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ELI’S HEAD HURT AND he knew he had to wake up, but he was afraid to open his eyes. If he opened his eyes, he’d wake up in an upside-down car with snow reaching the upper half of his windows. He’d have to cut himself out of his seatbelt, kick out the windshield of his utterly dead car, and crawl up the canyon with a very injured leg.
Not ever again – not if he could help it.
Eli stirred. His leg was hurt all right, but it hurt differently than in the car accident. Try as he might, he had the worst time rounding up the stray, floating clouds that were his thoughts, and that the storm had torn asunder. With his eyes shut, he noted the sounds of people that drifted to him like distant echoes in a karst cavern. He wasn’t cold and wet, though. The floor under him, and the curious, planar rocks, were dry and scratchy. He had a something solid stuck the armpit that was trapped under him, and whatever the object was, it hurt.
The pain almost drew him out of his haze. Almost.
“Fuck!”
Eli stirred at the familiar voice. A friendly voice, even though was full of fear and venom right then. A voice he associated with a warm, musky smell and good food and cuddling.
Bo.
Suddenly, memories flooded Eli’s mind and the present was as clear as a finely-pressed lens.
The glass factory, Bo, Eli’s leg.
That thing in his armpit, that was a crutch.
Eli rolled to the side, hoping to end up on his back. His arm was still entangled in the crutch, though, and his legs were pinning it to the floor. He had to do something. Anything.
Now that he knew he wasn’t reliving the ghastly accident back in California, he knew he wasn’t dancer anymore and life had moved on. Therefore, it was safe to crack his eyes open the smallest bit.
Only the left one opened. A thin, yellow, crepuscular light illuminated an ancient stones of the craggy arch overhead, and a stone wall not too far away. Fanciful tales of being buried alive popped up in his mind just then. Cases of rare wine, a treasure, a buried nun. He shivered, but he knew the shiver wasn’t from cold. He’d never been to a cave as dry and cozy as this one before.
Thinking of comfort had brought him back to Bo. His lover. Bo with his amazing base and his fun band. Bo, who worked here, gathering glass.
Ah! A clue! Eli was at his place of employment. More details began to sift into his mind, much like sand going through a sieve, the smallest particles first.
Men ran past him. Eli tried to call out, but it happened so fast.
BOOM!
A blast echoed through the caverns, followed by the unmistakable shriek of a fire alarm.
He found his voice.
“Help! Help! In here!”
Few more men ran past him, but between the alarm and the noise of their heavy footsteps, they passed him by. He felt abandoned, curiously alone. All alone in the darkness. The familiar scent of refractory dust was now tinged with something heavier and more acrid, and its menace was enough to set Eli to thrash around in an effort to stand up.
“Bo!” He flailed his legs and never mind the pain. He had to unpin himself and flip over, and then he’d use the light of his phone and find his other crutch. He had a plan, and having a plan filled with him the sort of energy that keeps panic at bay.
“Bo! I’m here!”
A click of a switch in the darkness was followed by bright light in his eyes. “Oww.” That headache. Yep, here it was, still skulking around in the back of his head.
“Here he is!” Eli’s eyes were shut to keep the painfully bright light out now. He flung his good arm over his face. A voice said something over the radio, and the loud voice he’d just heard answered. “A young guy, brown hair, white shirt. His head is bleeding and he isn’t getting up.” Some crackle, a few unintelligible words.
Then hands and that all-too-loud voice.
“Are you Eli Winkler?”
“Yes.” Yes, this time around he knew who he was. A victory!
“Can you get up?”
“No, dumbass. I’m stuck. If I could get up I would’ve. And can you turn the lights off? I just started to remember who I was. Concussion, I think.”
More hands, and before he knew it, his shoulder didn’t feel like it was out if its socket anymore.
It took forever. He listened to the guys bicker over a neck injury for a while, but once his arm was free, Eli almost howled in pain as circulation and feeling returned with a vengeance.
“What is it?”
“Blood. Back in my arm, dumbass.”
“Hey sarge, he called you a dumbass again,” a guy said from the corridor. Because there was a corridor outside the cave – a sloping corridor.
“Watch out for the carts,” Eli said. The trolley cart and its noise and vibration, and Joe body-slamming him into the cave.
“Joe?”
“Nah, I’m Hank,” the guy said. “I’m with the North Shore Police Department and we’ll have a stretcher down here for you in a few minutes.”
Okay. Eli didn’t know whether he’d said that aloud, so he repeated himself. “Okay.” A stretcher sucked. “I can walk out. I just need my other crutch.”
“Just wait for the EMTs. Don’t worry, we’ll stay with you.”
“But the fire!”
“It’s contained. Don’t worry.” The guy who was sarge and whose name was Hank spoke in such a low, soothing voice.
“You have a sexy voice,” Eli articulated his thoughts.
Somebody snorted. “My wife thinks so too.”
Eli tried to weave a coherent thought out of the tangle of skein in his mind, and somehow the mention of a wife made him recall that Joe had a wife, too.
“Where’s Joe? Joe Healey. My boss.”
There was a quiet, pregnant pause. “You’ll see your coworkers later,” Hank the Sarge said in his low, sexy voice. “Just focus on breathing in and out, in and out...”
Eli did, and soon he felt the swaying of a stretcher under him. “Too bright,” he said at one point, and someone put a piece of fabric over his closed eyes. “Thanks. I didn’t mean it when I said you were a dumbass.”
“At least I have a sexy voice,” Hank the Sarge said right behind him. Eli giggled. It made his head hurt. It also made him think that Bo would be pissed if he heard tell another guy he had a sexy voice. That was good, because Eli liked Bo a lot. Loved him, even, although that was a secret.
