Don’t Fear The Reaper

Hi again guys.
This is Alex, here to serve you up a nice plate of NEW CHAPTER
Why yes I thought it would never happen either. : /
Well I’ll tell you how it happened… I got some weed! And now my mind is cured of the hideous curse of blockage-ness; now I can draw and type again!
And hopefully I’ll get a new job by next week; I hated my other one and quit but now the bills and resulting sobriety have begun to rear their ugly heads, so I need some fuckin’ money. And I figured it was either;
A. become a prostitute (which I could SO do with mah sexy ass)
B. sell cocaine (also doable)
C. Beat up elementary kids to get their lunch money (Shit I do that anyways)
D. Stop being lazy and get a job
Though the other options are fantastic, I figured getting a job at the mall would be the only career amongst the selection that I would be able to get a decent new boyfriend at so I can get him to move in with me and buy me drugs. : D

Anyway I’ll shut the hell up now.
Here’s the third chapter (none of them are named cause I’m LAZY)
It’s not the best, I will admit I was kind of disappointed with it; I’ll edit it later ‘n stuff… Please excuse anything inaccurate about the hospital or whatever—I’ve actually never been in a hospital.
If you would like to help me out and have experience with hospitals and nurses, TELL ME.
Or send me an e-mail.
lick_my_magnum@msn.com

(EDIT: GOD WHY DO I ALWAYS DO THIS
fuckin html bull shit
sorry kids Im fucking RETARDED GRR FUCK YOU COMPUTER FUCK YOUUUUU)

