A WEIRD noise woke Dee up, and it took him a second to place it as his phone vibrating across his end table. He would have sworn he’d turned it off, but apparently not. He grabbed it, not lifting his head off the pillow, and grumbled, “Yeah?”
“Uh, hi, Dee, sorry to wake you,” Chai said, and right away, Dee knew something was wrong. For one thing, he sounded almost chipper, and while Chai was a pretty mellow guy, he had never sounded chipper in the little while he’d known him. Instant red flag.
He sat up, rubbing his eyes. “What’s going on?”
“Umm, can we drop by your place? We probably need medical attention.”
Dee’s mind instantly went to him and Holden, but no, scratch that. Holden was still in the hospital, right? “Who’s we, exactly?”
“Me and Roan. It’s, um, been a bad night.”
Roan? Shit. Now his mind was all over the place, and he was frighteningly awake. “How badly are you hurt? Is Roan himself? Is anyone dead?” Funny how his mind went right to dead, but the lion didn’t know about human laws, or care. It didn’t have restraint, or any awareness that the human that it shared a body with could be in trouble for what it did. If it were a true lion and not just the virus, which was a weird alley he didn’t feel equipped to go down. Dee didn’t fool himself—he didn’t understand the virus, and he never would, and that went for normal infecteds. Roan was a weird galaxy all his own, a place where physics went bananas and wasn’t susceptible to their laws. He was glad he never really thought about this while they were dating, because he would have felt so bad for Roan he’d never have broken up with him. Of course, Roan would probably have dumped him for pitying him, so it all would have worked out.
“Umm… I honestly don’t know how badly I’m hurt, or if I’m really hurt at all. I seem to be driving okay, and I’m not bleeding. Roan is… I dunno. He seems in and out of consciousness. And he’s growling a bit, but it’s not those hellish demonic growls, like before.”
“Like before? So the lion definitely came out?”
“I’d say so, yeah.”
“And it didn’t attack you?”
Chai scoffed in a way that was a sort of humorless chuckle. “I know. I can’t believe it either. But I got out of there as soon as I could, so maybe it didn’t have the opportunity it needed.”
Did it need much of an opportunity? But Dee decided this was not a problem he could solve. He was honestly grateful that Chai managed to get out without getting hurt. Then it occurred to him. “Got out of where?”
“Oh.” There was another mirthless laugh. “You know, this is gonna sound fake, but I swear it’s not. I was kidnapped by some cops, I think, and taken to what looked like a broken-down farmhouse in… Burien? I’m not sure where it was.”
“What?” Yes, that sounded ridiculous. It also sounded exactly like something that would happen to Holden or the Holden-adjacent. “How… are you… are they dead?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t go back to check.”
“You didn’t—” Dee made himself stop. Why the fuck would Chai risk going back into the house when the lion was there? Dee wouldn’t have gone back in either, not without a tranq gun and a load of backup. “Did you steal a car to get away?”
“No. I let Roan use my car. I’m in my car.”
“Okay, good.” If he stole a cop car or a cop’s unmarked or private car, that was a shitshow waiting to happen. Cops formed circles around their own, even if they were bad. In fact, things had been getting worse in that direction, as far as he could tell. It made him now feel uneasy around cops, even at crime scenes where he was tending to victims. Dee had no idea where or when the “cops against the world” mentality had kicked in, but he wasn’t a fan. “How far away are you?”
“Uh, eight minutes, maybe?”
“Okay, I’ll get everything ready. Text me when you’re here.” He hung up, figuring Chai would forgive him, and got to work. He had his medical kit ready; that was easy. It was getting the rest of the stuff ready for Roan that was hard.
Dee couldn’t give a shit about his couch. It was a Craigslist freebie anyway. Time for a new one. But he was going to need to have some food and drinks standing by.
Even if Roan didn’t partially transform, his body underwent the same shocks as if he did. So his metabolism would be going haywire. Whether he wanted to eat or drink or not, Dee was going to force him to so he didn’t starve to death in three hours. He wasn’t having an ex die in his fucking apartment unless he killed them himself.
Dee’s fridge was full of takeout leftovers, as he was a lazy asshole who loved to watch the Great British Bake Off but wouldn’t cook himself. He was generally far too tired after work and just wanted to shove something in his maw and collapse in front of his Xbox. But in this case that worked out, as he was able to ferret out what Roan would like. The problem was in the drinks category. He had lots of cold coffee drinks and a couple of energy drinks, but these were dehydrating and would exacerbate any dehydration problems Roan might have. The problem was, as a paramedic who always found himself more tired than was allowed, he liked to have caffeine to perk him up.
He searched his cupboards, in case he had something he forgot, or something one of his exes left behind. He hit pay dirt in a weird lemonade mix. Probably Luke’s, as he liked his sugary fruit drinks. Dee hastily read the directions and mixed up a pitcher of it in a wine carafe, because he was an almost middle-aged single man, and he didn’t own a goddamn pitcher. It tasted really sweet but warm, so Dee threw in a shitload of ice cubes before putting it in the fridge. It was probably best cold.
