The surprise hit, though, when he opened the door, and recognized the back of the man across the room.
Blue the prostitute had had curly hair, and blue eyes, and a sweet face, but that was where the similarities had ended. He’d been slender all over, sylphlike, his arms and chest soft.
Gallo, but contrast, had broad shoulders, and a sleek, dense padding of muscle in his chest and arms, strong from training. Which made the contrast down to his tapered, frankly tiny waist all the more shocking. Very, very pleasantly shocking.
Tris stood a moment, lingering just inside the door after he’d let it fall silently shut, watching. There was no one here to witness him, to make fun of him, or, worse, look on him with pity and shake their heads. He let his eyes drink their fill.
Gallo wore a tank top and sweats that had been cut off at the knees, all of him flexing and taut beneath the material, strong, and somehow more thrilling for the clothes – the idea of having to peel them off of him…
He let his hands fall to his sides and stepped back from the bag, suddenly, audibly heaving for breath. Reached to rake a taped hand through his sweat-damp hair.
Now was the appropriate moment to affect a scowl, turn, and march over to another corner of the gym. To act like he’d just come in, and pretend that he hadn’t been standing there watching.
But he found he couldn’t force his feet to move, and he was standing rooted when Gallo turned, and found him there.
In the moment before he spotted Tris, he looked tired – worn in a way someone his age shouldn’t have. Brow tensed, mouth set, gaze withdrawn.
Then he saw Tris, and his face went blank. He said, “Oh.”
There was still time to make some sort of gruff excuse, duck his head, and stomp away.
But he stood, not sure what his own face was doing, caught instead in the light of the other’s, as Gallo’s expression slowly firmed to one of brave, guarded resolve. “You were right,” he said, finally, reaching to brush a stray curl off his forehead. “Gavin’s an idiot.”
Tris was grinning before he could stop himself, surprised, and flushed with sudden warmth. It wasn’t at all what he’d expected to see.
“I told you.”
“I know, I know.” Gallo rolled his eyes, and his posture relaxed. He leaned his hip against a rack of free weights and fiddled with the tape on his hand. “Why he thinks paying for sex is some kinda great time.” He shook his head, disgusted, and his glaze flicked, quick and sharp, toward Tris’s midsection.
He’d changed clothes, since, wore only a t-shirt, but Tris knew exactly what he was being charged with.
He shrugged, uncomfortable now – he felt seen in a way he didn’t like. Pressed much too close to a truth he couldn’t reveal. “It is what it is,” he said, lamely.
Gallo snorted, and glanced away – not angry. Disappointed, yes, but resigned.
“Well, count me out,” he said, like a declaration. “I’ve got more self-control than that.”
A dig, one that Tris knew to take, absorb, and be graceful about.
Silence reigned a moment, then Gallo stood, stretched, and said, “Did you wanna spar, or what?”
v.
Tris gripped the edge of his chair so hard he felt the plastic give, and then gripped it harder. On the other side of the viewing window, Gallo lay waxen and unconscious while scrub-clad doctors and nurses bustled around him. They put a surgical cap on him, and his clothes were cut away, his body seeming smaller than it was under the harsh white lights. Blue drapes were unfolded, trays of glittering instruments were rolled in, and a stand was placed beneath what was left of his left arm.
The tight clench of his jaw was all that kept Tris from vomiting on the floor.
Every time he blinked, he saw the arm lying in the mud, rainwater slowing filling its upturned palm, blood still seeping from the end, turning the old, brown leaves crimson.
There had been blood all over Gallo, soaked through his jacket and pants, slicked down over his boots. And blood on Rose, too, who sat a few chairs away, still and stone-faced, her hands and throat and shirt splashed with scarlet.
So much blood. Too much blood.
It was happening, the thing that Tris had feared from the first: Gallo was dying. Gallo was young, and eager, and too slow, and he’d gotten his arm chopped off – they’d left it behind; oh, God, they’d left it lying beside a stream in the forest, a part of him – and he wouldn’t survive this. But Tris was attached anyway, despite knowing that he shouldn’t be, and it hurt like being cut open.
He kept thinking of how pale Gallo’s face had been, the way his lips had gone blue before his eyes rolled back.
Kept thinking about that first day in the mess, when he’d looked at Tris like he was a celebrity, his youthful face shining with open, boyish adoration.
If he survived…
If he got through this…
Tris would do better. He vowed that to himself, in the tense silence broken only by the ticking of the clock and the occasional rustling of fabric as Rose shifted.
He sensed her glance at him a few times, but otherwise she was good company. Anyone else would have asked him probing questions about the look on his face, the one he could see reflected in ghostly half-colors in the glass: that of a ruined man.
It took a long, long time, and Tris was glad that he couldn’t see all the details, that the shifting backs of doctors kept the worst of it from view. But then, finally a sheet was pulled up–
He tensed, stood, nearly fell from the weakness in his knees and the throbbing of his pulse, hands aching where he’d gripped the chair.
But, now, the sheet was settled carefully over Gallo’s chest, rather than over his face, as if he were…
No, no, not dead. The heart monitor showed a slow, steady jump of green. And the arm was bandaged at the stump – you didn’t bandage a corpse.