~!~

He was… on his back. Lying down.
It was really warm…
Like his own bed.
But it didn’t… didn’t feel like his bed…
Nor did it smell like his room.
Curious now, he tried to free his pupils from their black sheath.
First he failed, the muscles refusing to respond, but finally he managed to crane his eyelids open, if just barely.
Blue eyes were blinking down at him.
He remembered them… between the black. They weren’t sinister or empty or anything, not like Atia’s, they were just… pretty blue eyes…
Opening his eyes fully then seemed to be one of the hardest things he’d ever done. He was glad when he did, though, because those pretty blue irises came with messy brown hair and a drop-dead gorgeous smile, one directed at him.
“Well, hello, awake now?”
Blinking his eyes a few times, he nodded and instantly regretted that he had. He felt like shit, Jesus Christ; that simple head movement had evoked a horrible feeling of nausea that he had to take a few deep breaths to get rid of.
“How are you feeling?”
What kind of fucking question was that?
Looking back up into his new companion’s eyes, though, he felt the urge to just answer the man. “Like shit,” he mumbled, his mouth so dry that it was hard to even say that much. But, he was feeling a little better by the second, and his dazed mind was slowly returning to its original state of just slight constant confusion.
The man snorted, granting Adrian again with one of those dazzling fucking smiles. He found himself staring but he didn’t care right then. The guy was amazing, Jesus Christ, he was beautiful. His skin was a rich mocha, his lips dark, supple, and just so damn alluring, and along with that smile… Nn…
“Well, you’re in St. Edward’s hospital, and we’ll help you out with that, all right?”
The hospital?
“I’m your nurse, Isaiah. I, um, brought you some food in case you were hungry.”
“Oh…” Adrian said, blinking and then tearing his gaze away from the man, despite the fact that he really wanted to just keep staring. Isaiah… That name seemed to fit him. Then, remembering himself, he shook his head slightly and glanced back up at his nurse, saying, or, really, more like stuttering, “N-no, uh, no thank you, um, I’m not… uh… hungry…”
Smooth.
He cringed on the inside at his astounding show of mild retardation. But he couldn’t fucking help it! He was getting nervous, anyway, being near such a tempting creature, and his mouth felt like a desert had taken a nice, dusty shit in it.
“But maybe… d-do you, um, have any, um, water?”
Isaiah just smiled slightly and nodded. Adrian took the chance to look at the other things in the room; his nurse was walking the short distance to the nearest wall, which was the one opposite the door to the room. There was one large rectangular window over the table and from it poured in bright, cheery sunlight that filled the room so that the fluorescent lights that were on seemed unnecessary.
So… he was in a hospital bed. He’d never been in one before… It was… all right. More comfortable than his bed, that was for sure, but that wasn’t hard to do since his bed at his house felt like cement compared to any other bed.
Ugh, that smell… He hated that sterile smell of hospitals; they made him feel sick even when he was in perfect physical condition. It wasn’t so bad in this room, though, so he didn’t really mind.
There were two other beds in the room aside from his own, but both of them had the curtains pulled back and they were vacant and neatly made; all of the beds had a semi-comfortable looking chair to the right of them. There weren’t many machines in the room, but he still couldn’t identify the ones that were present, and at the moment an IV was inserted into his fully bandaged lower left arm. Funny he hadn’t noticed that first thing…
Funnier that he didn’t mind when he noticed. He had a major phobia of needles; it was strange that he didn’t feel in the least bit alarmed that one was currently buried beneath his skin. Well, shit, then again, a lot of strange things were happening to him that were far worse than a damn needle in his arm, anyway, so, fuck, why make a deal out of it?
“Here you go.”
Adrian looked up at his nurse and then down at the cup he was holding out towards him. With a soft ‘thank you’ he took the cup from Isaiah, a shudder running through him that he hoped hadn’t been visible when he brushed his hand against the other man’s.
Feeling suddenly very awkward, Adrian quickly turned away and kept his eyes down as he sipped at his water. Yeah, dumb ass, you’re lying in a fucking hospital bed with a fucked-up arm and you’re tripping over a fucking hot guy, for Christ’s sake!
“Do you need anything else?”
“No, thank you,” Adrian quickly mumbled in response, not looking up as he said it.
“All right then… Let me check your IV real fast and then I’ll be back after I check up on a few other patients, and I’ll explain everything to you, okay? It’ll only be a few minutes.”
“Sure…”
Before Isaiah left he gave Adrian the remote control to the TV that was suspended up near the ceiling, again offered him the food that lay uneaten on the table, told him to buzz in if he needed anything, and then left him alone. During the entire thing Adrian had kept his eyes on his cup and had kept his responses down to simple ‘thank you’s’ and ‘no thank you’s’.
Now that he was alone…
He wanted the nurse back. He didn’t want to start thinking again about other things. Thinking about other things led to the whole reason why he was here in the first place… And he was here because he had slit his wrists.
He had! He’d fucking cut himself! What kind of shit was that?! It had come out of nowhere, that urge, but why had he acted upon it? Oh, god, he was an idiot, he was gonna get fucking hell to pay for this shit…
Ah…
Fuck…
Never, never, never had he ever inflicted harm upon himself like that before. The thought might have occurred every now and then, yeah, but he’d never done it. Nor had he ever intended to… Damn, but he didn’t intend a lot of things, now, did he?
