Flux - 9. Chapter 9

June 14, 2002

Stanford University Hospital, CA

“And so we meet again,” Jack said, using some weird villain accent.

“You look even hotter in your doctor coat,” I said, flirting with him. He chuckled.

“This ensemble was a gift from Stef for Christmas,” he said. “I’ll bet you didn’t know that Hugo Boss designed medical wear.”

I laughed and that hurt my chest. “Will I live?”

“Yes, and it’s official, since I already promised JP you would,” he said. “We’ll be wheeling you back to your room in just a minute.”

“Then I can get out of here,” I said, with real determination in my voice.

“You don’t like it here?” he asked, pretending to be insulted, and then got very businesslike. “How do you feel?”

“It hurts when I breathe, and my chest is a little sore, but that makes sense since that’s where the airbag hit me.” He ran his hands gently across my chest. “I like it when you do that,” I teased.

He let his fingertip brush across my nipple while he winked at me, and that made me laugh. The pain that came with the laughter was not funny at all, though. “Hurts?”

“Yeah,” I said, with the same tone I would have said ‘duh’. “So what’s wrong with me?” I was totally freaking out, since I was supposed to graduate in two days. I had to get out of the fucking hospital.

“You bruised a couple of ribs,” he said. “You’ll need to take it easy for a while, but you should be able to do anything non-strenuous.”

“Damn,” I said.

An orderly arrived and started wheeling me back to my room. It wasn’t a regular hospital room, but a room in the emergency area. We got there, and I found Wade and Will waiting for me. The sight of those two definitely made me smile. “Hey there,” Wade said, and came over to give me a nice kiss. The orderly locked my rolling bed in place, then left, looking mildly annoyed. Guess he wasn’t big on seeing guys kissing each other. Whatever. “What happened to you?”

“Some dipshit was talking on his phone and swerved into my lane. He knocked me into the median, then I bounced off it and ran right back into his stupid ass,” I said. “That spun me around and I ran into someone else. That fucking set off the airbags, and totally fucked up the GMC.”

“Are you alright?” Will asked.

“No kiss from you?” I taunted.

He smiled, and leaned in, and absolutely shocked me by laying one amazing kiss on me, tongue and all. “Was that good enough to find out how you are?” he asked. Wade looked annoyed, which kind of worried me, but I hadn’t done anything wrong.

“Oh yeah,” I said, and winked at him. “I’ve got a couple of bruised ribs, or that’s what they think. I have to avoid doing anything strenuous,” I said, then leered at Wade. “No rough sex.”

“That’s too bad,” he said. There was something bothering him, but I had no idea what it was. Wade was usually a stoic wall, one that was almost impossible to see through, but he was visibly agitated. Did Will’s kiss upset him that much?

Jack came back in, paused to greet Will and Wade, then confirmed the verdict. “No fractures, just bruises. You’ll be sore for a while.”

“So he’ll be alright?” Wade asked. That reminded me of when I’d been in the hospital with my kidney problems, too weak to talk, and Wade had been my mouthpiece, asking all the questions I wanted to ask. Remembering that time, when we’d been so happy and in love was melancholic, but I smiled at Wade anyway, and he returned the gesture.

“He’ll be fine, he just has to take it easy for a while,” Jack said.

“For how long?” I asked.

“You should be back to normal in about four weeks.”

“Four weeks?” I asked, really bummed. But I calmed down pretty quickly. It could have been a lot worse.

“Four weeks,” Jack repeated. “And there’s more bad news.”

“What?” I asked with dread.

“Your parents missed their connecting flight in Denver. They won’t be in until later tonight. JP called to let us know,” Jack said.

“So when do I get to go home?” I asked.

“Settle down,” Jack said. “We want to check your blood work first.”

“Fine,” I grumbled.

“I’ll check back on you later,” he said, and left us alone.

“Your family is coming in,” I said to Wade. “You should go see them.”

“They’ll be fine,” he said, then got pretty uptight, at least for Wade. “We need to talk.”

“Now?” I asked, concerned.

“Now,” Wade said firmly.