When the doctor came out and said they were moving him into recovery, Tris could only nod. He left, he had to leave, it was that or squat down on the floor and put his head between his knees to keep from falling over.
He passed Lance on his way out, but didn’t bother to stop and answer the concerned look sent his way. He just walked. Walked, and walked along the corridors of this unfamiliar base, until his legs finally gave out. Then he sank down against a wall and sat for a long time. Breathing.
He’d made a vow, and Gallo had lived, and now it was time to keep it.
Then he got back up, and went in search of the recovery ward.
~*~
Someone was screaming. A high, panicked howling that rippled with pain and terror. The sound wrapped all around him, spun him, until he was dizzy, and faint, and sick, blotting out the light, hurting his ears. Somehow, Francis knew that it was his scream, though he couldn’t feel it in his throat or chest; couldn’t close his mouth and silence it.
It faded, slowly, by degrees. Until it was only a dull roar like the ocean, the darkness giving way to layers of gray flecked with little starbursts and flashes.
Awareness returned, like a fog lifting. He could feel the slow heaviness of his own body, the dryness of his throat as he tried to swallow. Knew he was swaddled up in blankets, in a bed, that his head was elevated. Heard the beep and swish of medical equipment. Med bay, he thought.
And then he remembered.
The forest, the rain, Rose across the bank of the rushing stream. The pain. The sudden shocking cold of it, so swift and clean he couldn’t comprehend it until he’d seen his arm lying on the ground. It was the horror of that that had set him to screaming. The impossibility of it.
The conduits – the conduits were–
He bolted upright.
As best he could. Light burned his eyes when he opened them, and the drugs dragged at his body, made him unnaturally heavy and clumsy, so that it was more of a pitching forward, scrabbling to catch himself with hands against his knees.
Only one hand. The other was gone. His arm, when he glanced toward it, ended just past hi
s elbow in a thick wad of clean bandages.
Francis gathered breath to scream, but his throat was too bruised. He could only whimper, instead.
Strong hands gripped his shoulders and eased him back to the pillows.
“Shh, shh, ease up. You’re alright.”
He knew that voice.
Francis blinked frantically at the grit in his eyes and let his head fall back so he could look up at the face that hovered just above his. But he couldn’t be seeing things straight, must be hallucinating, because there was no way Tris would be here with him now, pressing him, shifting a hand to grip loosely at the base of his neck, callused thumb rubbing over his pulse.
“Shh, it’s alright. You’ll pull your IV out.”
It hurt to swallow; this throat stuck together. One of the monitors started to whine. “Tris?” he managed to croak.
“Yeah, I’m right here, kid. Hold on.”
Sound of running feet. An unfamiliar voice said, “His heart rate’s spiked. Blood pressure, too.”
Francis was aware of people crowding in on the far side of his bed, on the side where his left arm used to be, but Tris stayed where he was, kept holding him, kept stroking his pulse, again and again.
“Tris?” he asked again, his head light and fluttering. Blackness crowded the edges of his vision.
Tris’s face was lined and tired, his eyes brimming with – with something. Francis didn’t know, couldn’t think. He was here, and he was touching him, and he wasn’t scowling at him.
“My arm,” he croaked. “Tris, my arm–”
Tris’s other hand touched his face; reached up to pet his hair, fingertips scratching at his scalp. He looked pained. “I know, sweetheart, I’m sorry.”
Sweetheart.
“What…” But the black closed in, and unconsciousness took him once more.
~*~
The next time he woke, it was less startling. He knew where he was, and why he was here. The phantom tingling where his left hand ought to have been filled him with grief and frustration, but not with shock and terror, this time. The lights were dimmer, when he cracked his eyes open. And though he could still feel the slow, drowsy pull of the drugs, he didn’t think it was a hallucination this time to find Tris in a chair by his bedside.
It was still surprising, though.
In the moments before Tris realized he was awake, Francis had the chance to get a proper look at him. He was scrolling through something on a tablet, and his frown was of unhappiness, rather than the usual anger or indifference. Even in the soft light, his face seemed more lined that usual, deep grooves casting shadows between his brows, and around his eyes and mouth. For all that, he still bore the unwavering strength of a man hewn from granite; it was comforting, now, in a way it had never been before. Granite men didn’t get their arms lopped up – granite men stayed whole, and untouchable, ports of call in troubled waters.
Francis must have made some sort of noise, because Tris glanced up – and then set his tablet carelessly aside and shot to his feet, immediately tense. Ready for a retreat.
Except, no. He closed the scant space between himself and the bed. Rested one hand on Francis’s remaining shoulder and reached with the other to cup his forehead – taking his temperature, Francis realized, as a large, rough palm slipped delicately beneath his bedraggled curls so it could land on skin.
In that moment, the pain, the exhaustion, and the fear receded, chased back by the simple, warm touch along his brow.
Regretfully, Tris pulled his hand back – but then the other slid down the bare length of Francis’s arm, so the first could settle in its place on his shoulder, heavy and warm through the thin material of his hospital gown, the calluses catching at the fabric with light scratching sounds. “You don’t have a fever,” he said, with a terrible attempt at a reassuring, close-lipped smile. “So that’s something, at least. Doc said to watch for it, though God knows they’re pumping enough antibiotics into you.”