Dee did take a second to reflect on the fact that the detritus of his cupboards was an archeological wonderland of his past relationships, from the ones that lasted barely a week to those that lasted a couple of months. Crumbs of the past scattered behind, the weirdest souvenirs. He would have wondered why guys always liked to bring food by his place, but Dee already knew the answer. They thought his diet was atrocious, being an EMT who never seemed to have time or the inclination to shop, and working his weird hours, things never got any better. A lot of them tried to “help” him, but in the end it hadn’t worked, or hadn’t been enough. He briefly considered an art project called “Nine Relationships Expressed in Abandoned Groceries” but remembered he wasn’t an arty type.
Dee started reheating a mix of Chinese and Thai leftovers in the microwave and was done with the first bowl when his phone thrummed. He thought it was Chai, even though it wasn’t a text. “Yeah?”
“Hi, Dee, sorry to bother you,” Dylan said. “I was hoping you might know where Ro is. He isn’t answering his phone.”
“Oh shit,” Dee exclaimed, unable to stop himself. He really liked Dylan. He was smart, chill, and cute as fuck, and he was as patient as a million saints put together, which was good since he was married to Roan. Dee still was amazed he had lasted this long.
“He found the guys who hurt Kevin and Holden, didn’t he?” Dylan didn’t sound upset. If anything, he sounded kind of weary. He expected this.
“I don’t know. Probably. It seems Chai was kidnapped by some guys, and Roan saved him. They’re on their way to my place now.”
“Good. How badly are they hurt?”
“Chai said they weren’t, but I have some doubts. I’ll know more when they get here.”
“Okay, thanks. I’m on my way over. See you soon.” Dylan hung up, and Dee couldn’t shake the pity he felt for him. Yes, he was a grown man and had made his choice, but did anyone really understand the shitstorm they were getting into with Roan? They thought they did, but they were always wrong. Much like the guys who kept trying to contain or hurt him.
And yeah, it didn’t help Dee’s sense of pity that Dylan was a typical Roan guy—in other words, totally fucking hot. His animal magnetism—pun intended—was catnip to the hunks. More unnecessary proof that life was fucking unfair.
He was almost finished nuking things when his phone hummed again, this time due to a text. Chai was finally here.
Dee left his apartment to venture down to the end of the hall, where the very faint scent of pot and takeout pizza never seemed to fade—it was either the hippie lady in 3A or the young guys in 3B, or both—and was there as the elevator doors opened, revealing Chai starting to crumple beneath the dead weight of a semiconscious Roan.
Dee immediately got on the other side of him, putting an arm around Roan’s shoulders. “Aren’t you fresh out of the hospital, old man? What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Dee shifted Roan’s weight to him. It really wasn’t that bad, but he was shedding heat like a malfunctioning furnace. Another sign of his body’s violent reaction to a shift.
Roan sort of grunted, a halfhearted reply from the half conscious. Dee gestured with his head, a sharp nod toward his open apartment door, and Chai took that as an invitation he should go ahead, which he did. Chai held the door all the way open for them as Dee helped Roan down the corridor, all but dragging him. His inner paramedic was saying this loss of consciousness was bad, but there wasn’t a single thing about this that was good. Roan, as far as his medical training told him, shouldn’t be alive. So it wasn’t much help at the moment.
Once inside, Dee maneuvered Roan to the couch, where he collapsed, and Chai closed the door. Now Dee got a chance to turn and look at Chai. Physically, he looked okay. He had a black eye, which was only just starting to swell and discolor, but that wasn’t so bad considering all that could have happened to him. But that could be said about almost everyone at every point of the day. Life was weird.
He did a quick visual scan, but Chai didn’t seem to be bleeding from anywhere. His normally burnt-sienna-toned skin looked a little ashen, except where the bruise on his face was taking over. The scars peeking out from his hairline were almost bleached white. “You should really sit down,” Dee advised.
“Okay, yeah,” Chai said. He found the closest armchair and collapsed into it with a huge sigh.
Dee checked on Roan again, putting a hand on his stomach, feeling the heat coming through his Pansy Division T-shirt. And of course he was going to take on murderous thugs wearing a Pansy Division shirt. Roan wanted the irony to escape no one.
Dee retrieved his medical kit and pulled out the hypodermic he had ready and waiting for Roan. He flicked it a couple times, did a small test squeeze to make sure there were no air bubbles, and wiped down a small section of Roan’s arm with an alcohol wipe before stabbing the needle into a prominent vein. It was a painkiller, a powerful one he might not risk with anyone else, but Roan could take whatever he gave him. He didn’t have the tolerance problems of a normal human, which his overdosing on animal tranquilizers proved. Hell, some asshole was cutting heroin with horse and elephant tranquilizers, tiny amounts, and it had already killed five people that he knew of. And that was hardly one one-thousandth of the dosage Roan had been hit with and survived. Superhuman was really the only word for it, but no one in the medical community would say it. But on top of everything else and all he’d been through, it really was the only explanation for how he was still alive. No normal human could be.
