s having a reaction to something.” The doctor grabbed Kel’s hospital bed just as the nurse unhooked Kel’s IV bag from the stand, and quickly they wheeled Kel out of the room, disappearing without another word.
Sasha just stood there, staring at the spot where Kel’s bed used to be. He didn’t move, his brain temporarily disconnected from his own body, until with an overwhelming rush, the shock of what had just happened hit him.
The tears burst to Sasha’s eyes. He sat down on the couch and cried into his hands, before looking up and reaching for the phone.
He wanted to call Kheva, he wanted Kheva to be here. The Master Nightcrawler always knew what to do. But Sasha was alone, he was alone and actively fucking up.
Sasha dialed Lex’s number, glancing at the clock as it rang and seeing it was three in the morning. It was only twenty-four hours ago he’d found Kel in the woods, and once again the poor guy was suffering.
“Wha…? Huh?” Lex mumbled, obviously awoken from a deep sleep.
Sasha tried to hold back the tears but he couldn’t. He didn’t expect it, but the moment he heard his uncle’s voice the relief was crushing. There had been so many traumatic incidences in the last several months, and finally having support through one of them meant everything to him.
“Sasha?” Lex suddenly sounded wide awake. “Buggy, what’s wrong?”
“Kel woke up puking and he looked all flushed and he wasn’t even conscious. The heart monitor began going crazy. The doctor thinks he might be allergic to penicillin,” Sasha cried. “I didn’t fucking know he was! He looked really bad. Really fucking bad. This is the sort of shit Kheva knows, but he’s not fucking here!”
“Where is Kel now?” Lex said, there was the sound of rustling, he was getting up from bed.
“They took him,” Sasha cried. “They took him to Emergency. Or wherever they take people who fucking code. I don’t know!”
“Okay, okay, calm down,” Lex said quickly. Then Sasha heard him begin to run down the stairs. “I’m coming to get you. They’ll call when Kel’s awake; I’m bringing you home.”
Sasha nodded, even though there was really no reason to be doing that on the phone, and after a quick goodbye he hung up. It felt like some invisible entity had reached into his throat and snatched the air in his lungs, every breath he made seemed to come up short.
Quickly he gathered his things, the few things that he had. Before Sasha left, he told the nurse where he was going and to call him with any new information on Kel. There was a lot of guilt involved in leaving right now, but Sasha couldn’t stay here alone. His nerves still felt like they’d gotten put through a paper shredder, and he needed someone.
Kheva wasn’t here… but Lex and Jobe were.
Lex picked him up outside of the hospital ten minutes later, with Jobe in the back. While clutching a tissue, Sasha told the two of them everything that had happened with Kel.
“Shit,” Jobe whispered. “It does sound like an allergic reaction…”
“And it wasn’t like the admittance form was filled out that correctly,” Lex mumbled. Then he glanced over at Sasha. “Nate was able to recover some old identification of Rob’s, his Care Card at least. It was old, but the number remained the same. I was able to give the receptionist the information needed for Kel to officially be a patient there.”
Sasha looked alarmed. “But he’s not Rob, he’s Kel,” Sasha said. “We have to turn back… I can’t let them call him Rob, it confuses and upsets him.”
“Malloy knows that,” Lex said. “There’s a note on his chart, right beside the one where they explain that he’s a bit mentally delayed. They know it upsets him, they won’t call him Rob.”
Sasha wasn’t convinced, not entirely, but he was appreciative that his uncle had done that for him. He’d
been surprisingly helpful when it came to Kel. It gave Sasha hope that perhaps Lex had been made to forget what Kheva had made him see. But most likely, Lex just knew that Kel had his mental issues, and that he was Kheva’s product.
Lex pulled into his driveway and parked the car. They all piled out and went inside, but to Sasha’s immense distaste, Nate was waiting for them in the living room. The idiot was wide awake, and there was an aura of stress around him. No doubt Jobe or Lex told him what had happened to Kel.
“Is he okay?” Nate said anxiously, his eyes shooting to all three of them, checking their faces for answers. “What happened?”
“They’re not entirely sure, but most likely it was a reaction to penicillin, they think he might be allergic to it,” Lex answered.
