Flashpoint - 1. Flashpoint

Flashpoint

Elliot was more furious than he could remember being in his life. Livid. Outraged.

“No!” he shouted. He dropped onto the couch and pulled one of his boots off.

“Babe, please, can we talk about this?” Grant pleaded.

“No!” Elliot pulled the other boot off. “For fuck’s sake, we went over this last time your sister said she was going to leave him. And the time before that, and before that.”

“It would just be for a few days!” Grant insisted. “Just until Sarah gets back on her feet. I think she really means it this time.”

“No!” Elliot was so furious he actually flung his boot across the room.

“What the fuck is your problem?” Grant shouted, losing his temper as well.

“Because we’ve done this before, remember?”

“It won’t be like last time!”

“How would you know?” Elliot shot back. “You weren’t even here.”

“That’s not—“

“That is the point,” Elliot interrupted. “I let her stay with us for you. And then you left on your trip, and I was the one buying her stuff, letting her cry on my shoulder, driving her to therapy. And remember how she repaid us? She broke the one rule we gave her. Not only did she tell that creep boyfriend where she was staying--she invited him in. I came home from work, with her groceries, and Jim is sitting there, on our couch, eating our food, and watching Netflix on our television. And she is just sitting there, smiling, still wearing the bruises he gave her!”

Elliot changed his voice to a high falsetto. “Oh Eli, look. We’ve made up.” He dropped the tone with a look of disgust.

“I remember,” Grant said.

“I don’t think you do.”

“Look, Sarah made a mistake—”

“A mistake? Grant, I had to call the cops just to get him to leave. I had to get a restraining order when he came after me at work!”

“I know that.” Grant took a deep breath and closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. Elliot recognized it as a sign of one of Grant’s chronic headaches starting, and for the first time, Elliot found he didn’t care. When Grant spoke, his voice was calm and measured, like he was holding his temper back. Elliot hated that, he wanted Grant ranting and shouting so he could offer the same back in return. “I’m not saying it’ll be like before. She won’t stay here long term; it’ll just be for a day, maybe two—”

“No.” Elliot didn’t shout, but he did put firm emphasis on the word. “I’m sorry, baby. I love you, and I love Sarah, but when he finds out she’s gone, this is the first place he’ll come looking. And she’s not strong enough to refuse him. I’ve already had to change the locks, and I’m not doing it again. She needs to stay somewhere else.”

Grant looked away, and Elliot saw a muscle in his jaw twitch. Elliot stood his ground, determined.

“She’s pregnant, Eli.”

Elliot shrugged, even as the news iced his insides. “That’s unlucky then. But I’m not changing my mind on this. There are shelters-”

“I’m not sending my pregnant sister to one of those fleabags filled with strangers!”

“Well, she’s not staying here!”

Grant’s face darkened. “You don’t get veto power on who does and doesn’t get to stay here. This is my home too, and I’ll invite over anyone I want, including Sarah.”

Elliot’s fury dissolved any words that might have come next. His field of vision went red, then white. He could see Grant, still talking, but couldn’t hear anything except the roar of the ocean in his ears. Underneath that was a painful moment of clarity.

Grant valued his sister over him. Was willing to sacrifice their home, their safe space because his sister was in a shitty relationship.

“You’re right,” Elliot finally said when he was able to master words again. The hard ice in his voice was a sharp contrast to the hot tears filling up his eyes. He spun on his heel, stalking towards the bedroom. He could hear Grant’s thudding footsteps behind him.

“Eli, I’m not finished….”

“I am,” Elliot declared. He entered their bedroom and threw open the closet door. There, tucked in the back, was his suitcase. He fumbled for the handle, pulled hard, and dislodged it, sending a tumble of sheets and shoes onto the floor around them.

It was an old suitcase, covered with stickers from the various places they had traveled to. He opened it and stared at the interior of the suitcase without really seeing it.

"Babe, what are you doing?" Grant sounded worried, but it wasn't enough to sway him right now.

"I'm leaving," Elliot said. His voice was strained with the effort of holding back his tears, and he cleared his throat. "You're right; it's your place too, and if you are going to disregard me and let Sarah stay, then I'm going to have to be somewhere else."

"Don't do this," Grant said. "It's not fair of you to ask me to choose between you and my family."

"You've already chosen," Elliot bit out, pulling out a dresser drawer and tossing the contents into the suitcase without looking at where they landed. He stalked to the closet and pulled some of his favorite shirts off their hangers. His dress shirts for work would get wrinkled if he tried to pack them; he would just have to buy some new ones later. The thought sent another sharp stab of pain through his chest, which was already straining with the effort of holding back his sobs.

"Babe, please, let's sit down and talk about this, okay?" Grant said, trying to grasp his hand. Elliot stepped nimbly out of reach.

"Don't touch me," he said. Elliot knew the minute Grant tried to hold his hand or slip an arm around his waist, he would be lost. He focused instead on the minutiae of packing. A few seconds later, he heard Grant exit the room. Elliot took a deep breath and tried to tell himself it was relief he felt, not heartbreak.

He finished packing, snapped the suitcase shut, and carried it into the main room.

Grant was standing by their bar cart--his bar cart, his mind corrected cruelly—pouring scotch into a glass.

