Carnival without Lights

Jesse had complained of dizziness after getting out of the shower, but refused Rupert’s offer to go to the hospital early. He didn’t want to “begin the process” any earlier than necessary. Rupert still remained surprised that Jesse had given in to his argument for pressing charges against Daniel with very little struggle. He wasn’t happy that he was being made to do it, but as he’d said, he had no other choice. “Unless I’m supposed to go to my parents,” he’d added on. “And they’d just laugh in my face I bet.” Rupert had never met Jesse’s parents, but he still had the inkling that that wasn’t true. More or less, Jesse just didn’t want to admit that he had no way to get to them either, unless through Rupert.

Rupert didn’t dare mention that he’d give Jesse a ride there if he decided not to go through with the police report and all the rest. He wasn’t cruel enough to leave Jesse on the streets with no alternative /but/ returning to Daniel…

And who knew what the punishment would be for running away from punishment.

Rupert could barely handle looking over the wounds Jesse bore already. He’d willingly decided to sleep in Rupert’s bed, probably unaware of the reason his former lover had even asked, and slept shirtless as always—exposing all of his new scars.

His back was a mélange of slashes and cuts, some vertical, some horizontal, some in odd designs. Just looking over them made Rupert want to cry. Jesse had been insane to put up with the torture. What could Daniel have possibly said to make him believe that he deserved to be sliced open, beaten, and, most likely, raped? Jesse said it was because he felt guilty for causing Rupert to hurt…Rupert barely believed that. It may have played a part, but it surly wasn’t the main reason.

There was always the possibility that Jesse allowed it because he really did like it, but Rupert doubted that even more. If Jesse liked it, he would be here.

Even though he knew he shouldn’t, Rupert moved closer to Jesse on the bed and folded an arm over Jesse’s side in a gentle embrace. Even from the faintest contact, Jesse shifted uncomfortably and Rupert drew away before the man could pull awake.

After several moments passed during which Rupert waited to see if Jesse would fully awake, Jesse remained asleep and Rupert still yearned for touch. Though he wanted to pull Jesse close and hold him and console him, he knew that Jesse wasn’t his to comfort. So, he instead settled for pressing his head gently at the nape of Jesse’s neck—the only piece of flesh on the man’s back that was void of the horrendous slash marks—and pretended to sleep through the night.

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As Rupert had expected, he encountered trouble in the morning. Jesse, fairly rested but still ill at ease, began to think clearly after the terror of having Daniel leap out of the shadows and drag him back to their small house fled from the morning sun. As Rupert had expected, Jesse had changed his mind about everything concerning hospitals and police.

“I won’t go,” was the first thing Jesse said after Rupert had gotten out of the shower and was dressed. He was sitting at the breakfast nook in the corner of the kitchen and had his back turned to the doorway and to Rupert. Rupert had sighed, but refrained from becoming argumentative.

“What’s wrong?” Was all he dared to say, moving over to the chair beside Jesse’s and placing a hand on the rigid man’s shoulder as he sat down. Jesse stiffened at the touch and Rupert pulled away.

“I won’t go. I don’t need a hospital, and I’m not making a fool out of myself.” Jesse stared at the counter as he spoke, but Rupert could still see the fog of pain in his eyes.

“What are you talking about?” Rupert kept his voice soft and placed his hand back on Jesse’s shoulder. When he shivered, Rupert pulled away again and momentarily missed the way Jesse would have shoved his hand away before if he didn’t want touched.

“Rupert, the police aren’t going to listen to me,” Jesse said, suddenly turning to face him. The night had given his bruises time to form. His right eye was only slightly purple, but his left was swollen and turning a deep black. His lip was split in two places, but the wounds had stopped bleeding and so had his nose. “Were fags, they don’t care about /us/. If I go in there and say my boyfriend beat me up, they’re just going to laugh in my face! I won’t go!”

“Jesse, that’s not what they’ll do,” Rupert attempted.

“Yes it is! You just don’t get it! Even if they did listen and we did go to court, Daniel would just lie his way out of it. I let him beat me up before for sex, for fun, for whatever—you don’t think they’ll figure that out, too? Daniel will bring that up and it’ll ruin whatever case we have.”

“This has nothing to do with that,” Rupert argued. Jesse grit his teeth and looked close to tears.

“Yes it does,” Jesse said. “I have those other scars, I have all of these other wounds, he and I have videos—whose to say I didn’t ask him to hit me and that I’m making the whole thing up?”

“Those are different—”

“No they’re not! I won’t go, so you can just throw me out or do whatever you want.”

“You said he was with a friend—that friend could act as a—”

“/Daniel’s/ friend! Not mine! Nathan won’t turn his back on him! Just drop it, okay? It’s my life, my problem…I’ll deal with it on my own.”

“But you /won’t/ deal with it,” Rupert retorted.

“Rupert, please…just drop it, alright? I can’t do it.” Rupert sympathized with Jesse’s arguments. It would be hard to find someone who actually would take the case seriously, and—even if Jesse tried to hide the fact that he and Daniel had been a couple—Daniel would find ways make the physical evidence look like leftovers from a night of S and M.

“What do you plan to do then?” Rupert asked, watching Jesse’s eyes as they clouded with pain. Jesse clutched at his wrist, the same one as he had the night before, and rubbed it gently.

Jesse didn’t answer, but turned his eyes quickly to Rupert, then to his wrist, then back at the counter.

“You’re thinking of going back to him, aren’t you?” Rupert demanded, trying to bite off his rage but unable to. “When are you going learn? The day he kills you? Are you insane?” Jesse shrugged his shoulders and scanned the counter with his eyes restlessly.