Nate’s face fell. “Oh, fuck,” he said and took a step back. “He is. Rob is allergic to penicillin. I remember – I remember he had to get a different antibiotic when he had an abscessed tooth.” The apprehension on his face then twisted to anger, and two green eyes flashed angrily at Sasha through his thin black-framed glasses. “This is why you should’ve brought me,” he snapped. “I would’ve fucking remembered. I’m his god damn boyfriend, Sasha. Not you. You don’t know shit about him, and you won’t get to know shit about him because once this bullshit is over, I’m taking him home.”
For a moment, a brief one, Sasha just stared at Nate, temporarily shocked over the sudden outburst of emotion. But no sooner had the shock hit him, the rage behind his words and the audacity of the little shit knocked the surprise away, leaving nothing but anger.
“You better watch your words, my friend,” Sasha said, his voice dropping to such a hostile tone both Jobe and Lex’s attention shot to him. “Or I will make you regret each one.”
“You’re no different than Kheva,” Nate yelled. “He’s not yours to fucking possess. He’s my god damn boyfriend and he deserves to be the person he was meant to be!”
“He is!” Sasha snarled. “He’s a hell of a lot better than the manipulative, bullying piece of shit he was before. You have no reason to be here. You’re not getting him back and I’m fucking tired of you being here and trying to weasel your way into my family. Get the fuck out of here before I throw you out myself.”
“Sasha…” Jobe’s voice eked into the fight, but all Jobe did was remind Nate that he was there.
“See?” Nate yelled, pointing an accusing finger at Sasha. “It’s not him. What the fuck did I tell you? Is this monster the same man who ran out of his apartment? No? Kheva did the same to him that he did to Kel. That’s not Sasha, that’s not fucking Sasha at all.”
Sasha let out a guffaw at the audacity of that statement. “Keep barking, you dumb dog. Get it all out, then get the fuck out of my family’s home.”
“Jesus, Sash!” Jobe said, his tone sharp. “He helped us find you. Can’t you see where he’s coming from? Rob’s his boyfriend.”
“He’s not anymore,” Sasha growled. He stepped towards Nate, his eyes twin green sparks of anger. The rage inside of him was exploding like a detonating volcano, the lava spewing from each pore and coating him with fire. “His name is Keluva Swift. He belongs to Kheva Swift, and you will not touch him, you will not talk to him, you will not hurt him. And if you disobey me, I will have you on the damn floor screaming. Just fucking call my bluff, boy.”
Nate’s face turned red. “That’s not him, is it?” he shouted desperately. “It’s not him. What did I tell you? It’s not fucking him!”
“Shut your damn mouth!” Sasha snapped back. The idiot had the balls to say that shit to him, and now he had the audacity to try and tell Lex and Jobe he’d had his mind fucked like Kel?
No, fuck him.
“It’s not him! It’s not fucking him!”
Sasha’s eyes turned backwards into his mind, and immediately he saw Nate’s dim, pathetic beacon. It was nothing, a source of dull light, barely enough to live off of. A waste of space, just like the man himself.
With the contempt that Sasha felt rush through him reaching a critical level, purely out of rage, Sasha gathered his energy and pushed every shred of it inside of Nate.
And what do you know…
The little bitch grabbed his head and let out a shriek.
Nate was on the floor in a flash, rolling around like he was on fire, his fingernails digging and gnashing at his own head in a weak attempt to make the electric agony that was ravaging his brain cease. But it was no use, it would only stop when Sasha wanted it to stop.
And he didn’t want it to stop.
“Sasha!” Lex screamed, and the next thing Sasha knew, Lex was pulling him off of his feet, Jobe sweeping in from the right to grab Nate’s hands to pry them from his dark brown hair. The connection was severed then, but, angry at the disruption, Sasha shoved Lex away and turned back to Nate, the hell-vents of anger still steaming him alive.
“Holy shit. Holy fucking shit.” Sasha heard Jobe cry. “Sasha…? Sasha what the fuck?”
“I want him out of this house,” Sasha said, his voice low, a tone unheard of before these last twenty-four hours. “Take him to his home and leave him there.”
“Sasha?” Lex said beside him. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” There were footsteps, but Sasha’s eyes were trained on Nate, now sitting on the floor with one hand still on his hand, blood stuck under his fingernails. “You – you need to talk to Dr. Daniels… you need to talk to someone. Something happened to you while you were gone, something fucking bad.”