That’s going to make his headache worse, Elliot thought before he reminded himself he wasn’t supposed to care.

“Where are you going to be staying?” Grant asked, not looking up as he finished pouring and re-stopped the bottle.

“I don’t know. With my sister, probably.”

Grant still refused to look up. He picked up the glass and swirled the liquid inside.

“Do you need a ride?”

“No. I’ve already called an Uber.”

Grant looked up for the first time and the look on his face…broken desperation… almost made Elliot rethink his decision.

“Can’t you just…not go? Can we talk about this please?”

Elliot’s resolve crumbled. He took a hesitant step forward, towards Grant.

Grant’s ringtone, a familiar up and down trill, broke the silence. Elliot recognized it instantly. Sarah.

“Shit,” Grant muttered, already distracted. He set the glass down on the cart, then answered the phone.

And there it was again. Grant, showing Elliot where he was in Grant’s eyes. Behind Sarah. Again.

Elliot sighed and checked his phone. His Uber driver was nearly here.

He turned to the door of their apartment, stepped across the threshold and out of Grant’s life.

* * * * * 

"And then he said he couldn’t choose between me and his family, and it was his home too, and I didn't have veto power over who can and can't stay there,” Elliot said.

Madeline frowned as her wife Jackie came in with a cup of tea for Madeline and a beer for Elliot. Madeline was curled up on her couch and Elliot was on the floor sitting with his back against the recliner. He knew it drove Madeline crazy when he sat at the foot of the chair instead of in the chair “like a normal person”, but he didn’t care.

"But it’s also your home. So you get a say," Madeline said.

“Did you suggest a compromise?”

“Not really. He tried to say it would just be for a night or two, but I’m not able to agree to anything that might invite Jim into our apartment again.”

Madeline took a sip of tea and gently drummed the tips of her fingers against the smooth porcelain, looking thoughtful. Elliot looked at the way her wavy blond hair fell over the shoulder of her white cashmere sweater. The sweater Grant gave her as a Christmas present last year.

“What is it?” he asked.

“I’m trying to think about how I would react if Jackie told me you couldn’t stay with us.”

“Don’t tell me you’re taking his side.”

“I’m not. It’s about context. I know you and Grant, and I wouldn’t worry about him coming here to hurt you. But Sarah and Jim are another story entirely. I kind of get where Grant is coming from. It’s frustrating to see someone you love in an unhealthy relationship. One of the tactics of the abuser is to isolate their victim from friends and family. Grant can’t keep Sarah from going back to Jim, but he can let her know that he is there for her when she needs him. However, it doesn’t mean he’s allowed to compromise your safety. Does he know what happened the last time Sarah stayed with you?”

Elliot shrugged. “I mean, yeah. He went with me when I got the restraining order. He heard about the entire thing. He tried to use that too. Told me I had the restraining order, and Jim couldn’t get anywhere near me or he’d go to jail. I told him that was sure to be a great comfort when Jim was screaming in my face about how he’s going to kill me and rape Sarah.”

Madeline turned whiter than her coffee mug, and Jackie swore quietly.

“Well, you’re not wrong,” Jackie said. “Restraining orders can be pretty useless. But they can sometimes scare people away. But you don’t think it’ll keep Jim away.”

“Jim is unhinged,” Elliot said and finished his beer. He got to his feet and pulled another beer out of the refrigerator and popped the top off before returning to his spot in front of the recliner. “I don’t know what he might do.”

“Now I don’t want you staying at the apartment either,” Madeline said. “I hate to say this, but it doesn’t sound like Grant is very concerned about your safety. At least not where Sarah and Jim are concerned.”

“He isn’t,” Elliot agreed woodenly. “It’s why I left. I knew after tonight he was always going to prioritize her over me. I suggested a hotel and a shelter, but he said that a hotel wasn’t safe enough and the shelter wasn’t nice enough. He wouldn’t entertain anything other than having her stay with us. And I couldn’t agree to that. So here I am.”

“Well, you’re welcome to stay as long as you want,” Jackie said warmly.

Elliot gave her a wan smile. He didn’t have the heart to tell her he didn’t want to stay here. He wanted to go home, but his home wasn’t his anymore.

 

Late that night, Elliot lay awake up in the guest bedroom. It was a nice room, cool and dark, and the bed smelled sweetly of lavender and sandalwood. Still, he had trouble sleeping despite being faintly buzzed from all the beer he had drunk.

Elliot sighed. He never slept well when Grant was away. Grant loved the fact that Elliot was cuddler, but the truth was, it was much easier for Elliot to fall asleep when he could lay his head on Grant’s chest, to listen to his heartbeat, or wrap his arms around Grant’s waist to feel the rhythm of his breathing. He would never dream of telling Grant, and it embarrassed him a little bit to admit it to himself, but it was soothing and helped him fall asleep too when he listened to his boyfriend drift off. Grant’s body was his own personal lullaby.

I’ll have to learn to live without it, Elliot thought. Learn how to live without scotch-flavored kisses when he got home from work. Learn how to spend Fridays without their “take-out and movies” night. Learn how to live without cuddling his fiancé on the couch.

Learn how to live without Grant.