––––––––
BO SAT ON THE BACK of the ambulance with his legs dangling out. He didn’t particularly want to go all the way in, because then they would drive him to the hospital and he’d never know what happened to Eli.
“Come on, man. You need to get this chemical shit off of you. They’ll need to run blood tests, check you for chemical burns!” The older EMT was tasked with persuading Bo to cooperate. Normally they’d just give him a shot – he saw that happen on TV – but he kept refusing, and they kept talking. Besides, Bo was feeling fine.
“I want to know that Eli’s okay.” The image of the head smear on the damaged supporting wall wouldn’t leave his mind. Eli not being found was good, because he wasn’t confirmed dead. On the other hand, he told the officers quite clearly that Eli, a man with two serious wounds who had no business traipsing through a factory, could be duct-taped shut by that madman Halloran in any old dark corner of Zimm Glass, and if they didn’t go and find him, he’d go do it himself.
The EMT ran his hand through is salt-and-pepper hair. “Are you two related?”
“Not yet.” It sort of flew out of Bo’s mouth. He pressed his lips together, but it was too late.
“Oh. He’s marrying your sister?”
Bo barked a laugh and shook his head. “Look, I’ve gotta find him.”
“Oh! A boyfriend?”
“Sort of. Nothing official yet, but... yeah, I guess boyfriend’s good.”
The EMT didn’t have much else to say, and Bo was fine with that. They sat and waited while the police and the firefighters searched Zimm Glass for survivors, stragglers, or conspirators.
It felt like forever but it must’ve been only fifteen minutes before a procession of first responders filed out the side entrance. They carried a stretcher. They settled the stretcher on top of a gurney and pushed it up the gently sloping parking lot. Bo saw Eli was under a blanket, and he knew it was Eli from the lock of brown hair that had escaped from under the cloth that covered his face.
“Oh, God. Oh Holy Mary, Mother of God. Oh Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost!” The words poured out of Bo’s mouth the way he’d heard them from his mother when she was convinced someone was skirting a bit too close to the abyss. The EMTs gave him a curious look. “Oh, Jesus Christ on a Cross, why the fuck did you have to take him away from me this soon!”
Bo slid off the ambulance floor to the familiar parking lot surface and burst out toward Eli. He ignored the hurried footsteps behind him.
He pushed harder.
“Eli. Eli!” The procession was headed for the medical examiner’s van, which was parked right next to the other ambulance. He ran for it, determined to reach them, hoping for a miracle.
“Hey, Bo!”
“Wassup, Bartowski!”
His coworkers – he ignored them. They were just hanging around until the building was declared safe enough so they could go in and get their car keys. Somehow, Bo resented them for that. Worrying about car keys seemed awfully shallow when Eli... Eli...
“Wait. Hold it right there!” Bo bellowed, and the EMTs stopped, eyeing him with concern. “Eli. Eli!”
Bo dropped to his knees on the rough asphalt. His knee hurt as bits of sinter dug into the fresh bandage that they had put over his skinned knee. He grabbed the side of the gurney. “No. Wait. Please.”
They stopped. One of the cops came to his side. “Don’t uncover his face.”
Bo looked up. The man wore the rank of a sergeant and his name tag said “Sgt. H. Milecic.”
“Please,” Bo whispered. “Please, I want to see him once more before they take him away and carve him up! He...” Tears stained his eyes now, but he straightened his shoulders and absolutely refused to back down or be cowed in any way.
“He’s important to me.”
May as well say it all.
“I love him.” The tears streaming down his face felt as hot as glass. “We should’ve been together.”
The sergeant put his hand on Bo’s shoulder. “But he isn’t-“
“Whaddaya mean, carve me up?” Eli began to thrash on the gurney. “Let me go. Let me fucking go! I don’t like being tied up!”
“Oh my God he’s alive.” Bo jumped up to his feet and looked the sergeant in his eyes. “He’s alive!” He turned to Eli. “Shh... baby... you need to relax.”
“Don’t tie me up dammit!”
“Let him go,” Bo implored with the nearest EMT. “No restraints, okay? Bad history.” She gave him a curious look, but came up to Eli and gently placed her hand on his chest.
“If you stop flailing, I’ll untie you,” she said. “I just didn’t want you to fall off.”
“Eli, baby, please. It’s safe. I’m here.” It sounded stupid even to himself, as though he could guarantee anything, but Eli stopped jerking around. “Can I take that thing off your face?”
“No,” Eli said. “Keep my eyes covered. Headache.”
“Okay, got it.” Ever so gently, Bo rolled up the cloth and kept it folded over Eli’s eyes while the short, sisterly EMT unstrapped Eli’s feet and then his hands.
“Thank you,” Eli said, but his face was pointed at Bo. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
“I’m so glad you’re alive,” Bo said. He grabbed Eli’s hand, and Eli squeezed it.
“Just kiss already so we can go,” the Sergeant said. “All of your coworkers are getting a free show as it is.”
“Okay?” Bo asked. He was still a little uncertain about this out-and-proud business, but he’d do it for Eli.
For Eli, who didn’t die alone in the dark.
Bo drew a stuttering breath of air and focused on feeling grateful. Eli was alive and mostly well. Nothing else mattered.
“Okay,” Eli said. His lips turned up in a small smile, and as Bo bent over and grabbed the gurney on each side to stabilize himself, Eli pulled him down by the neck.
Bo had never kissed a man in public before. He brushed his lips across Eli’s in a chaste, sweet contact that would’ve been enough, but Eli didn’t let go. He pulled him closer and parted his lips in what was as much a challenge as an invitation.
Bo took him up on it. Sweet, heady, and altogether public – but he was out now. “Go,” he said to Eli. “Go and get well. I have to go get checked out, but I’ll come visit, like before.”
“Will you bring the band?”
“Yeah.”
“And pizza?”
“You bet. If they let me.”