Dee put the used needle in a small paper bag and stamped on it with a sneakered foot before tossing it in the garbage. That was one needle he never wanted anyone reusing. Dee then got busy dumping warm food in a bowl before pulling the carafe from the fridge and pouring the lemonade in a plastic tumbler.
“You didn’t make us dinner, did you?” Chai asked.
“In a way. Roan’s metabolism freaks out, and I have to make sure he doesn’t starve to death. Why don’t you tell me what happened to you, starting from how you got kidnapped.”
Chai did, while Dee set aside a plate of food for him. He didn’t know if Chai was hungry—and if he had a concussion, he’d be nauseous—but he got a sense of interest. So Chai told him the story, and none of it was terribly surprising except the fact that the men would go for a kidnapping on a street in daylight and actually get away with it. That was pretty brazen. But Dee could easily imagine that Ro’s return had rattled them to their core. They probably thought they could handle everything, until the professional wrench showed up to break their machine.
He briefly wondered if any of them were alive, and then decided he didn’t care. He knew he should, but come on. No, it wasn’t public, but so many people, especially cops and medical personnel, knew about Roan. They knew, if enraged, the lion came out, and the lion didn’t fuck around. It had no time for your bipedal bullshit and boomsticks. It came, it saw, it tore out your fucking throat. It was known. These men, if they were cops, should have had sufficient warning. They should have known that the smart play, the minute Roan showed up, was to get the fuck out of Dodge and try to hit someplace without an extradition treaty before anyone caught up to them.
But macho guys didn’t run, did they? Macho cops held their fucking ground and decided they could take out the kitty fag that everyone else was so afraid of. He was an infected and a flamer, right? No problem for straight, macho guys like them. Men’s men. Who went the way of all men who decided their fragile sense of masculinity was a hell of a lot more important than their lives. He would have pitied them if he didn’t find that kind of dickhead so infuriating. That’s why Dee generally didn’t date cops. Roan had been the exception because he didn’t feel the need to be hypermasculine or worry about how he presented himself to other men. In retrospect, of course, he didn’t have to worry about any of that. He had a lion in him. No man was ever going to be bigger or badder than that. Roan had cornered the market, and unconsciously, he must have known that. It was hard to make a man feel insecure when he knew, if push came to shove, he could easily kill everyone in the room.
But right now, he was an unconscious lump on the couch. Dee grabbed Roan by the shoulders and pulled him up to a sitting position. “C’mon, old man, wake up,” Dee said, trying to encourage him. He had no idea if Roan actually heard him or not.
“Why do you keep calling him old man?” Chai wondered. “Is he that much older than you?”
“Not really. But I’m trying to irritate him back to consciousness.”
“Does that work?”
“More often than not.” But even as he said it, it was clear it wasn’t working right now. Dee crouched down and patted Roan’s cheek. “Come on.” If he couldn’t get him to open his eyes, he’d probably have to dig out his IV rig, which he had hidden in the back of his closet. But if Roan was that bad, he’d need a hospital. The IV would only keep him relatively stable for a short period of time.
Of course, part of it was that he didn’t want to break out all that gear in front of Chai and have him ask if all paramedics kept so much medical gear at home. He could lie, as it was probably likely Chai wouldn’t know either way, but it was the principle of the thing.
He liked to take the moral high ground on Holden, and he felt he’d earned it. Holden was out there hurting people. But Dee knew it was kind of hypocritical of him since he had essentially played Kevorkian for friends and friends of friends who were terminally ill. He hadn’t done it recently, but that was only because most of the infecteds he knew were already dead.
What he learned when his mother had a late diagnosis of ovarian cancer was that doctors didn’t like to give certain people—minorities, for example, or the poor—too much in the way of painkillers, and yet were happy to keep them alive even though their life had devolved into a never-ending grind of pure torture. Seeing it happen once had been more than enough for Dee. If the terminally ill wanted to move up their own expiration dates a couple of days, why the fuck did medical institutions stand in their way? Things were starting to change, very slowly, but from what Dee understood, they were getting even stingier with painkilling drugs, thanks to widespread opioid addictions. Dee still had connections in the infected community and was ready to go as need be. But he felt the difference between him and Holden was that he was helping people, easing their pain, but they made the call on what happened and when. Vigilantes were completely in charge of the whats and whens, and whether they helped anyone or not was subjective.
Finally, Roan reached out and batted at his hand with a weak groan that could have been a swallowed word. His eyelids were fluttering as if he was fighting to open them. It wasn’t the first time he’d seen Roan’s body respond before he was fully conscious, but it never stopped being freaky. He had a powerful mind and an overpowered body, and yet it was his body that often let him down and his mind that would eventually kill him.