 

Elliot had managed three miserable days so far. He had texted Grant to tell him he needed space and not to contact him, then blocked him just to be on the safe side. Madeline had made it clear he could stay in the guest room as long as he liked, but he would have to start looking for a new place to stay soon. Then he would have to return to Grant’s place to collect his things. It hurt to think about it.

On the fourth day, he decided to leave work early to swing by the market and get some ingredients so he could cook dinner for Madeline and Jackie, to thank them for letting him crash at their place. Then tomorrow, he could start looking at apartments.

He knew Jackie and Madeline liked his curry dishes, so he picked up ingredients for a new salmon and bok choy coconut curry dish he wanted to try. He let himself in and headed to the kitchen. He wasn’t surprised to see Madeline there, as she often worked from home, but sitting in the kitchen with her was Grant.

Elliot came to a halt so sharply that one of the limes, perched precariously on top, fell.

Grant rose and picked the lime up. “Don’t be mad, baby.”

“What. The. Fucking. Hell?” Elliot said.

“My fault,” Madeline said, also standing and holding her hands up in a gesture of surrender. “Grant didn’t want to text or email you per your request, but he wanted a chance to explain himself and asked to meet with me. We didn’t know you were coming home early.”

Elliot didn’t say anything. He was studying Grant. He had teased Grant, light-heartedly, about being a metrosexual, careful about how he looked and dressed. The man standing here had not shaved in several days. His hair wasn’t styled, and his clothes, while clean, looked uncharacteristically rumpled. He also smelled like scotch.

“I—I’m sorry,” Grant said, stuffing his hands in his pockets and looking down. He looked defeated. “I’ll go if you want.”

Elliot felt torn. He knew it was important for him to tell Grant to leave, so he could make a clean cut and restart rebuilding his life, empty, cold, and broken-hearted.

Grant turned away from him, towards the door.

“Don’t.” Elliot didn’t even realize he spoke, or how his voice cracked on the single word. He saw the way Grant froze, turned towards him, and the hope warring with grief in his eyes.

“Um…I think I’m going to go pick up Jackie and take her out to dinner. Looks like you guys need to catch up,” Madeline announced brightly. “Bye!”

Then she was gone, and it was just the two of them. The silence was a tangible, heavy thing, stagnant in the air between them. Elliot finally turned away and put the bag on the counter, unpacking the ingredients for the dinner he had planned.

“Are you hungry?” he asked.

“No,” Grant said, approaching and putting the lime amongst the ginger and cloves of garlic.

“Have you been eating?” Elliot asked. He could see Grant shift uneasily from the corner of his eye.

“No.”

Elliot didn’t know what to say and was suddenly sorry that Madeline had left.

“Can I help?” Grant asked. Elliot felt his belly clench. Grant wasn’t a great cook, but he would usually help measure and prep ingredients when they cooked together. Elliot set him to work on chopping the bok choy while he salted the fish and got the ingredients for the curry sauce going on the stove. It didn’t take long to cook, and Elliot was grateful. They usually worked together as a flawless team, but this felt clunky and unnatural, made clumsy with things unsaid.

Elliot plated the food and let Grant carry the dishes to the table while he poured them both some wine. He thought of the smell of scotch clinging to Grant and added a carafe of ice water and two more glasses to the table.

They ate in silence for a while.

“You look like shit,” Elliot finally said.

Grant chuckled. “So do you, baby.”

Elliot glanced down at his food, picking at it absently with his fork. “So why are you really here?”

“Madeline told you the truth. I was worried about you. I wanted to check up on you, but I didn’t want to disrespect your boundaries.”

Elliot kept his gaze on his plate. “So how is Sarah?”

Grant sighed. “She’s safe. I told her to pack a bag, then picked her up and took her to the airport.”

Elliot looked up. “You what?”

“I bought her a ticket to our hometown. Mom met her at the airport to pick her up and take her home. I’ve gotten texts from both of them, so I know she got there okay.”

“Wow.” Elliot fidgeted nervously. “I thought she didn’t get along with your parents?”

“Not really. That was mostly Jim putting ideas into her head. They didn’t support her relationship with him, and he twisted that into them not caring for her. I think they also really want her to keep the baby so they can have a grandchild.”

“That will make you an uncle,” Elliot pointed out.

“Maybe. Sarah isn’t sure about keeping it. She’s worried Jim would use it to keep in contact with her.”

“Do you think he will?”

“Probably,” Grant said, and pushed his half-eaten plate of food aside to take a long drink of wine. “Look, I want to talk about it.”

Elliot sighed and cleared the dishes off the table, the food he just ate tasting like glue in his mouth. “Okay,” he said, grabbing his wine and topping it off. “Let’s go into the other room.”

Elliot settled down on the floor in front of his recliner. Grant sat nervously on the couch.

“I—I wanted to say I’m sorry about what happened the other night. I think maybe we both said things we didn’t mean.”

“Agreed.”

“I was really scared for my sister. She was scared too, and I don’t think we were thinking straight. If I was, maybe I could have figured out a plan to keep her safe without housing her.”

“You did come up with a plan to keep her safe without housing her.”

“Yes, but I don’t think I was thinking enough about you and your safety. I know Jim is a loose cannon, and I shouldn’t have tried to force you to be okay with Sarah staying with us.”

