Chapter Seven
Savage
W hen I wake up this time, I feel more like a human. I remember pretty quickly what happened before, and Bambi is right there in the kitchen, moving with fluid grace as he hums to himself and fixes some food, confirming that it wasn’t all a weird, contradictory dream.
I have an entire two minutes of peace before I start to feel… off.
There’s a twitchiness inside me that becomes more and more apparent as I become more awake. But it’s been such a shitty week, it takes me longer to recognize it than it normally would.
This isn’t the twitchiness of panic setting in, or residual self-hatred taking itself out on my body because it has nowhere else to go. This is purely physical. This is my individual muscles jolting like they’ve each been touched by a battery at random intervals.
My fingers twitch, and then my hands, and then I connect all the dots.
My meds. This is what happens when I forget to take my meds for too long.
The last time this happened, I was stuck on a “simple” job that turned into a three-day operation. I couldn’t go home, and I obviously couldn’t tell anyone what was wrong because gangsters barely take medicine for physical illness. Taking mental health meds? Yeah, that’s a death sentence in the eyes of my father and brethren, I’m sure.
That’s the ultimate sign that I’ve cracked and am no longer one of them.
After I spent the last day of that job sweating, twitching, feeling dizzy, disoriented and paranoid—and ultimately snorting a little crank, which I fucking hate, to be able to power through—I got smart. I bought a little keychain fob thing that looks discreet, but unscrews and has a space to shove some extra pills.
None of the guys have noticed it yet, but I’m hoping if they do, they assume it’s some kind of retro eighties coke spoon situation. That’s kind of cool.
No, it’s an emergency three-day stash of my motherfucking psych meds.
But is it here? Or am I completely, utterly fucked? It’s been days since I’ve been shot, which means the withdrawal already has its claws in my body and I’ve just been too fucked up to notice.
Once again, because I’m a wreck of a human being, this realization is followed by a surge of panic taking over my body. My stomach lurches and adrenaline tingles in my fingers, my heart pounds and I’m dragging my broken body off the couch before I’m consciously aware of making the decision.
It hurts. I ache everywhere as well as the throbbing pain in the wounds themselves, but I feel a lot better than last time, and at least now I’m not connected to any fucking tubes like last time.
Micah
I know Tadhg’s awake because there’s an abrupt sound of things tumbling to the ground, and I’m immediately prepared for a repeat of what happened last time.
But I’m surprised by how he looks. He’s wide-eyed and a little panicked, which isn’t a shock at this point, but his color is good. His movement is somewhat coordinated, and he’s not nearly as weak as he was before he knocked out around half a day ago.
It’s clear that the antibiotics have finally had the chance to do their job. The infection is rolling back, his vitals are normalizing, and he’s had enough fluids to replace the lost blood volume.
Which is all great news. If only he could keep from panicking long enough for me to tell him. I have no idea what he’s been through in the last twelve years without me, but it must have been worse than whatever I was picturing. He’s a mess. He’s not just acting like someone who’s been brainwashed into a life of violence, this is someone on full sensory red alert at all times.
I was a panicky kid in a scary home. I was wobbly and flighty, like a baby deer. Hence, Bambi.
Right now, Tadhg seems more like one of those old bobcats that’s been freed from an illegal backyard zoo. Equal parts angry and afraid, but too weak from spending a lifetime in its tiny, chain-link cage to do anything but throw itself against the wall in terror. Too traumatized to accept help, but also too mutilated to survive in the wild on its own.
I don’t know why that’s the image that my mind conjures. It’s just the most accurate parallel I can think of as I watch him try to haul his trembling, fragile body onto the ground. I want to reach for him. I think he’s trying to stand up, but if he keeps up all this jerky movement, he’s going to tear his wound again and undo all the healing he just did.
But I also don’t want to catch a fist, and I’m aware that he could be so blinded by panic right now that he might not even realize it’s me. And I don’t want to point out that he seems to be having some sort of extended panic reaction, because his ego has already taken a beating today and I don’t trust its structural integrity right now, based on what I’ve seen.
Instead, I approach slowly with my hands outstretched. He’s managed to get his feet under him, with one hand on the couch taking his weight while the injured one clumsily untangles the blanket from around him.
“Whoa,” I say quietly, trying to get his attention. “What’s up?”
His gaze is swiping from side to side like a searchlight, and I can see him totally focused on whatever it is that’s gotten him moving. I gently wrap my hand around his free elbow and disentangle the last part of the blanket. He’s dressed only in boxers and bandages, and between me holding one arm and the couch supporting the other, he’s able to very shakily stand up for the first time since he was dragged into my apartment.
Fuck, he got tall. And jacked. Not like a gym bro with perfectly articulated muscle definition, or enormous like a bodybuilder. But the kind of whole-body muscle and bulk that comes with usable power.
He just looks intimidating, broad-shouldered with thick arms and a strong chest. And he’s covered in so many tattoos that his already tanned skin looks darker, with golden hair covering his chest and stomach and arms that’s glinting in the low light. His dark, reddish-blond hair is cut into something that’s like a cross between a mullet and a mohawk, a little longer on top and in the back, but shaved short on the sides. Which is redneck as hell, but he somehow manages to pull off. He looks like a hot NASCAR driver or something.
Except he’s trembling and constantly on the verge of total collapse.
He’s like the physical embodiment of traditional masculinity wrapped around the physical embodiment of a panic attack.