Roan’s eyes finally opened, and Dee was reminded he thought his green eyes were always Roan’s best feature. Well, that and his ass, but his ass wasn’t always visible.
“Dee?” It seemed to take him a moment to remember why he was here; Dee could see it in his eyes. But then he did. “Oh shit.” He immediately looked around, sitting up straighter, and seemed to relax a little when he saw Chai was in the chair. “You okay?”
Chai nodded. “More or less. Sorry I didn’t stay home.”
“It’s okay. They might have tried to move on you anyway. They were extremely stupid.”
Dee couldn’t imagine a more fitting eulogy for those assholes. And he knew it probably was just that.
Dee handed Roan the bowl of food and the glass of lemonade. Roan took them but rolled his eyes. “Are you my mom now?”
“You wish. Eat up.”
It seemed to take Roan a few seconds of intense concentration before he could actually drink from the glass. Whether that was a lingering effect of the change or the pain was debatable, and only Roan knew for sure. Whether he would admit it was another thing entirely.
Roan drank most of the liquid in three swallows, proving how parched he was. “Wow, that’s terrible,” Roan said, giving Dee the now empty glass. He looked a bit better, showing sometimes all you needed was water and sugar.
“Tell me about it.”
While Dee was in the kitchen pouring another glass of the awful lemonade, there was a knock at the door. Dee glanced at Roan, who looked toward the closed door for a few seconds. “It’s Dyl. Did you tell him I was here?”
Dee was briefly flabbergasted. How did he know it was Dylan? There was no way he could smell him from there, was there? Maybe. Before Ro had moved to Canada, he was getting…. Dee didn’t want to say more catlike because that was stereotypical and wrong. The infected really weren’t big cats, no matter what they shifted into. Except Roan, of course. There was a time you could claim he wasn’t leonine in the least, but that time had ceased how many years ago? And it wasn’t a guess. Roan was saying it as if he could see him through the door. Which… no, that was crazy. Yeah, he was superhuman, but this wasn’t a fucking comic book.
“He called me, worried about you,” Dee said. He almost checked through the door’s peephole, but fuck it. Even if Roan was wrong, any trouble stepping though the door would be laid out on the floor before it had a chance to regret its poor life choices.
Of course it was Dylan, and Dee was almost struck dumb. Incredibly, while Dylan had changed very little since the last time Dee had seen him, he was somehow hotter. He’d let his black hair grow out a bit, making it not only longer but giving it a bit more of a wave. He also had a discreet five o’clock shadow that could have been accidental or deliberate, just like his hair. It was calculated bedhead sexy, although the weariness in his eyes suggested none of this was deliberate. He finished the look with a wardrobe that could have come straight from Roan’s closet: worn jeans with small paint splatters, biker boots, an oversized olive-green jacket that could have been Army surplus, and a T-shirt advertising the Serrano Art Gallery. Dylan was rocking disheveled bohemian chic without meaning to, which made it that much sexier. Goddamn Roan and the goddamn hunks who were sucked into his orbit like gorgeous moths to dangerous flames.
Of course, maybe Dylan was adjusting to meet his role as hot new artist. His career had taken off since they’d moved to Vancouver. Well, as much as it could take off in the art world. But it seemed up there, the rumors about his husband had made Dylan a hot commodity. Why that hadn’t worked the same down here was anyone’s guess, although Dee bet it had something to do with the fundamental difference between Canadians and Americans. For one thing, it wasn’t legal to kill transformed infecteds up there, unless they posed an immediate threat to life, and you had to prove that. They tried to treat infecteds as human, no matter their current guise. It was laudable, and the Canadians were so fucking smug about it.
Dylan opened his mouth to speak to him, but his deep brown eyes were drawn to Roan sitting on the couch. Roan gave him a sheepish wave, which led Dylan to giving Dee nothing more than an appreciative nod before heading toward his husband. “What am I going to do with you?” Dylan asked. Roan took a breath to respond, but Dylan quickly added, “That was rhetorical.”
“Dammit,” Roan said. Dee was curious if Ro was going to try to defuse this with humor—humor being Roan’s weapon of choice when he wasn’t in full lion mode—but what else could he do? Not that it would work. There wasn’t enough humor in the world to make this okay.
Dee realized they would need some privacy to have their talk/domestic squabble, so he walked over to Chai and offered him a hand up. “Come on. Let’s go do something about that eye.”
Chai self-consciously touched his eye but then winced as he made contact with bruised flesh. “Is it that bad?”
“No, but I’ve neglected it long enough.”
Chai took his hand, and Dee helped him stand up before leading him to the bedroom so Dylan and Roan could temporarily have their own space. He really hoped being in a strange place kept them from a knock-down, drag-out sort of fight.