“What happened?” Elliot asked.

“Pretty much exactly what you said would. He came by looking for her. Puffed up his chest, yelled a lot, made some threats, then slunk away.”

There was an uncomfortable silence, and then Grant sighed and stood up. Elliot scrambled to his feet as well.

“Listen,” Grant said, running a hand through his lank, unkempt hair. “I wanted to ask you—well, I was hoping maybe—baby, come home? Please.”

“I can’t,” Elliot said.

“Why not?” Grant asked. “I love you. I miss you.”

“I know that,” Elliot bit out. “I love you too. That’s why it hurts when you push me aside for Sarah.”

“Are we really going to do this again? Sarah was in danger, why can’t you see that?”

“I was in danger too!” Elliot snapped back, his temper rising.

“For fuck’s sake!” Grant turned and slammed his fist, hard, against the doorway that lead into the hall. “What’s it going to take to get through your thick skull that I love both of you?”

“Look,” Elliot said, trying to rein in his temper. Another screaming match wasn’t going to solve anything. “You may believe that, but I don’t. I tried your way last time, and it was a disaster. I tried to come up with a solution, with you, but you didn’t want to hear it. There were other options for Sarah, good ones, safe ones, but you didn’t care. You only wanted to do what Sarah wanted. You didn’t care about what I thought, what I wanted from you, what I needed. You weren’t willing to compromise. It was your way or the highway, and that’s a shitty way to treat your fian—your boyfriend.”

Grant stared at him. There was genuine hurt in those dark eyes, and Elliot knew he had noticed the slip. They watched each other for a long time. Grant was the first to look away.

“You were the one who left, Eli,” Grant’s voice was soft, but there was no mistaking the bitterness underneath the words.

“You were the one who let me,” Elliot responded. He felt cold and wrapped his arms around himself. He walked to the door and unlocked it, opening it a crack.

“I think you better go.”

“Eli, baby, please.”

Elliot couldn’t stand to look at him.

“I don’t want to have the same fucking argument again. I told you I needed space. Please respect that.”

Elliot felt Grant approaching. A hand, feather-light, slid up his back, and then Grant was gone, through the door with nothing left of him but the faint, lingering scent of scotch and the cold empty space where he had stood a moment before.

* * *

“What are you going to do?” Madeline asked.

They were having lunch at Elliot’s favorite coffee shop and rehashing the conversation from the night before.

“I don’t know,” Elliot said and sighed heavily. “I know he wants me to come home and work things out, but I still don’t think he gets it. He took care of Sarah,thenhe wanted to work things out with me. I love him and I want to be with him, but I don’t feel like I can trust him to have my back if things with his sister goes sideways again.”

Madeline seemed to consider this. “I can forgive him for taking care of Sarah first. Her situation was serious. Leaving a relationship with an abuser is very dangerous. But it also sounds like he doesn’t understand, and doesn’t want to understand, how you feel about it and how difficult of a position he put you in.”

“That’s not something I can fix.” Elliot sighed and pushed his plate away. His weight was dropping rapidly, and he didn’t care enough to make sure he was getting enough calories.

“Let’s try to see things from his perspective,” Madeline suggested. “Say I needed to get away from Jackie. And you said I could stay with you. And then I broke your rules and disrespected the boundaries you set out with my behavior and let Jackie in the house where she threatened to hurt me and Grant. And I went back to her, even though I knew it was dangerous. Then, I decided to leave Jackie, again, and I wanted to stay with you again. And Grant vehemently disagreed. Would you let me back in?”

It was hard for Elliot to picture Jackie, who was strongly opinioned but never showed Jim’s volatile anger, in the role of the abuser. But he still took a minute and considered the scenario, eventually shaking his head.

“No,” he said. “Sorry. I would help you, of course, because you are my sister, and I love you and want you to be safe and happy, but I would find another way.

Madeline smiled sadly. “Then you guys are at a stalemate.”

“So it’s really over,” Elliot said. He felt numb and empty.

“No, you idiot. You still love each other, and it’s obvious this is making you both miserable. I think you need some outside help with this. Maybe some couples counseling.”

“We’re not even married yet,” Elliot said. He left out the fact he had stopped referring to himself as Grant’s fiancé for the time being.

“It’s couples counseling. It’s for all couples, not just married couples,” Madeline said, giving him a gentle poke in the ribs. “I don’t think this situation with Sarah needs to kill your relationship. You’re both miserable and obviously missing each other, but you guys are stubborn as hell and shit at talking to each other. If the two of you can’t figure this out, maybe someone else can.”

“I don’t know,” Elliot said. “What if we go and they can’t help us?”

“Well, would you be any worse off than you are right now?”

 

Maddy is probably right, Elliot thought later that night. He was recreating the coconut curry dish from last night’s disastrous dinner, since he still wanted to treat Madeline and Jackie to a home cooked meal. She’s usually right about this stuff. He scowled. It’s kind of annoying.

But he couldn’t discount that Madeline was happily married, and she and Jackie had a great relationship. The kind he thought he had with Grant.

