第45章
The Secret Among Us
Player One
When Asher woke up, the room was a mess. Bags of thawed vegetables on the sheets. A mixing bowl with an inch of water on the nightstand. A pint of vanilla ice cream, collapsed and leaking, wedged against his ribs. The whole bed smelled like a grocery store that had lost power.
Levi was asleep beside him. On top of the covers, dressed, his body curled against Asher’s side with his hand on Asher’s chest. His breathing was slow. His cheek was pressed against Asher’s shoulder and his face, in sleep, looked peaceful. He wasn’t whimpering for once, or screaming himself awake.
You stayed.
You built an ice bed around me and you called the doctor and you stayed.
The ache was gone. The lingering disconnection was quiet. The wall was absent. Everything was exactly where it was supposed to be.
It worked.
He’d felt it start — the heat around the edges of the wound, the deep ache that was different from the surface ache of the bedsore.
He’d had wound infections before, in the field.
He knew the timeline. He knew the feeling of bacteria moving past the surface into the tissue, the tracking redness, the quality of pain that meant the infection was no longer local.
Levi made the choice to take the tube out and kissed him, and Asher liked that.
He liked it very much, but there was still something missing.
Levi still resembled the shell of a person who called him “Mr. Kane”, and that was unacceptable.
Levi could be scared of him and crying and letting out all those cute little whimpers he did when he was trying not to cry, Asher liked all that.
But even scared Levi was clever, always moving, always doing something to try and get one over on Asher.
That Levi wasn’t back, not all the way.
He needed a mission, so Asher gave him one.
He stopped cleaning the wound. He stopped taking the antibiotics. The pain increased. He let it increase. Three days ago, redness was streaking and the fever went from low-grade, in the background, to something uncomfortable. Asher knew it was dangerous. He could lose the leg.
But he never doubted Levi would save him.
He put his life in Levi’s hands, because Levi’s hands were the only hands he trusted, and the putting-in was a gift — to Levi, to both of them.
Levi needed to save someone. Asher needed Levi to come back.
The infection was the bridge between the two needs and the bridge hurt considerably more than he thought it would, but the hurting was the price and the price was worth it.
Because Levi came back.
Three days after the fever broke, Asher was on the couch.
His leg was propped up, the wound re-dressed, the IV antibiotics finished, but the oral course was still running.
He was weaker than he wanted to be. The fever had taken what muscle he’d rebuilt and the taking frustrated him, but Levi was in the kitchen making soup.
Levi was standing at the stove, his sleeves pushed up his still too thin arms, with a dish towel over his shoulder and he was humming.
Asher watched him from the couch.
The change was in everything. In the way Levi stood — straighter, his weight even on both legs, the cane untouched by the door.
In the way he moved through the kitchen: purposeful, efficient, opening drawers he now knew the contents of.
The hollow look gone, replaced by something alive and present, the eyes clear, his jaw set with intention instead of compliance.
Levi was taking care of him. Levi was following the doctor’s instructions: antibiotics every eight hours, wound check twice a day, temperature every four hours, fluids constantly. He’d written the schedule on a piece of paper, taped it to the refrigerator, and the schedule was followed perfectly.
He also talked more, without prompting, and that was something Asher had no idea he wanted.
He hated when people spoke pointlessly, but with Levi?
He loved everything that came out of Levi’s mouth.
He talked the way a person talked when they had things inside them that needed to come out and the person next to them was the person they wanted to hear them.
And Levi was letting Asher touch him more.
It wasn’t like he had a choice to not be touched, but he was flinching less.
Levi still had moments where his breathing changed and his eyes went somewhere else, but the flinching was replaced by something quieter.
An awareness that didn’t need to be a warning.
“These are good,” Levi said. He was at the counter, holding a bottle.
Vitamin gummies — the kind Asher ordered because the doctor said supplements would help with recovery, and Asher found ones that looked the least medical.
Bright colors. Fruit-shaped. The kind of thing a child would eat without complaint.