Once Dee closed the door and flipped on the light, he wished he’d cleaned up his bedroom a bit more before leading Chai in. It wasn’t terrible; he had made a halfhearted attempt to clean up yesterday. But if he was trying to make a good impression, it was a partial stumble. He hadn’t made his bed as much as he had casually thrown his dark blue comforter over it in hopes it would look neater than it actually was. At least he’d picked all his clothes up off the floor.
Chai sat on the end of his bed while Dee pulled out a secondary first aid kit. He was never going to be caught unprepared by anyone. “Okay, I’m gonna do a couple of tests, and they’ll seem weird, but humor me.”
Chai appeared a little wary, but at the same time, seemed resigned. “Sure.”
Dee crouched down in front of him and did the usual for suspected head injuries: he pulled out a penlight and tested the responsiveness of Chai’s pupils—fine—and had him follow his fingers with his eyes without moving his head. Chai really did have lovely eyes, almost more black than brown, really pretty. He also audibly confirmed that, while his head hurt a little, he’d had worse hangovers, and he wasn’t nauseous. “So do you think I’m okay?”
“For now. Best to keep an eye on you for twenty-four hours. Any change or weirdness needs to be reported immediately.” Dee slipped his penlight into his pocket, as it had a tendency to come in handy for nonmedical reasons. “Let me guess—you’re mixed race, right?”
“Yeah. My dad’s Indian, and my mom’s Indonesian and Thai. So I’m really three races mixed. My mother mainly identifies as Thai, and as a result, I identify as Indonesian so I can disagree with both my parents. Why?”
Dee nodded, smiling. “I have this sort of sixth sense for finding people like me. Glad it still works.”
Chai gave him a sassy eyebrow raise. “Like you? You don’t look Indonesian to me.”
Dee pointed at himself. “Black and Puerto Rican. I feel all us mixed-race people are the same group, no matter what we’re mixes of. I mean, single-race people are like purebreds, aren’t they? Inbred and riddled with disease.”
Chai laughed, and that made him wince and reach for his eye, although he stopped before he touched his face. “Have you told them that?”
“Some of them. Depends.” Dee was aware that Dylan was one of that group—being half-Latino, half-white—and that Roan wasn’t, but he actually mentioned the purebred joke to Roan once, who only said, “That’s fair.” Like it was! He was only being silly. Well, mostly. He did wonder if Roan was an honorary member, since he was half-virus, but wasn’t sure he could stretch the definition that far. Roan probably needed a category for himself alone, wherever the hybrid species and mutant superheroes went.
Chai was shaking his head, but he was smiling, and it looked like the ashen tone beneath his skin was fading away. Dee didn’t blame him; some people never recovered from the shock of seeing Roan in his altered state. “So racist.”
“I prefer to think of it as contemporary.” Dee busied himself putting his secondary medical kit away and surreptitiously checking out his room to make sure he hadn’t left out anything too embarrassing. It was unlikely but still possible. “When we get back out there, I probably have a bag of blue ice you can hold to your eye.”
“Does that do anything?”
“Sure, it can ease the swelling a bit.”
“A bit?”
“Not even ice can perform miracles.”
“Gee, thanks.”
Dee turned back to Chai, giving him a smooth smile. He knew that serious accidents could leave psychological scars, and that some people never quite adjusted to their new reality. But he got the distinct impression that Chai thought because he’d lost half his leg, he was suddenly rendered ugly. Yeah, he had some scars on his scalp, but the way he styled his hair kept them hidden. He was still as hot as shit, probably way too hot for Seattle, but he didn’t seem to know it. With Roan it made more sense because nothing about him screamed hot. He was just magnetic in a way he chalked up to his freak factor. Chai was movie-star handsome, although not in that “not of this Earth” way that some stars had. (Dee had no idea why, but sometimes he saw those actors in movie trailers and wondered how they weren’t mannequins, with perfect skin and perfect teeth and perfectly symmetrical features. The one thing he and Roan did have in common was occasionally finding perfection a weird sort of turnoff. Not always, but sometimes it was kind of weird.) “You okay?”
“Yeah. My headache isn’t even bad; it’s mostly settled around my eye.”
“Not what I meant.”
Chai grimaced and looked away, as if afraid to meet his eyes. “I… I really don’t know. Sometimes I think I kind of am, and that’s weird, but then I look at my hand.” Chai held it up, palm toward the floor, and Dee could see a mild tremor before he lowered it to his leg. “I just… it’s almost like a dream, you know? It didn’t seem real. Not when I woke up in that chair, and not when Roan busted down the door. I can almost believe I made it up, you know? Like someone slipped me some ’shrooms and I had a trip while being half-aware of it.”
“That’s common with shock. It’s a lot to process, and it may take a while.”
“Is that why I want to curl up and go to sleep?”
“Probably. But considering you got punched in the head, I’d say stay up for now.”
Chai rolled his eyes and winced. Apparently even that hurt. “I thought you just said I was okay.”