“I’ll be in the waiting room,” Will said, then left to give us some privacy. I watched him walk out, and then turned back to Wade.

“I’ve been seeing someone,” Wade said bluntly. I just stared at him, and felt my eyes blinking in surprise. Then with lightning precision, my mind filtered through all the potential candidates, all the guys he could be seeing, and I felt myself getting really jealous, but managed to control that nasty emotion. I had no right to be mad at him for being with someone else, but the way he said that, it was clear that ‘seeing someone’ meant it was more than just a fling. Whoever he’d been seeing was pretty important to him. My mind finally finished sorting and latched on to the most obvious candidate.

“Klip,” I accused, trying to guess. Klip was supposed to be straight, but he and Wade had always had a special connection. They’d spent a lot of time together, at least according to what I could figure out by listening to the guys on the hockey team. Klip was a blond god. It would be hard to blame Wade for tapping him. In fact, the thought of Wade being with Klip really didn’t bother me. If anything, it was hot.

“No,” he said. He paused, swallowed hard, and then dropped the bombshell on me. “Brad.”

I just looked at him blankly while I processed what he said. It was this really weird sensation, because on the one hand, I wasn’t all that surprised, but on the other hand, I was pretty shocked. They’d fucked before, when we were together, and it had been so good for both of them that it had almost ruined my relationship with Wade. Even after that, when Wade and Brad were together, they interacted in a way that was very intimate. They were close as friends, so when you added sex into it, that made it pretty intense. “For how long?” I asked, more to give myself time to think about it.

“Since January,” he admitted. So the whole time I was desperately trying to get back into Wade’s life, he was fucking Brad? I felt the familiar emotion envelop me: anger. I tried to stop it, because this was just the kind of drama he’d want to avoid; and because we weren’t together, I had no claim over him. I fought against the anger, but it was a losing battle.

“That’s pretty fucked up,” I snapped.

“He is a good friend, and we were there to help each other out during some tough times,” he said, like it was no big deal.

“Jesus Christ, Wade,” I said. “He’s like my fucking step-father.”

“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he said sadly. That was almost worse, since that meant he wasn’t even considering my feelings when he started fucking Brad.

“When’s the last time you slept with him?” I demanded.

He gave me a dirty look, and was within his rights to tell me it was none of my fucking business, but for some strange reason, he actually answered my question. “A few hours ago.”

“A few hours ago?” I asked, outraged. “So as soon as I drove out of the gates, you were grabbing your ankles?” I was angry, but beneath that anger, I was really hurt. And on top of those two emotions, I was also dealing with the fact that my pride was wounded, at thinking that I was such a shit lover that as soon as I was gone, Wade was jumping into bed with Brad. My eyes narrowed. “What made you decide to tell me now, when I’m lying here in the fucking hospital?” I paused to mentally pat myself on the back for asking that question in a relatively even tone.

“I’m sorry. I know it’s not the best time,” he said lamely. He was trying to decide whether to tell me the whole story, and evidently opted to lay it out there. “Will interrupted us.” That explained Will’s weirdness, and the kiss he’d given me. In a way, that propped me up, because Will had obviously done that as a very public way of telling Wade he thought Wade and his father having sex was pretty fucked up.

“So you told me because you were busted?” I asked him, even though I shouldn’t have. I should just drop this whole topic. I was getting angry, really angry. This was dangerous.

“It was this thing that was secret, and kind of exciting because of it, but when Will found out, I knew I had to tell you,” he said. He was trying to explain things to me in a very honest and open way, but I was too pissed off to deal with him right now. No matter what I said, it would just cause problems later. And besides, I desperately wanted time to think about this, to process what he was telling me.

“I want you to get the fuck out of here,” I said, almost a snarl. That wasn’t the most diplomatic thing to do, or the nicest thing, but if he stuck around, I’d end up saying something so much worse. He bit his lower lip, nodded, and strode gracefully out the room.