But he wasn’t sure if a counselor could help. He was convinced Grant put Sarah ahead of him and their relationship. Yeah, she was safe now, but what about later? What if she got in another shitty relationship? He loved Sarah, but couldn’t shake the way Grant disregarded him if it came in conflict with his sister. Grant was his fiancé, and Elliot wanted Grant to prioritize him without feeling like he was being selfish or unreasonable. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe that was what the counselor would say.

Or maybe the counselor would be on Elliot’s side and Grant would get mad about it.

Or maybe the counselor would just shake their head and say something like “This sounds like an unreconcilable difference, boys. I don’t see any resolution except for ending your relationship”.

Maybe they really were doomed.

 

He was still confused and unsure when he went to bed that evening, but the next morning, when he woke up, something had changed. He felt charged, warm with motivation and determination. Somehow, as he slept, he had come to a decision. He loved Grant. He loved the life they had built together, and he would be damned if he was going to let it wither away into a cold death. He was going to go home, set up some counseling like Maddy had suggested, and romance the hell out of his fiancé. They were going to get through this, together.

He worked for half a day, then took the afternoon off. He raced around the guest room, cleaning and packing away his things. He stopped by the market to get ingredients for a lobster linguine in a saffron sauce Grant had raved about when he made it on Valentine’s Day. He made sure to get Grant’s favorite wine and left the market to walk home feeling almost giddy with anticipation.

He felt warm contentment as their apartment came into sight. He jostled the groceries a little as he fished the key out of his pocket and slid it into the lock. His mind was on the details, he would light a fire, maybe light some candles and put some jazz music on.

He swung the door open with his foot and blinked a little in the murky gloom of the room beyond. All of the blinds were down, curtains drawn.

Damn, baby, Elliot thought, kicking the door shut behind him. You were faring worse than—

An ominous click broke the silence behind him, followed by a voice straight out of his nightmares.

“Miss me?”

Elliot spun around and had just enough time to register the gun in Jim’s hand before it connected, hard, with his face.

 

Elliot wasn’t sure if he lost consciousness or not…if he had, it wasn’t for long, muting the pain rather than taking it away. He rolled over, gagged, and spat out a mouthful of blood. The gun had caught more of his face than his head, and the entire right side of his face felt broken. He couldn’t see out of his right eye at all, and it hurt too much to try to hold it open, so he left it closed.

He felt himself being roughly pinned face down, with a knee digging into his back.

“Where is she?” Jim growled. He felt the hard barrel of the gun nudge up, gently this time, against his left, uninjured jaw.

Elliot tried to talk, but only managed a weak wheeze. He gasped in air, coughed, and spit again. It hurt incredibly to do all three. He finally managed a hoarse growl.

“Don’t know.”

“Yes, you do.” Jim sneered, and the smug superiority in his voice was sickening. “I know she is here. Her car is in your parking lot. So is her phone.”

Of course, Elliot thought. Grant would have made her leave those behind.

“Not here,” he managed.

“I know that, you fucking moron. Where is she? Where did he take her?”

“Don’t know,” Elliot grunted. The words were garbled and slurred, because the right side of his mouth didn’t seem to want to work. “Haven’t been here.”

Jim grabbed him by the collar of his shirt, yanked him up, and backhanded him hard. Elliot cried out in pain. Jim had hit him on the right side of his face, and Elliot felt a horrible grinding, shifting sensation underneath the pain as Jim dropped him back onto the floor.

“Don’t fucking lie to me!” Jim roared.

Elliot didn’t try to reply. He was thinking of running for it, and tried to lever himself up onto his elbows, only to have Jim kick him hard in the stomach. It knocked the wind out of him, and Elliot collapsed back onto the ground. Jim delivered another punishing kick to his back, and Elliot found himself curling into a ball, feeling pathetic and pitiful.

Elliot wasn’t sure how long they were in the apartment, it could have been anywhere from a few minutes to an hour. He was in a bad spot, and he knew it. No one knew where he was. Madeline would correctly assume he had gone back home to work things out with Grant. Grant would assume he was still staying with his sister. He had no idea when or even if Grant would be returning home. Hell, what would keep Grant from getting on a flight to go visit his sister back home to see how she was doing?

Jim had given up on questioning him, and had instead delivered a few more perfunctory kicks before binding Elliot’s hands painfully behind his back. He was currently pacing, alternating between breathing heavily while mumbling and then shouting horrible obscenities about him, Grant, Sarah, and the world in general.

He’s going to kill me, Elliot thought bleakly. He’s going to kill me, and Grant is going to find my body.

He wondered if this was what Sarah had gone through. He remembered the bruises on her face and neck, the gentle guarded way she would move. His face was throbbing agony. He had tried to explore it, gently probing with his tongue, but the pain had been too much. He was nauseated with it, and the thought of how much worse his jaw would hurt if he vomited made him abandon any other attempts at exploration.

Elliot had a sudden vivid memory of one of his coworkers telling him about having a mouthful of abscessed teeth and how nothing could be more painful.

He wondered if he was at abscessed teeth level. Not yet, but he was probably close.

Your mind is wandering, he told himself. He wondered if that was a bad sign.

Jim abruptly fell silent behind him, and Elliot heard the familiar tread of footsteps coming up the hall. Elliot felt an odd mix of warm comfort and cold dread as he heard Grant’s muted voice in the hall. It sounded like he had stopped to talk to a neighbor, and Elliot could make out the low rumble of his laugh.