“You seem to be, but it’s best not to take chances with head injuries.”
Chai grimaced, but whatever he was going to say, he kept to himself. His body posture was awkward, like he really wanted to say something but was afraid to do so. Should he encourage him or back off? Dee was unsure since he didn’t know him that well. Instead, Dee gave him a sassy look, one eyebrow raised and a hand on his hip. Usually people either fessed up or walked when they got that. Chai eventually did what he hoped he would do, which was talk. “Say, uh… um, I was just curious? I’m not pressing. I was just wondering….”
“What?”
“The other night, when we hung out? Was that a date, or… something else? I’m not pressuring. I’m just not sure.”
“What did you want it to be?”
Chai ran a hand through his hair and chuckled breathlessly. His nervousness was kind of adorable. “Um, well… I’m cool with whatever, you know?”
Dee shook his head as Chai continued to stammer without settling on one side or the other. “Does this answer your question?” He walked over to him, took Chai’s face very gently in his hands, and kissed him. It was gentle because he had a feeling he should probably handle Chai with care in general, and he waited to see how he would respond.
Dee didn’t have to wait long. Chai responded by grabbing him and kissing him in return, but he did so a little too hard, and their faces pressed together in a way that made Chai instinctively recoil and grab for his eye, which he forgot he shouldn’t touch until he did.
“Ow, fuck!” Chai said, forcing his own hands down to his legs, his spine curving like he was trying to recoil from himself.
Dee did his best not to laugh because it wasn’t funny. Okay, it was a little funny, but insensitive. “Hey, why don’t we risk walking in on a domestic disturbance and get you some ice?”
Chai was still wincing when he attempted to look up at him. “I thought it couldn’t work miracles.”
“It can’t. But if you keep it on long enough, the skin gets kind of numb.”
Chai blinked away tears and nervously rubbed his hand on his pant leg. “Yeah, maybe that’d be good. Or I should have taken Roan up on his pill offer.”
Dee scoffed. “I’ve got better stuff than that. Although keep that between us, okay?”
Chai nodded, hand clasping his knee way too hard. Yeah, he was in pain. He needed something.
Dee listened at the door for a moment before opening it, and was curious that he heard nothing. Were they keeping their voices low so they didn’t have to hear them arguing? That seemed like something Dylan would do out of politeness and Roan would do because he had been embarrassed enough tonight.
But when he ventured out into his living room, that wasn’t what he saw. What he saw was Roan and Dylan sitting side by side on his couch, Roan leaning into Dylan, his head on his shoulder. Dylan was stroking Roan’s arm and looking thoughtful and slightly sad, like a living Elliott Smith song. “You didn’t have to disappear on our account,” Dylan said.
“I think he was afraid we’d start arguing,” Roan said.
“No,” Dee automatically lied. He frowned because he hated it when Roan accurately guessed what he was thinking. Roan had done this enough that it occasionally verged on preternatural, especially since he’d had no other boyfriend who even came close to guessing half that correctly. Dee was pretty sure that wasn’t a lion thing, just an annoying Roan thing, constantly making lucky guess after lucky guess. Oh, there was probably some explanation for it—reading body language, micro expressions, being aware of someone’s Netflix queue—but Dee didn’t really care to know. He preferred to think Roan pulled these things out of thin air to be an asshole. “But I am surprised you didn’t throw him out the window.”
Dylan smiled at that. “I’m a pacifist, remember?”
“Roan would try anyone’s patience.”
“Hey,” Roan said. “I resemble that remark.” Dee hardly needed to see his drunken smile to know Roan was stoned on the painkillers Dee had shot him up with.
“I take it you feel better now.”
“Fantastic,” Roan agreed. Which was funny since he probably didn’t. His pain level was probably at a six or seven for a regular person, but to Roan, who often went off the pain chart after a shift, this was better than good.
Dylan ruffled Roan’s hair affectionately, and Dee had to look away. Dylan’s love for him was painfully clear. Dee felt a bit of knee-jerk anger at Roan, knowing what devastation he’d leave in his wake when he died. Dylan would be pulverized and knew it, and yet couldn’t stop it.
That wasn’t fair to Roan, though, and he knew it. Anyone could die at any time. You could fall in the shower or get hit by a car, or get shot randomly by some lunatic. The only difference between Roan’s situation and everyone else’s was everyone else had the luxury of ignoring their looming mortality. He didn’t. Seeing it coming only made the waiting worse, but otherwise, they were all in the same boat. They were all getting older and tiptoeing toward death. Boy, what a cheery thought.
“Think you can stand yet?” Dylan asked.
Which would be a funny question, except Roan really did get paralyzed by pain at times. So while Dee had a good bawdy quip ready to go, he kept it to himself. Roan put his hand on the sofa’s armrest and seemed to tense for a moment. “Uh, not exactly. Give me another minute.”