I lay there on the hospital bed, my emotions reeling. On the one hand, I really had no right to be pissed at Wade. He and I weren’t together. He could fuck whoever he wanted to. Yet I was angry, angry enough to throw him out of the room. He’d been so fucking sanctimonious about me sleeping with Tony, and about how wrong it was for me to betray Will like that, yet here he was, doing damn near the same thing by sleeping with Brad. I couldn’t put my finger on it completely, but right now, I was pissed at him for being a fucking hypocrite, and for busting my balls so bad when he wasn’t behaving any better. He’d made me feel like a sub-human for having sex with Tony. Did he expect me to just smile and ask him if he’d enjoyed fucking Brad?

My mind made a dangerous switch after that, and I thought about Brad. I was really pissed off at him. Extremely pissed off. What the fuck? As soon as my father is dead, he moves in on my ex-boyfriend? He had to know that I still had feelings for Wade. He knew how important Wade was to me. I used to look up to him, to think he was such an awesome guy, and here he just fucked me over completely. He didn’t give a shit about me at all. I wondered if he even bothered to think about me for a second, or if he just decided I could go fuck myself. And that led to the worst emotion of all, because I thought of Robbie, and wished for the zillionth time that he was here. After all the shit Brad poured on Robbie about messing around, I’d love for him to be here, to be able to smack Brad upside the head and laugh at him for being such a slimeball. I felt those familiar symptoms, the anger and sadness, floating from one to the other and back again.

I felt trapped, with the rage just consuming me. I looked to the side and there was a plastic bag with my clothes and flip flops in them. There was absolutely no reason for me to stay here in this fucking hospital. I hated hospitals anyway, and I’d already been here too damn long. I knew what was wrong with me, and I didn’t need to stick around to find out the results from my fucking blood work. I hopped out of bed, ignoring the pain, and got dressed quickly. I looked in the mirror, practiced my calm expression, and then nonchalantly walked out of the room. Anyone seeing me would just think I was a visitor. I wandered around the back way, making sure to avoid Jack, and then managed to get through the waiting room without Will and Wade seeing me.

I walked outside and found Pedro sitting in one of the big Escalades they used to shuttle the denizens of Escorial around. I hopped in, surprising him. “Take me home,” I ordered.

“Let me get Mr. Wade and Mr. Will,” he said, and pulled out his phone.

I ripped the phone out of his hand. “You can either drive me home, or you can get the fuck out of the car and I’ll drive myself,” I said loudly. “Now move!”

“Yes, sir,” he said, abashed, and started driving. He wasn’t going very fast until I glared at him.

“Can I have my phone?”

“When we get home, you can have your phone,” I said. I was trying not to yell, but I wasn’t sure if I was pulling that off.

“OK,” he said meekly, and hit the gas. He kept looking over at me, and at his phone, as if he could use his mind to dial it. It rang, and I looked down at the caller-ID and saw that it was Will. “Can I answer it?”

“Are we home yet?” I asked sarcastically. He said nothing for the rest of our drive back, even though the phone rang a few more times. He pulled up to the front, and I saw the limo parked off to the side, presumably the one that had picked up Wade’s family. I handed him his phone, even as I was opening the door. “Thanks.”

He just stared at me blankly as I closed the door behind me, then I stalked into the house, trying desperately to control my anger, but failing miserably. I miraculously avoided JP and Stef, along with the others, presumably because they were all so busy welcoming guests, and made a beeline straight for Brad’s room. I opened the door without knocking and burst in, expecting to find him, but he wasn’t there. I walked over to the patio doors and looked out, but he wasn’t there either. I was walking back toward the door, planning to leave, when it opened, and Brad came in. Just seeing him fueled my anger, anger at this guy who would totally betray me by fucking the guy I loved.