Jim gave him another kick in the head, a warning, and melted into the shadows behind the closed door. He was going to ambush Grant like he had Elliot.

Elliot’s head was swimming from the kick, but sharpened the moment he heard the click of Grant’s key in the lock. He opened his mouth and tried to call out, but only managed a gurgling croak. Elliot saw the ominous glint of the gun as Jim pointed it threateningly in his direction.

Everything seemed to slow down as the door swung open. Elliot saw Grant silhouetted in the light from the hall. He saw Grant flick on the lights, and shut his eyes instinctively against the brightness. He heard Grant’s sharp inhale. Elliot took a second to steel himself because he knew what he was about to do would be agony.

“RUN!” he bellowed at the top of his lungs. There was an eruption of pain in his face, and his ears were assaulted as the world around him erupted in chaos. He opened his eye and saw Grant and Jim locked in a struggle. Jim was no weakling, but neither was Grant, and Jim didn’t have the element of surprise this time. Grant had him pinned to the wall and was trying to wrestle the gun from his hand. The gun discharged with a deafening retort, causing his ears to ring, and the smell of smoke and metal, acrid and sour, filled the air.

Elliot pulled hard at the cord around his wrists and tried to get to his feet. He was barely able to struggle to his knees and the renewed pain made him double over. He saw Grant disarm Jim, who resorted to his fists. Grant took one strike on the chin, but when Jim tried to deliver another punch, Grant grabbed his arm, using his momentum to pull him forward and tripping him so that he fell to the floor.

Jim struggled to get back up, but Grant pinned him down and started punching furiously. “Not…my…family!” Grant shouted, his fist coming down with ruthless efficiency.

Elliot continued to try to struggle to an upright position. He felt the cords binding his wrists unravel slightly and pulled his hands free. He pushed himself up, and stumbled towards Grant, half-blind, woozy, and exhausted with pain and spent adrenaline. He just wanted Grant. His love, his fiancé, his center of the universe.

Gravity was not cooperating with him; however, and he stumbled, started to fall. Elliot braced himself for a hard impact on the floor, only to be caught by a pair of warm arms, surrounded by his lover’s familiar scent. He reached for Grant, wanting to touch him, breathe him in, look at him, but the world was graying around the edges and the desire vanished along with the rest of the world.

* * *

“Okay,” Dr. Tanaka said, shining a small penlight into Elliot’s left eye. “Do you see the light?”

“Yes,” Elliot said.

The light moved off to the side, and Elliot could see the doctor’s kind, weathered face. “And here? Do you see anything?”

Elliot shook his head. “No.”

“What about here?”

“No.”

“And here?”

“Nothing,”

The light moved, shone into his left eye again. “And here?”

“Yes.”

The light moved out of his field of vision again.

“And now?” Dr. Tanaka asked.

“No, Elliot said quietly. He knew he should be able to see the light on his right side, wanted to see the light on his right side, but there was only gray nothingness.

"Well?" Madeline asked anxiously. "Will his sight come back?"

Tanaka sighed, and his worn face folded into deeper lines. "That is highly unlikely. Taking into consideration the amount of facial trauma and the type of ocular injury sustained, it is doubtful that your vision will ever return to the right eye. I'm sorry."

Madeline's face fell.

"What does that mean for me?" Elliot finally asked. He was trying to process the news, but all he could think of right now was practical matters. "Will I still be able to drive?"

"There will be limitations with monocular vision, especially with driving and participation in sports. Your depth perception will be altered, so you may have difficulty with reaching for and grabbing objects, for example, or you may bump into things on your right side or have difficulty pouring things into a glass. Your left eye still has 20/20 vision. I would recommend some occupational therapy until you adjust to your visual limitations.”

Elliot nodded to show he understood, and Tanaka left the room.

Madeline looked at him nervously.

“Can I have the ice pack back?” Elliot asked. She passed it over and he pressed it against his face.

“What are you thinking?” she finally asked.

“I’m wondering what my new nickname should be. The ‘one-eyed wonder’ or ‘the Cyclops’.”

“Eli!” Madeline exclaimed. She sounded shocked and amused at the same time.

“And I can start a new career as a pirate!” Elliot added. He grinned a little until it started to pull at his stitches.

“Eli, no!”

“Did I tell you about the coat hanger that caught my eye?”

“Eli!” Madeline’s voice was shrill and uneven, and when he turned to look at her, her eyes were bright with tears.

“Sorry,” he mumbled.

“Well, at least you’re feeling well enough to joke about it,” Madeline said. His phone buzzed and Madeline picked it up. “Grant is here. He wants to know if he can come up to see you.”

Elliot hesitated. He had a feeling Grant had already come to see him at one point after the surgery to his face. He had a vague memory of seeing someone slumped over in a chair at his bedside before the medicine knocked him back out again. But he hadn’t seen him since. Partially because he didn’t want Grant to see his swollen and bloody face, and partially because Madeline had bitten his head off the last time he tried to come by. But his face was mostly back to normal, aside from the stitches, and they were weaning him off the pain meds. And he had to face him sooner or later.

“Yes,” Elliot decided. “We need to talk.”