“Okay.” Dylan stood, picked up Roan’s empty glass, and carried it politely to the sink. Again, Dylan had excellent manners, and how he ended up with the feral cat rooting around in the garbage can that Roan was proved the universe had a nasty sense of humor.
Dee, opening the freezer, whispered to Dylan, “Are you okay?”
Dylan grimaced. “Yeah, as much as I can be.”
“You’re not mad that…?” Dee pointed at Roan and felt he didn’t need to elaborate any further.
Dylan shook his head. “The lion does have to come out from time to time. When it doesn’t, it can come out randomly, and that’s fucking terrifying.”
Dee nodded like he knew, but he only knew in an academic sense. He had never experienced it for himself. But the way Shep described running into Roan and having a definite sense the lion was coming out even as he talked to him, it was freaky enough to ruin horror movies for him forever. He barely thought they were scary before; now Shep said he found them laughable if not boring. He saw a man ceding control of his own body to something else; it all paled by comparison. Dee tried to imagine it but gave up. Pop culture had conditioned him to expect something comic book-y that reality couldn’t allow. Like most things, the reality of this was probably so banal it added to the terror. Lioning out for Roan didn’t look like the Hulk becoming green and ripping his shirt off. It was simply a man giving up.
“I suppose there’s some joke in there about Roan never being able to stay in the closet.”
Dylan nodded. “We can only be our true selves. It’s just, for a little while, I didn’t really understand that Roan had two of them.”
Roan made a noise, a sort of inverse groan, and was on his feet. “Woohoo, I am up,” Roan said, wavering slightly. It was hard to tell if his unsteadiness was due to pain, drugs, or both. The funny thing was, it could always be both.
“The question is can you stay up?” Dee replied, then quickly added, “Don’t make it a double entendre, you smart-assed bastard.”
“Why would I? That’s usually your job,” Roan replied.
Dee pointed at him. “Don’t you sass me. You’re in my place.”
Roan partially bowed, spreading his hands out, and it was unclear what gesture Roan was honestly trying to make. It was like he couldn’t decide between two, split the difference, and came up with something brand-new. Dee cut him a break since he was clearly high, but one of these days, he was going to have to tease him about his new body language.
Chai peeked around the corner of the bedroom door looking tired and hurt, which tracked. At least he didn’t appear to be in shock, although Dee imagined that would catch up with him. Being kidnapped and almost killed didn’t go away. And he probably thought he’d had enough trauma before all this. “It’s safe to come out,” Dee said.
“I usually only bite on request,” Roan said cheerfully.
Chai attempted a smile in return, but it was weak. “Thanks for rescuing me.”
“Sorry you needed it.”
Chai shook his head. “Wasn’t your fault.”
“No, but the responsible dickheads almost never ’fess up.” Roan turned and almost stumbled, but Dylan smoothly slid up beside Roan and slipped an arm beneath his shoulders. Dylan was so accustomed to this, to coming to the aid of his weirdo husband, it was almost a dance. They knew all the steps. “Thanks, hon,” Roan said, putting his arm around Dylan’s shoulders. Roan could move now, but that was probably because he was super baked. Those painkillers had kicked in big-time, and Dee knew that not only because his eyes had that glassy look, but because he had a blush near the roots of his hair. It was probably his pale Scotsman blood; he flushed when he got really high. It was good nonverbal shorthand for when Roan was too unconscious to say they were working.
Dylan gave Roan a sidelong glance, one that he probably gave a million times, humoring him and being caught somewhere between frustration and amusement. Dee figured it was a look all couples adopted after they’d been together for a few years. It was a look that said “I’m done with your bullshit but not done with you yet.” That was quite an alien concept, as usually when Dee was done with someone’s bullshit, he was done with them as well. But he’d be the first to admit he was terrible at relationships, and maybe that was why.
Dylan’s big sad eyes caught his. “Thank you.”
“Owe you one,” Roan said, like the stoner he was.
Dee felt like saying he owed him a hundred and one at the very least, but didn’t. At this rate, between them, it was probably a wash. “Just try and keep out of trouble. And don’t die, you stupid fuck.”
“Working on it,” Roan said, and he gave him a thumbs-up as he and Dylan left. As soon as the door closed, Dee sighed and wondered if he’d ever see Roan alive again. The thought was surprisingly sad.
Chai sat on the arm of the sofa. “I really thought you were exaggerating about Roan and his hot guys.”
“Oh, I wish,” Dee said, pulling out the blue ice pack from his freezer. He had a kitchen towel, which he wrapped around the solid brick of frozen gel. Dee actually had no idea when or where he had picked up a kitchen towel and figured it was one of his many exes who had left it behind. The design was so common—fruits and vegetables—it was impossible to say which. “He’s got enough going for him. It’s unfair that he has super pheromone powers too.” He almost pressed the pack against Chai’s eye but realized at the last second he should let him do it. He wasn’t on the clock, and Chai deserved that small amount of choice.