He didn’t see me, and just went through what must be his normal routine. He took off his suit jacket and turned away from me to hang it on a hook by the door. While he was turned away, I got close to him and grabbed his arm with my left hand, feeling him jump in surprise at finding someone in his room. I spun him around while I wound up my right fist, and as his body pivoted toward me, my body pivoted toward him. My fist slammed into his face with all the momentum from our bodies pivoting, and from the energy of my punch. This was definitely one of my more wicked punches. I felt the shock and pain in my fist from the impact, and the sheer force of the punch sent him flying backward. He slammed into the door with a thud, but before he could collapse onto the floor, I picked him up by grabbing his shirt, ripping it in the process, and all but threw him into his room. “You’re a big piece of shit,” I yelled. “I wish Robbie were here to laugh in your face, after all the shit you gave him. What you did to me is worse than anything he ever did to you.” He just lay on the floor, with blood pouring out of his nose. I paused to make sure he moved, because even though I pretty much hated him, I didn’t want him to bleed to death. I told myself the only reason I didn’t want him to die there on the floor was because I didn’t want to do jail time for murder. When he finally moved, and proved that he was conscious; I walked out of the room and left him there.

I was still pissed off, as smashing Brad’s nose hadn’t really made me feel much better. Maybe later it would, but right now, it didn’t seem like enough of a punishment compared to what he’d done to me. In the meantime, my chest hurt like hell, and so did my right fist. I’d hit him really hard. I shook my hand, wondering if I’d broken a bone. I started walking toward my room, praying that I could make it to that sanctuary without running into someone, but my luck had run out. I rounded a corner and saw Wade’s sister, Mary Ellen, standing in the hall, looking confused. I was mostly gay, but I appreciated an attractive woman, and Mary Ellen was one attractive woman. She was on the taller side of average, with a really pretty face, beautiful blond hair that was probably bleached, and boobs that were big, but not huge. She was a year younger than I was, but seemed older, with a sophisticated air about her. “Hey there, Matt,” she said cheerfully, with her sweet Virginia accent.

“Hey,” I said, trying desperately to sound normal.

“I can’t figure out how these faucets work,” she said coquettishly. “Can you show me?” I so wanted to tell her to ask one of the staff members, but I didn’t want to be rude.

“Sure,” I said, and followed her into her room. She led me into the bathroom, and gestured at the uber-modern faucets Stef had picked. They were easy enough to figure out. “Just turn this part.”

“Oh,” she said, playing the part of the ditzy blond. “I should have been able to figure that out.”

“It’s alright,” I said, wanting nothing more than to get out of there. My pulse was racing, and when I looked in the mirror, I could see my nose was flaring, and the veins in my neck were bulging. She was standing behind me, looking over my shoulder into the mirror at both of us.

I felt her hand on my shoulder, rubbing in a sensuous way. “I heard about your accident. Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” I said as I turned to face her, only she was close, really close.

Her hand went up my shoulder to the back of my neck, where her nails gently scratched the skin. “You look like you need to burn off some steam,” she said in a sultry way.

And then the dam inside me burst. I was pissed at Wade, and here was a perfect way to get back at him. I grabbed her forcefully and kissed her, but it wasn’t a loving kiss, it was a really aggressive kiss, and she loved it. The next thirty minutes were frenetic, as we shed our clothes with lightning speed, and with very little foreplay, I fucked her brains out. I fucked her from behind, slapping her ass as I did, smirking that she liked it rough not all that unlike her brother. I pulled out of her and turned her around, then picked her up like she was a rag doll, put her ass on the sink, and fucked her there, watching her big beautiful tits bounce around with each of my thrusts. Then I pulled out again, tossed her over my shoulder, ignoring the pain that seared through my body, and dragged her into the bedroom. I threw her on the bed, and fucked her missionary style, letting my anger and my rage flow through my body and my dick. I heard her screaming in ecstasy as she came, but I didn’t really give a shit about that. I was totally focused on myself at that point, and I plowed on, taking her along for the ride, until I blasted my load inside her, feeling her pussy spasming as if to squeeze out every last drop of cum from my body.

And then the spell was broken, and the rage vanished, as if the beast inside me had finally been sated. I collapsed next to her, panting, and cringing in pain. Now that the adrenaline rush was over, my chest hurt like hell, and so did my fist. She lay on her side and gently stroked my bicep. “You know, Matt; I’m not exactly a virgin.”

“So I’ve heard,” I said, grinning at her. “I’m so glad.” She smiled back.