Levi popped one in his mouth. Chewed. His face did something — a small shift, a softening at the corners of his eyes.
“They look like edibles,” Levi said, turning the bottle in his hand like he was reading the label, but he was getting that sad look he got sometimes, and added, quieter: “Jasper was such a good NPC. He would have been a good friend to have out here.”
The name sat in the room.
Jasper.
Asher bit the inside of his lip. He already struggled with Levi talking about that horrible fucking game, and worse, he constantly had to remind himself that being jealous of Levi’s dead brother was irrational.
He could think of four therapists that would have told him it was irrational, so that’s what he told himself, and it never helped because he wanted to occupy that space in Levi’s head and heart. He didn’t like sharing.
But now Levi was bringing up Jasper?
He bit down a little harder.
“How were the NPCs made?” Levi asked. “The characters. Jasper, Tyler, the others. How did your team decide on their personalities? Their designs?”
Asher’s jaw tightened. A small movement. He could feel it happen and he couldn’t stop it.
“The design team went through a lot of horror media,” he said. The words came out with the right cadence — conversational, informative. “Films, games, novels. They pulled character archetypes — the stoner, the jock, the nerd, the final girl. Amalgamations of a bunch of source material. Nothing —”
I don’t want him thinking about them. Not Jasper. Not Tyler. Especially not fucking Elliot.
“Do you want to meet Paul?” he asked suddenly.
Levi blinked. “Paul? I mean — I’ve met Paul.”
“You met him in doctor-mode, not my lame stepdad-mode.” Asher leaned back on the couch. “He’s not interesting, but he’s…well, he’s Paul. He’s the closest thing I have to family and you’re my family now. So…you know. You should meet.”
Levi was making that weird face he made when he was really confused.
“He’ll like you,” Asher continued. “But to be fair, he likes everyone. He’s very agreeable.” He was already reaching for his phone. “I’ll call him.”
“Right now?”
“Why not?”
“Because you just — Asher, I asked you about the NPCs and you changed the subject.”
There you are. You’re so beautiful when you’re suspicious of me.
He dialed Paul anyway. The phone rang twice. Paul picked up the way Paul picked up everything — cautiously, as if the phone itself might be a threat. “Asher? Is everything…are you all right?”
“I’m fine. I want you to come to the house. Tomorrow. For dinner,” Asher said, grinning at Levi and giving him a thumbs up. Levi’s eyebrows chased his hairline as he continued to give Asher that cute confused look.
“Asher,” Paul’s voice dropped , the way it dropped when he was about to say something he’d been rehearsing, “we need to talk about the c-suite —”
“Not right now, Paul, I’m calling for a more important reason. Do you understand?”
Paul went quiet.
He always did.
“Come to my house for dinner tomorrow,” Asher said. “Bring something Levi can eat — nothing too heavy, he’s still working on solids. Something with noodles.”
“Levi…Levi Mercer? He’s — he’s there? With you?” Paul’s voice rose considerably. “Asher, when I took you to his apartment, you said it was just for closure. Why is he there with you?”
“He lives here.”
“Asher, is he —” Paul’s voice had the particular strain it got when he was deciding between asking a dangerous question and swallowing it. Paul always swallowed it. “Is he okay?”
“He’s making soup.” Now Asher was getting confused. Why did Paul sound like Asher just threatened him? “Just be here tomorrow for dinner.”
“Why?”
“Because families eat dinner together. Is that complicated?” Asher rolled his eyes.
Paul exhaled slowly, which is what he usually did right when he was about to cave. “Fine. Tomorrow. What time?”
“Six o’clock, Paul. Noodles.”
He hung up.
Levi was watching him from the kitchen, the corners of his mouth upturned slightly, like he was trying to hide his amusement.
You think I’m insane. You’re standing in my kitchen holding a bottle of vitamin gummies and you think I’m insane and you’re almost laughing about it.
I love you so much.