Chai took the pack from him with a nod of thanks and very slowly held it up toward his eye. He winced before it even met his skin. “You know, I hate cold.”
“You’re in the wrong state, then.”
He grimaced at that, and the look he gave Dee with his one visible eye was definitely sassy. It didn’t escape Dee that Chai could have been one of Roan’s hot guys, had circumstances and timing been different. “I dunno. While I hate cold, I also hated it when I lived in California and couldn’t really tell one season from another. Except fire season and mudslide season, but that wasn’t what I meant.” Chai struggled to put the makeshift ice pack over his eye a few times before settling on a semicomfortable position. “I think, before the accident, I was never happy.”
“What about now?”
“Same, but at least now I have something to blame it on.” Chai smiled faintly at the observation. “Pretty pathetic, huh?”
“Not at all. Life is kind of like that. Roan had an annoying pop culture reference that I’ve taken to using as my life motto: no one expects the Spanish Inquisition.”
Chai cocked his head curiously. “That’s a comedy thing, right?”
“Right. But I use it to say no one expects half the shit that happens to them. Sometimes you can see some shit coming, but oftentimes you don’t expect the Spanish Inquisition until it happens. Except for the real one, which I think you could actually see was going to happen if you paid attention to the political climate and the power of the church at that time.”
“And you call Roan the nerd.”
“Knowing history doesn’t make you a nerd. Well, it kinda does. But I have a good excuse, namely lots of weird Catholics on my mom’s side of the family.”
Chai scrunched his eyebrows adorably in confusion. “How is that an excuse?”
“Oh, I know a lot about useless Catholic history. I also knew which priest in a local parish was a pedophile, although I’m pretty sure the church relocated him about twenty years ago.”
Now he looked alarmed. “Did… did you…?”
Dee shook his head. “Nope. Despite my Nan’s constant churchiness, I always found priests creepy as fuck. I avoided them at all times, even the ones who weren’t criminals.”
“That’s a relief. Although why did you find them creepy?”
Dee shrugged. “No idea. I think maybe I saw the Exorcist movie poster when I was a kid and took the wrong message from it.”
Chai nodded and winced as he made contact with the ice pack. He had to sit very still for a moment, riding out the pain and trying not to show it. Dee found it kind of funny how even the most enlightened guy could still adhere to masculine stereotypes, even if they were a bunch of bullshit. Dee knew he wasn’t immune either, no matter how hard he fought against it.
“How about a drink?” Dee said, opening the fridge to pretend to look for what he had. “I have vodka. I might have a box of wine in a cupboard, but I can’t say for sure.”
“You drink boxed wine?”
“What else am I going to drink while watching the Bachelor?” Dee turned to see Chai eying him skeptically, and that made him glad.
“You’re making that up, aren’t you?”
“Of course I am. I couldn’t give a shit about straight people fake dating. The box wine is a leftover from an ex.”
Chai tilted his head curiously. “Who leaves a box of wine behind?”
“A guy who downs three or four of them a night.” Dee did remember that Chai didn’t appear to be much of an alcohol fan in general and gravitated toward what he couldn’t help but think of as “girly drinks.” He didn’t have any cocktail mixings, but he did have shitty lemonade, so he poured some in a glass and cut it with a generous splash of vodka. “I mean, the health care industry is a shitty one, save for those at the top, who never get their hands dirty with patients, but there is a line between self-medicating and self-destruction. A couple of boxes of wine is it.” Dee carried the glass over to Chai and handed it to him.
He took it by reflex, not really looking at what Dee handed him. He downed it without taking a breath, and then, after a comical pause, winced. “Holy shit, that’s disgusting.” Chai put the glass down on the coffee table and allowed himself to slide down onto the sofa.
“Of course it is. The good stuff never lasts very long around here.” Dee felt like grabbing the bottle and drinking straight from it, but instead he sat down at the opposite end of the couch and waited for Chai to either adapt or break down. He could do both, but Dee figured he was too tired.
Finally Chai sighed in a way that made it seem like he was deflating. “I’m going to prison, aren’t I?”
“If Holden’s managed to stay out so long, I don’t see you going. He has friends. Roan has friends. There’s a conspiracy going back years.”
“Why?”
“I can’t say for Holden. But Roan’s been a good guy for a long time, in a profession not known for good guys. It usually doesn’t pay off in life, but he managed to make it work for him. Namely, no one wants to see the fucked-up shit they’ll do to him if the wrong people start figuring out he’s more than your average infected.”
“Does that include you?”
Dee smiled faintly. “Do you even have to ask?”
This was big, and Dee decided to wait and see what Chai did next. A conspiracy of silence with Holden was protecting a buddy, but this conspiracy with Roan was vast and challenging, especially since Chai didn’t really know him. Yeah, he’d saved Chai’s life, but he also undoubtedly scared the shit out of him and quite possibly shattered his world view.
So Dee waited to find out what happened next.