“That was one of the best fucks I’ve ever had,” she said. I couldn’t stop my grin from getting huge at that big stroke to my male ego. “I can’t believe you’re gay.”

“Maybe it’s just my partner,” I said, winking at her.

“That’s probably it,” she agreed. “Are you going to tell Wade about this?”

“I don’t know,” I said honestly.

She thought about it. “Neither do I. But I think we both needed that.”

“I think we did,” I agreed. I gave her a gentle kiss, one that was more friendly than anything, and then got up, flinching at the pain in my chest, and put my clothes back on. “I’ll see you at dinner.”

“You certainly will,” she said.

I headed back out into the hallway, and this time I managed to make it back to my room. I paused to look at my phone, and there was a message from my parents, telling me they’d been delayed. I looked at the clock on the wall, and compared that to the time of their message, and noted that they wouldn’t be here until after dinner. I stripped off my clothes, and took a long, hot shower. It was completely revitalizing, and as long as I didn’t breathe too hard, or laugh, the pain from my chest was pretty subdued.

I walked out of the shower, dried off, and then walked out into the room with a towel wrapped around my waist, to find a pretty annoyed Wade waiting for me. “You just left the hospital?” he demanded.

“Yep,” I said, and pushed past him to go grab some clothes to put on.

“Brad’s at the hospital. They think his nose is broken,” he said in an accusatory way. It took all my willpower not to smile.

“How did that happen?” I asked innocently.

“He says he ran into a door,” Wade said, letting me know with his tone that he didn’t believe that was what happened.

“Clumsy fuck,” I said disdainfully. “Good thing I freed up that room at the hospital.”

“Well you vanished, and didn’t appear until recently here in your room, and Brad ‘ran’ into a door and had to go the hospital,” Wade said, as if he were a detective. “So where were you?”

I looked him straight in the eye and smiled slightly. “Fucking your sister.” His eyes shot open, and I just looked at him smugly. “I figured that if family was no longer off limits, why not?”

I watched him, watched as his shields went up and his expression became calm and unruffled, as usual. Then he totally changed the subject. “How are you feeling?”

“My chest hurts, but otherwise I’m fine,” I said.

“Jack said to tell you that your blood work looked fine, but that the pain would be more intense later on, especially if you don’t take it easy. The soft tissue bruises will hurt less as the swelling goes down over the next couple of weeks, but the bone bruises will ache for several more weeks.” This was weird, because after all that had happened, here we were having a regular conversation. I decided there was no reason to make things tense, and remembered Casey’s words warning me not to create drama.

“The pain is already getting worse,” I said with dread.

He pulled out a bottle of pills and handed them to me. “You’re welcome.”

I smiled. “Thanks.” I grabbed them with my right hand, which was swollen from hitting Brad. He took it in his hand and looked at it, but I played along and let him, enjoying the feel of his fingers caressing my sore paw.

“Did you hit something?” he asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Must have been the accident,” I said, daring him to call me a liar. Brad wasn’t going to talk about this, and neither was I. It was done.

“Will was wondering if you’d be willing to leave after graduation on your trek with him and Zach,” he said, his way of trying to uninvite me from going to Boston.

“Nope,” I said, shaking my head. “I promised you I’d go to Boston with you.”

“You don’t have to,” he said, which was his equivalent of saying he didn’t want me to go.

“I also promised JJ I would,” I said, even though I hadn’t talked to him about it. But I knew JJ would be happy if I went along, and I was looking forward to hanging out with him. And I was going to spend that time with Wade, to see if we could get beyond this latest challenge to our relationship.

“That’s nice of you to honor your commitments,” he said.

“I figure I’m doing about as well as anyone else up here,” I responded. For a mere second, his shields fell, and I saw the guilt envelop him, but then they were back up.

“Probably,” he said, with a wry smile. “I’ll see you at dinner.” He left, closing the door gently behind him. I read the bottle, and popped the two pain pills I was allowed to have, then went over to my bed and lay down.