Elliot got up and settled himself in the chair, moving slowly and carefully. Jim’s kicks hadn’t damaged any of his internal organs, according to the doctors, but they had cracked one of his ribs. The doctors assured him it wasn’t serious and would heal on its own, but Elliot had been extremely grateful for the painkillers they gave him for it.

He checked his reflection in the mirror. He had combed his hair, and after hearing about his surgery, Jackie had brought him some clothes from his apartment, mostly sweats, but infinitely preferable to hospital gowns. He would have loved to shave, but that had to wait until his stitches were out. He made sure to position himself so his stiches were facing away from the door, which made it easier to see anyway. He gently touched the right side of his face, but not being able to see his hand made the touch feel strange and alien. He shuddered and dropped his hand.

Madeline left to get some lunch at the cafeteria, and so he was alone in the room when there was a light knock at the door and Grant eased in. He was carrying a large batch of colorful “get well” balloons and gave Elliot a shy, hopeful smile.

"Hey," Elliot said.

"Hey," Grant said. He lingered in the doorway, obviously uncertain.

Elliot stood up and held his arms out, an open invitation, and Grant took it, stepping into his embrace and wrapping his arms gently around his shoulders instead of his waist. Normally after hugging him like this, Elliot would move in for a kiss. Now, in light of his recent injuries and the nebulous nature of their relationship, he held back and drew away. He saw Grant's gaze traveling up his cheek and turned his head away self-consciously, sitting back down.

"Sexy, huh?" he teased, reaching up and feeling the brittle edges of the stitches holding his cheek together. "I might even have a badass scar."

"Dammit," Grant said, dropping his eyes. "Goddammit it, Eli. I'm sorry. I'm so fucking sorry."

“For what?”

“I really fucked up, baby.”

“How so?” Elliot asked. He didn’t want to be cruel, or rub Grant’s mistakes in his face, but he had to know they were on the same page before proceeding. He hoped they were on the same page.

Grant sat down on the edge of the hospital bed, facing Elliot. “I didn’t take you seriously. I didn’t take Jim seriously. I dismissed your concerns and hurt you because I didn’t think Jim was dangerous to anyone but Sarah. I shouldn’t have left her car and phone at our place, and I shouldn’t have let you leave. I should have listened better, tried harder, and I didn’t.” Grant’s voice cracked. “I thought I was doing the right thing, and you weren’t listening. I didn’t protect you from that monster, and my own stubbornness and blind obliviousness allowed him to hurt you.” Grant swallowed hard. “When I came in and saw you, I thought you were dead. When I think of what he did to you…your beautiful face…”

Grant reached out towards the injured side of Elliot’s face. Elliot wasn’t sure if he was going to touch his face or stroke his hair, but seeing his hand leave his field of vision made him flinch and move away.

Grant froze momentarily, then quickly withdrew his hand to his lap.

“Sorry,” he said, looking down.

“No, no,” Elliot said. “I’m just…I can’t see out of my right eye. At all. And I’m still getting used to it.”

“You—You can’t see? At all?” Grant asked.

“I can see fine with my left,” Elliot clarified. “Just not my right.”

“Is that—because of—”

“Jim?” Elliot answered. “Yeah.”

Grant chewed on his lip. “Will it come back?”

Elliot shook his head. “No. The doc was just in here, and he thinks it’s permanent.” Another souvenir from Jim, he thought bitterly.

Grant stared for a moment. Then he looked around the room, at the floor and his hands and just about anything that wasn’t Elliot. His face twisted, contorted into a grimace, then he covered it with his hand as he shook with silent, miserable sobs.

Elliot was floored. He could count on one hand the number of times he had seen Grant cry.

He got up and approached Grant, tugging him up to his feet.

“Hey, c’mon,” Elliot said, pressing up against him and wrapping his arms around Grant’s waist. “I’m right here.”

Grant clung to him like his life depended on it, gripping the back of Elliot’s sweatshirt and pressing his face into Elliot’s shoulder.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Elliot repeated. He slowly rubbed soothing circles over Grant’s back. “I’m right here.”

After a few minutes, Grant pulled back, impatiently rubbing his forearm across his eyes. “Sorry,” he said gruffly. “You’re the one who got the shit beat out of him, and I’ve got you comforting me.” He took a few steps away, and Elliot instantly missed the heat of him.

Elliot stepped forward but stopped short of reaching out for him. He felt insecure and uncertain, and he hated it, how things that used to be so warm and effortless were now awkward and fragile. “Jim hurt both of us, baby. And he deserves to rot in jail.”

“I fucked up so much,” Grant said. “I’m so sorry. I can’t even begin to make this up to you. I don’t know what to do. Tell me what you want me to do. I don’t want to do anything you’re not okay with. If you want me to leave, I will. You can have the apartment, if you want it. If you want to never see my face again, that’s fine. Whatever you want, I’ll do.”

“Look,” Elliot held up his hands. “Yes, things went wrong. I think we both made mistakes and said things we didn’t mean. But I don’t want you to leave. And I don’t want you apologizing for this—” Elliot touched his face “—or anything else that monster did to me. That’s on him, not you.”

