Free Talker's Redemption by Amy Lane

School
     

     
    “ Tate ,” Lyndie’s voice was gentle. “Tate, honey, wake up. The detectives need to speak to you.”
     
    “Bwaah?” Tate sat up and wiped drool off the corner of his mouth with his damaged hand. The rough tissue caught at his lips and he looked at it unhappily—he’d gotten barf on the woolen half-glove he usually used to cover up the half-clenched fingers, and he hadn’t asked Lyndie’s boyfriend to bring him another one. Speaking of which—
     
    “Where’s Craig?” he asked. He really wanted to go see the detectives wearing actual clothes.
     
    “He’s going to be a little late,” Lyndie said. There was a hesitation to her voice, and Tate was going to ask why, but then Brian’s fingers tightened over his.
     
    “Talker?”
     
    Tate managed a smile from somewhere south of his stomach and north of his ankles. “Bruiser?”
     
    A faint laugh. “Haven’t you gone home to sleep yet?”
     
    And now it was time for truth. “We need to see if you’re going to need surgery,” Tate said, squinting at the bag of fluid by the bed. It wasn’t his imagination; the urine was getting darker.
     
    “What are you wearing?” Brian squinted, and Tate blinked owlishly back. His line of hair was flopping sideways, over the white side of his scalp, and his eyes were naked. Brian never cared if his eyes were naked, or if he’d left his piercings off so you could see the flawed shape of his ear. Brian just cared that he was okay.
     
    He had to be okay.
     
    “Scrubs,” Tate said, and he tried for the laugh. “I sort of threw up on the police—got messy.”
     
    Brian’s least-bruised eye got wide. The inside of the white part was filled with blood. “Jesus, Talker, what happened?”
     
    Talker shook his head, and looked away. “I didn’t notice, you know? You beat the shit out of Trev, and I didn’t notice.”
     
    Brian groaned—and not in the good way Tate had just been remembering. “Don’t tell them shit, Talker,” he rasped. “Man, let them arrest me. They don’t need to know. It’s not their business.”
     
    God, look at him. He was pissing blood and could hardly see. His arm and shoulder were plastered and screwed together in some hideous way that probably hurt like a son-of-a-bitch, and he was still trying to protect Tate.
     
    “It’s my business,” Tate said after a moment of just looking his lover in the (swollen) eyes. “Look, baby, I know why you beat up Trev. I thanked God every day that he didn’t show up, because I might not have made it if he’d ended up in the club, looking at me, trying to touch me… I swear….” Brian knew. Brian had checked on him every night after The Worst. Date…, fuck it. After the rape. After the fucking rape. Brian had opened the door to Tate’s darkened room and listened for his breathing. Tate had pretended to sleep, but he’d heard. Tate knew that he wouldn’t have made it, if Trev had walked in.
     
    Talker made himself face Brian, as he hadn’t been able to face anything else these last months. “You saved my life, Brian. You know it. I know it. You took Trev out to protect me. Now it’s my turn to do the same for you.”
     
    “Mr. Walker?” The blond detective, Mr. Moby Dick himself, was looking in, and Tate gave up on some dignity-saving clothes and nodded at him as he stood at the door.
     
    He stood and lowered his face to Brian’s, barely brushing lips, because Brian’s were split and sore, and mostly just rubbing their breath together. “I love you, baby,” he said softly. “Don’t do anything scary while I’m gone.”
     
    Brian grunted and then said, “Aunt Lyndie, go with him.”
     
    “Aunt Lyndie’s staying with you, Bruiser,” Tate said, brushing that wheat-colored hair away from his battered face. “But I’ll take Doc, if that’ll make you feel better.”
     
    “Doc?”
     
    “Yeah, he came in to check on us. It was solid of him. I think we’ll keep him around for a