He stops moving, seeming lost for a second. I still don’t think he’s totally clocked my presence, so I use my free hand to take his face and tilt it down to face me. I’m not a tiny guy, by any stretch of the imagination. I’m average height and more lithe than muscular, but not really dainty enough or young enough to keep calling myself a twink for any reason other than denial. Yet I still have to physically pull his head down so his hazel eyes are pointed at mine.
“What’s wrong, Tadhg?”
“I need my keys. Where’s my shit?”
I give him a what the fuck look. That wasn’t what I was expecting at all. If anything, I thought he would be panicking about getting to his dad and his stupid, brutal job.
My mind grasps for an answer. “Uh, someone left a gun and some other shit on the table that they said belonged to you. It’s over there. Just sit down and I’ll go get it.”
“No!” He lurches away from me, pulling his arm out of my grasp.
So, it’s going to be another one of those days, I see.
With a hand pressed against the wound on his hip, which is definitely bleeding again, he takes one staggering step after the other toward the table. He manages to make the walk across my living room look like the fucking Iditarod, but I know if I touch him again, he’ll only hurt himself worse.
Instead, I watch, and I wait.
Like a drunk toddler, he collapses against my shitty Ikea high-top, but he gets there. The pile of stuff barely has anything in it, but he manages to make rifling through it look unnecessarily dramatic until he comes up with his keys clutched in his hand.
He’s already looking a lot paler than a few minutes ago. When he turns to look at me, I give him the same calm, only slightly condescending raised eyebrows look that all nurses use when their patient is being a pain in the ass.
“Okay. Can I get you back to the couch now, please? Before you topple over?”
His eyes dart from side to side for a second, like a little kid about to get scolded. But then he relents. Without too much grumbling, he lets me take his elbow again, and this time he really leans his ridiculous, bulky body into me while we traverse the great living room passage one more time.
Tadhg falls back onto the threadbare, sweat-soaked cushions with a loud exhale, and gives me an inscrutable look, even while he’s still trying to catch his breath from the exertion.
“Could you get me some water?” His tone is suspiciously polite, and I don’t know what he’s going to do as soon as my back is turned to acquiesce.
I glare at him. “That depends. Are you going to exit the couch area while I do, or can we take a break from interpretive dance for the rest of the day? My back and knees aren’t what they used to be, asshole. I don’t need to be dragging you off the floor anymore if you collapse and tear your wound open. And I definitely don’t feel like doing surgery in my apartment to stuff your intestines back in when they fall out of the hole it’ll make. That sounds tedious AF. These hands were not intended to accordion fold your small intestine back into your abdominal cavity, brother.”
My tone is light, but I hold his gaze so he knows I’m not totally fucking around. I half expect him to piss and moan about it, or pull a big tough gangster act and try to intimidate me, even though it wouldn’t have a chance in hell of working.
He doesn’t do either, though. Instead, he does something that fucking floors me.
Tadhg smiles at me.
A real smile, too. Slightly unhinged, but what about either of us isn’t?
“Sure, Bambi.”
It’s all he says, but he keeps smiling, and his voice is soft, so I’ll call it a win.
Still suspicious, I slowly turn and head to the kitchen to grab him some water. I keep my ear trained on him behind me, and while I hear some rustling, there’s nothing disastrous. When I turn around with the cup in my hand, he’s still on the couch, his eyes trained on me like a loyal dog waiting for me to return.
I hand him the cup. Some bright-blue plastic promotional tumbler I got at a job fair after graduation because I don’t trust him with anything heavy right now. His hand still shakes as he takes it, but he’s more or less okay as he brings it to his face and takes a sip, only sputtering a little when he tilts his head back to swallow.
He hands it back to me and I put it on the coffee table within his reach. For some reason, the whole exchange feels surreal. Everything about him is designed to be as thuggish as possible. His body, his aggressive tattoos, his ridiculous fucking name. There’s a snake on his neck, for fuck’s sake. I think I can see a large knife outlined under the shaved part on the left side of his head.
But he’s looking up at me with big, round eyes and a grateful expression. When there’s no aggression or terror on his face, you can notice his actual features, which are just as pretty as they used to be.
I think he always hated how he looked. His face is just as masculine as the rest of him, with a perfect jawline covered in something between stubble and a beard. But he also has thick, dark eyelashes that most people would murder for, a straight nose, full lips and the kind of symmetry that makes everything just work.
It’s the perfect blend of “pretty” features on a conventionally handsome face. Fuck, he’s prettier than I am, even though I’m definitely the feminine looking-one of the two of us. Which I’m sure makes him crazy, and lowkey always has. He’d rather look like his thug father, so he covers it all up with the stubble and scars. There’s a nasty one cutting through his eyebrow on the right side, and a series of numbers and small symbols tattooed by his hairline on the left.
It’s all designed to make him look crustier, but it’s not enough. He still has the porcelain-doll perfection of the face he was born with, even under all those manufactured flaws he’s carved into it.
“Happy now?” I ask, while he continues to watch me in silence, wearing a fond expression that’s so unexpected it’s kind of eating away at my heart. “I can’t call out from work forever, so I need you to cooperate if you want your recovery to ever have an end date. So, are you gonna be a good boy?”
He doesn’t reply. He just hits me with a what-the-fuck look of his own.
I didn’t mean it like that, but the words rolled off my tongue out of habit and I’m reminded again that me and Tadhg live in very, very different worlds now.
He’d probably strangle someone else for calling him a good boy . Well, it’s good to know I still have brother privileges after all this time.
Barely half an hour later, his eyelids grow heavy again and he falls into the most restful-looking sleep he’s had since he got here.