I fell asleep, and must have been enjoying a particularly good dream, because even though someone was trying to wake me up, I rebelled against it, and tried futilely to remain asleep. But it was not to be. I opened one eye slightly and peered out to see who was bugging me. “Hey,” Will said.

“What time is it?” I asked grumpily, even as I stretched. Someone must have come in and covered me up, because I didn’t have a blanket when I’d lain down.

“It’s 6:00,” he said. “Grand asked if you’d stop in and see him before dinner.”

“What’s he want?” I asked nervously. JP would be really pissed if he found out that I laid Brad out in his house.

“Probably wants to ask you and Dad why Dad went to the hospital with a broken nose,” Will said with a grimace. I felt bad then, because I knew that he loved his father, and that he was smart enough to figure out that I was the one who’d broken Brad’s nose.

“What did your dad say?”

“He said he ran into a door,” Will said. “He’s not the most graceful person around, but that sounds a little too clumsy, even for him.”

“If that’s what he says, that must be what happened,” I said disingenuously.

“We’ll see if Grand buys that,” he said skeptically. “Are you still going to Boston?”

“I heard you wanted to leave early,” I said.

“Who told you that?” he asked. So Wade had made that up, just to try and get me to bail on Boston. That just made me more determined to go.

“Doesn’t matter,” I said. “I’m going to Boston.”

“I’m going to go to Claremont for a few days,” he said glumly.

“Why?”

He shrugged. “I have to try to get along better with Wally and Clara, so I’m going to go see if I can throw out some charm and convince them I’m not the devil.”

“What made you decide to do that?”

“My dad pointed out that I’m putting Zach into this really tough position by pissing them off. I start the fights, and then he has to fight them. So I’m going to try not to start fights.”

“Good for you,” I said, smiling. “You tell him that you love him yet?”

“Fuck you,” he said, but that just made me laugh, which in turn made pain shoot through my chest. I grabbed for my pain pills and downed another one. “You OK? I can tell them you don’t feel like coming to dinner.”

“No, I’ll be fine,” I said.

“How are you doing with all of this?” he asked, referring to his dad fucking Wade.

“It’s pretty fucked up,” I said, acknowledging how much it had upset me. He nodded knowingly, while I just stared at him, and then I was hit by a feeling worse than anything: extreme guilt. This is what he’d felt when I’d fucked Tony. This is the kind of pain I’d put him through. Just like I’d had no formal claim on Wade, he’d had no formal claim on Tony, but there were feelings there, and there was a link that made both of them off limits. And the same anger I felt toward Brad, the same searing pain that ripped through me, that must have seared through him too. I thought about how fucked up my psyche had been when my fist had slammed into Brad’s nose. This kid had shown control and maturity way beyond what I had managed. He’d gritted his teeth and actually sat at the dining room table with me. I’d given him shit for not being civil to me, but fuck, now that I walked a mile in his shoes, he was pretty goddam nice about it. But the guilt at doing to him what his father had done to me just overwhelmed my already frayed emotions and I did something I never did: I started bawling.

“Dude,” he said soothingly. “It will be alright. It gets easier.” Only that just made it worse, him telling me what I’d experience since he’d been through the same thing, and I’d caused it.

“I’m so sorry,” I said, desperately trying to get control of myself. “I’m so sorry.”

His whole expression changed. He must have thought I was sobbing because of Brad fucking Wade, but now he got I was upset about what I’d done to him. He held my battered right hand gently with his, and ran the other one through my hair. “It’s OK,” he said soothingly.

I shook my head. “I get it now. I get it now. I am so sorry for hurting you like that.”

“It’s OK,” he repeated. We didn’t say anything for a bit, we just stayed like that, and I got that he didn’t want to dwell on our issues anymore.

“So you caught them?” I asked, changing the subject. He nodded. “Was it hot?” He nodded again. “Figures,” I grumbled.

“Get dressed,” he said. “Grand is waiting for you.”

“Terrific,” I said sarcastically.

He looked at my right hand. “Might want to keep your hand in your pocket.”

“So I can play with myself while he’s talking to me?” I joked. He chuckled, and then left me alone to get ready for dinner, and to face JP.