“Nightcrawlers are made through pain and torture,” Sasha said, repeating Kheva’s own words. “I wasn’t damaged, I was built.”
“That’s not Sasha,” Nate said weakly. His shoulders started to shake. “Kheva did it to him too. Just like we feared… Kheva got to him too.”
“Kheva made me strong!” Sasha suddenly blew up. “Kheva made me realize I wasn’t fucking crazy, when every person in my fucking life that I trusted and loved was telling me I was insane. Kheva’s done more for me in a month than you assholes have ever fucking done!” He was screaming now, downright screaming, and the more he opened his mouth, the stronger the rage. “Kheva didn’t abandon me; he didn’t try to fucking ship me off. He didn’t––”
“You were fucking suicidal, Sasha. We were scared you were going to die!” Jobe yelled, his brown eyes drowning in unshed tears. “We did what we thought was best! You put yourself in our shoes and tell us you wouldn’t have done the same!”
“YOU SHOULD’VE BELIEVED ME!” Sasha screamed. “All I needed was to be fucking believed, to be told I wasn’t insane.” He stared down at Nate, his teeth clenched tight. “I want him out. I fucking want him out!”
“It’s four in the morning, Alexander Zakharin, he’s staying here!” Lex roared. “You don’t get to make the decisions, I make the fucking decisions. Go to your apartment and go to sleep!”
The roots of Sasha’s anger were so deep, for a moment that wasn’t as brief as Sasha would like to believe, he wanted to hurt his uncle. He wanted to have him on the floor screaming, clutching his hair and pulling out bloody tufts.
Don’t hurt Lex, Sasha said to himself. He’s your uncle, he’s been understanding and loving towards you.
And even though it was hard, Sasha listened. He restrained himself, cooled his own anger, and realized… he had to do what Lex said and leave this situation.
“Okay,” Sasha said, an agreement that had both Lex and Jobe looking relieved but also in disbelief. “I’m sorry I got upset. When my family is being threatened, it brings out a different side of me.” He then turned, and walked down the hallway to the door to his apartment.
Then Sasha closed it, locked it, and calmly went to his bedroom.
“I don’t care what Nate says, Jobe,” Lex said quietly. There was a drink in his hand, for the first time since Sasha’s unexpected return, there was a drink in his hand. “It’s him. Don’t be an idiot.”
Jobe stared down at his own drink, the toffee brown of the whisky surrounding
each ice cube, jingling back and forth from the light shake in Jobe’s own hand. “That wasn’t Sasha,” he whispered. “That wasn’t our Sasha and you know it.”
Lex’s mouth twitched, and he took a drink of his whisky. He thought he’d never be in the living room drinking away the pain when Sasha showed up on their doorstep, but here it was, the next evening, and Lex felt almost as scared and unsure as he did when Sasha was gone.
“We have no idea what the fuck he’s been through this past month, Jobe,” Lex said quietly. “I talked to Dr. Daniels and he says that if Sasha was raped, was fucking tortured by Kheva, not to mention brainwashed… why are we expecting him to be completely okay? That’s insane.”
“He’s not acting like a victim of rape and torture,” Jobe said quietly. “I was expecting him to be… a wreck, a complete and total wreck. I was preparing myself for what I would have to do once he came home. Comfort him, love him, take care of him…” Jobe’s eyes slowly closed and the grip on his tumbler tightened. “But he comes walking through those fucking doors and all that’s on his mind… is Kel. Then once Kel’s taken care of, I see this guy I don’t recognize…
“…I think Nate’s right, baby”
“Stop fucking saying this shit, Jobe.”
“But if that’s the case we have to fucking accept it!” Jobe cried, then he clasped a hand over his mouth, his eyes shooting over to the hallway.
However, he then remembered… Sasha wasn’t home.
The doctor had called him earlier in the afternoon, saying that Kel was awake and looking for him. They’d put him on cephalosporin, a drug like penicillin but one that wasn’t causing a reaction, and he was doing… he was doing good.
Except he couldn’t stop asking for the doctors to bring Sasha back.
Or Sashy.
Bring Sashy back. Where’s Sashy?
Two men who had once been the polar opposite of who they were, and neither of them realized just what had happened to them.