Why are you here? Francis wanted to ask. But his throat was too dry for that, and he only croaked.
Immediately, a cup of water was at his lips; Tris tilted it for him, ever so carefully, so he could take a few painful swallows. It helped, though, and when the cup withdrew, he wet his lips and asked his question. “Why are you here?” His voice was pitiful: young, and scared, and not at all what he’d intended. A part of him wanted to bodily eject Tris from the room, because fuck him. You didn’t get to decide you cared about a person just because he’d been disfigured. Kindness now couldn’t make up for a lost arm, for previous rejection; it didn’t count if you made an overture after it became obvious that a person wasn’t even going to be able to stay in your unit…
Oh no, he was going to cry.
He squeezed his eyes shut, and then brought his only hand up to cover them, dislodging Tris, feeling the IV tape tugging in the crook of his elbow.
“Gal – Frank. Frankie.”
Francis blinked furiously against his own palm, and managed to hold the tears in check. He sniffed, and bared his teeth in a smile that he meant as a warning, but probably wouldn’t be read as such, curse his stupid, friendly face. “You don’t get to call me that.” He sniffed. “You’re not my friend.”
Stillness a moment. That’s right, go away. If he was going to fall apart and feel sorry for himself, then he was going to do it alone, damn it. He listened for the retreating footfalls…
But they didn’t come. Instead, a heavy arm draped across his shoulders, and pulled him sideways into a broad chest. Tris cupped the side of his head, and held him in close as the tremors overtook him.
“Francis.”
Oh, that was bad. Very bad. And not fair at all, not when he was like this. When he was vulnerable and weak and off balance, literally.
Warm breath stirred his hair; he felt a nose against his scalp. “I’m sorry,” Tris whispered, his voice rough and heavy with pain. “I’m so sorry.”
“Go away,” Francis choked out. “Please.”
Tris took an audible breath. “I will, if you want me to. Do you want me to?” His fingers carded through the hair on the side of Francis’s head, and his other hand was like an anchor on his far shoulder, impossible, and real, and comforting.
“No.”
“Okay, then.” It might have been his imagination, or maybe the drugs, but it felt like a kiss was pressed to the top of his head. “Okay.”
~*~
They kept him drugged to the gills for the first few days, whether he wanted it or not, and whenever he edged toward the next dosage, the lightning-crackles of pain in the remainder of his arm reminded him that being loopy and unconscious was better than being on fire.
Rose snuck him in chocolate pudding on more than one occasion, and sat in Tris’s empty chair, keeping watch, while he ate it. When Francis asked – casually, he hoped – where Tris had gone, she rolled her eyes and said, “I told him to take five. He’s been sleeping in this chair day and night. How he doesn’t have the world’s worst backache, I don’t know.”
That set his stomach to tumbling. “He – he stays here? All the time?”
“Even when you’re sleeping.”
He did not once wake alone. Tris only left the room when the nurses shooed him out so they could sponge him down. He stayed for the changing of bandages.
“Don’t look at it,” he encouraged Francis, roughly, a hand on his good shoulder like always, now.
But Francis looked. He wanted to see the stitches, and the pink, puffy, healing flesh. “I have to look sometime. It’s my arm now.”
Tris huffed a breath. “Stubborn.” His voice nearly sounded affectionate.
Francis slept, and sipped broth, and watched his catheter and IV bags get changed out, and glimpsed, every time he so much as turned his head, Tris there in the chair that had become his. He allowed himself the indulgence of enjoying large, warm, gentle hands on him, helping him to sit, bringing him water, fingers trailing through his hair and smoothing the collar of his g
own. He knew this was only the product of guilt and regret and pity, and that it wouldn’t last, once he was more himself again, but he drank it in, now. He pretended. Pretended that, in the dim hours, when pain woke him and he tried to fumble for the morphine pump, that Tris saying sweetheart meant something.
Finally, the drugs were dialed back, and, stump throbbing in time to his pulse, but clear-headed, Francis got the okay from the doctor to get up on his own two feet and take a shower.
“Don’t get the water too hot or you’ll pass out and crack your head on the wall,” he warned, reassuringly no-nonsense. His bedside manner was terrible, but at least, that way, Francis knew he wasn’t being lied to when he was told that if he continued to heal as he was, he’d be ready for a prosthetic fitting soon. There were Knights who continued to serve after losing a limb, and he was determined to be one of them.
“Owen’ll help you.” The doctor gestured to an orderly built like a man who was used to carrying incapacitated Knights around.
But Tris said, “No, I’ll do it.”
The doctor regarded him, then gave a facial shrug. He turned back to Francis. “Call for real help if you end up needing it.”
Tris glared the doctor and Owen out of the room.
Francis, sitting with his feet dangling over the side of the bed, toes pressed to the cold tile, gripped the hem of his gown in his right hand, hard enough his knuckles went white. He was considering hitting the call button, nervous sweat prickling to life on his temples, and under his arms.
Mystic Wonderful : A Hell Theory Novella Page 6