Grant got a stubborn set to his jaw. “If I had been there—”

“It might have happened anyway,” Elliot interrupted. “Or he might have killed me. Or you. Here’s the thing. I went to the apartment because I wanted to work things out with you. That was a choice I made. It was my choice not to tell you I was going to be there, because I wanted it to be a surprise. It was my choice not to tell Jim where Sarah was.”

Grant looked away. “Maybe you should have told Jim where Sarah was. Maybe then you could see with both eyes.”

“You know I wouldn’t have.”

Grant sighed. “You’re right. That’s unfair, I’m sorry.” He reached out a hand, and Elliot took it, gripping it with both of his.

“I do have some conditions,” Elliot said. “If—If you want to work things out.”

Grant nodded. “Name it. Whatever you need.”

“Counseling,” Elliot said. “Couple and individual. That’s non-negotiable. We can’t keep going on like we have been, shouting and hurting each other when we have a disagreement.”

“Deal,” Grant said.

“Also, I don’t want you to move out. I was at our apartment last week because I wanted to move back in.” Elliot looked down. “I hated leaving, but I was too proud and hurt and stubborn to come back, and I made myself miserable.”

Grant squeezed his hands. “I would love to have you back home.”

Elliot smiled and moved in. Grant hugged him close.

“Can I kiss you now?”

Elliot smiled up at him. It pulled on his stiches, but he hardly cared.

“Please.”

* * *

There was an audible click of the key in the lock, and Elliot forced himself not to flinch when he heard it. He knew it was Grant; he had gotten a text from him when he left the office, and he had heard Grant whistling the song that was their signal as he walked down the hallway. He knew it was Grant, but it was still hard some days.

Most days, Elliot admitted with a wry sense of resignation as Grant came in and gave him a cheerful “Hey, babe”. Nearly a year out from Jim’ s assault, and he thought he would be doing better than this.

The nightmares had lasted a couple of weeks, but other things lingered. Elliot refused to sit at a table in the middle of a restaurant and needed his right side to be up against a wall. He had been reduced to frustrated tears by things as simple as trying to shave in the morning, to cooking dinner for Grant and himself, but that had improved as he slowly started to get used to doing things with a different field of vision. Grant slept with a loaded gun on the nightstand every night.

Moving had hurt the most, because Elliot never wanted to leave their apartment: it had felt too much like a victory for Jim. But he had never been able to open the door to their apartment without becoming paralyzed with fear. After Grant had come home for the fifth time to find Elliot waiting in the hall, too afraid to enter the apartment alone, he had gently but insistently put his foot down.

Elliot liked the new place okay, he had grudgingly admitted. It was a nice house in a gated community, and Grant had helped him install a top of the line security system. Elliot thought it would help him feel safe, but it didn’t. Not really. Not yet.

Grant shrugged off his coat, holding a box in his hand. “Our wedding invitations are in,” he announced.

“Oh, I want to see,” Elliot said.

Grant opened the box. Inside were the invitations. They were simple, two silhouettes in tuxedos with the wedding info written in an elegant font.

“They’re great,” Elliot decided, grinning. He tilted his head up to give Grant a kiss. “We can spend the entire weekend addressing and stamping them.”

“Joy,” Grant said dryly, but he couldn’t keep the grin off his face.

“Are you going to send one to Sarah?” Elliot asked, as Grant followed him into the kitchen to help him with dinner.

“I think it would be a nice gesture,” Grant said, and there was a brittle bitterness in his voice he still carried when talking about his now estranged sister. Sarah had barely spoken to either one of them since they had decided to press charges against Jim who was currently in jail. “But I’m not expecting her to respond or to show up.”

Elliot reached out and squeezed his hand gently. He wished he knew what to say to comfort Grant, but truth be told, he still didn’t understand Sarah’s reaction, and still couldn’t bring himself to care that much.

Elliot had naively thought maybe he and Grant would need a few counseling sessions, to work on their communication. Over a year later, and they were still seeing her, albeit not as frequently as they had initially. They had both needed help, not only on communication, resolving conflicts, and compromising, but Grant needed help learning how to set boundaries with his sister and resolve his guilt over what had happened, while Elliot had to work through a lot of resentment towards Grant and Sarah he didn’t realize he still had.

They ate dinner and retired to the bedroom, Elliot bringing his wine with him.

“We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,” Grant told him again.

“I want to,” Elliot insisted, before draining the last of his wine and setting the glass down on the nightstand. “I’m just nervous. But I trust you, and I need to show you I trust you. I need this.”

“Are you ready?” Grant asked.

“Yes,” Elliot said, knowing Grant needed to hear it. They both needed to hear it.

Grant reached out with his left hand. He rested it on Elliot’s shoulder, watching him carefully. Then he slowly slid his hand up Elliot’s neck, until he was cupping Elliot’s jaw. He kept it there for a while, then moved up to his cheek. Elliot took a deep breath. It had been so long since someone touched the side of his face, since he had let someone touch him there. It had been too frightening, not to see what someone was doing, hard to feel a gentle touch without remembering Jim hitting him there, tasting the blood in his mouth. He could feel himself trembling, and wanted to close his eyes, to close himself off, but instead he met Grant’s gaze, saw the tender compassion there.

“Does it hurt?” Grant asked.

Elliot put his hand on top of Grant’s, smiling against his palm.

“No. Not at all.”

~END~