“What choice do I have? I have no money, no job, no apartment, no friends…he’s all I have.”

“You’ve got me!” Rupert spat. “And I won’t let you anywhere near him again!”

“You said last night that—”

“I didn’t mean it!” Rupert shouted, despite Jesse leaning away from him. “I didn’t mean it! There’s no way in hell I’d ever let him touch you again—you’re mine! You’ve always been mine! /I’ll/ take care of you! /I’ll/ keep you safe! Don’t ever fucking tell me you’re going back to him again!” Jesse stared at Rupert with frightened eyes and, although the sight was tearing Rupert apart, he couldn’t find it in himself to apologize for shouting or for what he’d said. “You don’t need him,” Rupert said gently. Jesse lowered his gaze back to the table but remained breathing heavily with terror.

For that Rupert felt guilty, but he had the right to be mad as well. He didn’t want to have Jesse living in fear of him as well as Daniel, but he didn’t want to spend every moment when Jesse wasn’t at his side wondering if the man was trying to sneak off to be with his abuser.

“I want you to stay with me. I love you,” Rupert said. “I’ll do anything to make you happy, so don’t go…Don’t go.” Jesse looked at the counter and rubbed at his wrist absently. “Will you at least go see a doctor for me? What if your wrist is broken?”

“It’s not,” Jesse whispered.

“Please? I just want to make sure you’re okay.”

“I’m fine.”

“Just the doctor’s office—then we’ll come back here.”

“Fine,” Jesse answered, dropping his hand. “And when they start asking how I got hurt?”

“We say you were jumped by some guy and robbed.”

“Fine,” Jesse repeated. “I’ll go.”

“Thank you,” Rupert sighed. Jesse leaned over and placed his forehead against Rupert’s shoulder, erasing all discontent from Rupert’s mind. Aside from Jesse’s wounds and fear, all seemed to be right in the world. He had his lover back…his lover still seemed to want him…All was good…

Except that Jesse was crying.

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The doctor diagnosed him with a mild concussion and a dislocated wrist. Though Jesse had been acting like Daniel’s version of Jesse on the way into the hospital, he had been acting like the Jesse Rupert remembered on the way out…That is to say he wouldn’t quit complaining.

“It’s a waste of money—see, I told you I was fine!” Jesse complained as they walked towards Rupert’s parked car. “It was a waste of time going in there.”

“Yes, yes,” Rupert mumbled.

“I mean, I knew my wrist wasn’t broken and that I was fine—but /no/ you wouldn’t believe me.” Rupert rolled his eyes and opened the passenger door for the man who still kept complaining and the closed it. Cutting off the flow of words for a moment. The onslaught continued the second he opened his door and climbed in. “For all the time you wasted, I could have found the same information that quack gave me online.”

“Oh, but you got that handy icepack and print out of exercises for your hand,” Rupert teased, starting the car. Jesse clicked his tongue and stared out the windshield.

“Don’t you have ice cubes in your freezer and sandwich bags in your drawer at home?” Jesse grumbled. Rupert waited while a man assisting an elderly woman walked in front of his car in the parking lot before shifting the vehicle into drive. “Waste of money—you bought a two hundred dollar bag of ice and print out...”

“Hey Jesse,” Rupert said, getting the man to look at him instead of the dashboard for a moment. In that instant, Rupert leaned over and pressed his mouth to Jesse’s firmly despite the two gashes on the other’s lower lip.

Jesse made a high pitched groan of objection and turned his face away to look out the windshield and then down at his lap. Rupert glanced out the window and saw a woman and a man looking at them with revulsion.

Instead of embarrassment or shame, Rupert felt rebellion spark within him. With a hand, he lifted Jesse’s face and turned it back towards his, meeting Jesse’s gaze momentarily before closing his eyes and kissing him again. He was gentler this time, but there was more than enough passion in the kiss to express to Jesse and to anyone else looking that he was in love and no one was going to make him feel humiliated about it.

Once again, Jesse started groaning in protest and Rupert was helpless to obey. The tone Jesse had used wasn’t terrified or uncomfortable, it was embarrassed and a small bit humored.

“You’ve never kissed me in public before,” Jesse said, flustered, as he wiped a line of saliva off of his bottom lip. “Except at your parties.” Rupert smiled and placed one last kiss on Jesse’s cheek before shifting the car into drive and pulling out of the parking spot.

“I was afraid to,” Rupert said. “Now, I don’t care anymore. I’ve got more important things to worry about than my shallow self-image.” Jesse cooed softly. “What does it hurt to have people see me give my boyfriend a kiss?” Jesse made a soft noise of either discomfort or anxiety.

“Daniel used to make a spectacle of it whenever he’d kiss me in a store or on the street,” he said quietly. Rupert fought back a grimace of revulsion. He’d said the word boyfriend and Jesse brought up Daniel… “He’d do that whole bend me over backwards so he could hold me up while he kissed me thing... People would laugh.” He turned his head to look out the passenger side window and sighed. “I’d rather be glared at than have people laugh at me.” For a while, Rupert didn’t know what to say. By the time he’d found words, Jesse had already changed the topic. “Thanks for taking care of me,” he said softly. “No one else would’ve and I—I really don’t deserve it.” He faced Rupert with a tired smile and the other man found himself incapable of returning it.

“You do,” Rupert said. “No matter what you’ve done, you don’t deserve to suffer like that.” Jesse sighed softly and turned to look out the windshield.

“Thanks,” he mumbled, closing his eyes. Rupert only nodded.