Adrian glanced around the almost painfully white room again before he turned his attention to the television. He hated TV; he really, really did. But it was better than thinking… Thinking was the last damn thing he needed.
Besides, watching the mind-rotting crap wasn’t so bad… If he had to do it more often, he was sure he’d go insane, but thankfully Isaiah kept his promise of only taking a few minutes and Adrian was only damned to the fate of the loss of a few hundred of his neurons for only about ten minutes. Uh, TV kills brain cells, he swore. It was pure evil in a box form.
“So, do you want me to call you by Adrian or do you have a nickname?”
That made Adrian look up. What a strange question… Well, really, it wasn’t, but it just seemed sort of odd. He guessed what surprised him most about it was that the thought that had instantly come to his mind when his nurse had asked that had been ‘You can call me “cupcake.”’
What. The. Hell.
What had gotten into him?
“Adrian’s fine,” he said after a second before looking away from the man again. Ugh, if he looked at the guy any longer he wouldn’t be able to control where his eyes would start to focus… He wanted to see the rest of Isaiah, because from what he’d caught in glimpses seemed like something to definitely look at. But he didn’t want to… check the man out. Not when the nurse could see, at least, for sure.
“All right. Well…” Adrian didn’t look up but he heard the man sit down in the chair next to his bed. “I’m sure you have questions. Would you like to ask me them?”
“No.”
“That’s fine,” Isaiah said, but it was the way he said it that made Adrian look over at him from his sitting position on his bed. His tone… hadn’t been angry or annoyed, not it the least, even though Adrian’s little ‘no’ had sounded a bit rude.
Looking up must have been a fatal mistake. Once he did he was instantly taken up by those dark blue irises that seemed to captivate him almost as much as Atia’s eyes did. But these eyes weren’t void of emotion, nor did he feel in the least bit threatened, so it was actually… nice to look at Isaiah.
“So, how do you feel now?”
“Alive. Relatively.”
Ooh. Maybe ‘alive’ hadn’t been the best response… He knew it hadn’t been, either, when Isaiah’s eyes quickly darted from Adrian’s wrist back to his face. Damn, he did it fast, too; Adrian wouldn’t have noticed that if he wasn’t currently staring at the man. Damn, but he couldn’t look away!
Isaiah just smiled a little then and, his voice still maintaining it’s same flawlessly smooth and kind of, um, sexy tone, he said, “Well, that’s always a plus.” Rrrrrrrright! Sure thing. “What’re you watching?” he asked suddenly.
Adrian blinked and then looked up at the TV. Some cartoon?
“I dunno.”
“You like cartoons?”
“Um…” He looked back to his nurse then and frowned slightly. Did he have to keep his replies so basic? Couldn’t he at least try to talk to the man? Shit, he was being given an opportunity to befriend someone who was actually trying to talk to him… even if it was only a little?
“I don’t like TV,” he finally mumbled after a second.
Isaiah grinned—Adrian almost died when he did that—and nodded, saying, “I know what you mean. Absolute crap, right?”
“Yeah,” Adrian replied, allowing himself a small smile.
“Ah, so you can smile, that’s good.” Immediately after his nurse said that Adrian’s smile slipped away to be replaced with a blush that he felt but he hoped to god wasn’t too visible. “It’s okay to smile, man, it won’t kill you. It’ll just make your face hurt a bit if you do it too much. You’ve got nice teeth, why not show them off?”
If he’d been drinking something right then he would have choked. Nice teeth? Nice teeth?! Jesus, he was dying, the man had just complimented him! That hadn’t happened in… Damn, how long? Well, people complimented him all the time about his grades, yeah, and his relatives always used to make a big ass fuss over “how handsome he was” and shit like that, but he’d never been…
Shit, if he started obsessing about it more he might as well just become the man’s little fan girl! What was wrong with him, getting all excited over some cute guy saying he had nice teeth? God damn, he felt really awkward right then…
“Um, thanks,” he forced himself to say. After all, he couldn’t just say nothing at all, though he would have preferred that. “S-so do you…” He cringed on the inside when he said that. Ah, fuck! He was an idiot! He looked away from the nurse, a deep blush he couldn’t prevent rising to his cheeks.
The other man just laughed and said, “Thanks. Do you have a fever? You look pretty flushed…”
Adrian shuddered when Isaiah placed his hand gently on his forehead. Oh, god, he was going to die, he wanted so badly just to catch the nurse’s arm and kiss it… Jesus, he was burning up now. Fuuuuck…
“You’re pretty hot…”
Oh GOD.
“I believe your aunt signed that we could give you meds. Would you like a Dayquil? Or can I get you anything else?”
You can pop my goddamn cherry, PLEASE, Adrian thought, frowning as soon as that came to his mind. What was wrong with him? His hormones seemed to have gone into overdrive; he felt like he could fuck like a rabbit right then.
“Yeah…” he said after a moment. “I’ll take an advil or something; I have a headache.” He did. This whole situation was making his head hurt; oh god, why him, why him, why him…
Isaiah stood up instantly. “I’ll be right back, then.”
The nurse came back shortly with a little paper cup filled with cold water and a few little white pills. “Here,” he said, handing the items over to Adrian.
Looking down at Isaiah’s outstretched hands, Adrian had to fight the urge to tremble when he took the things from the other man and as their hands slid against each other. Okay, and maybe he pressed against the nurse’s hands a little longer than necessary, but the man didn’t seem to notice.
Quickly popping the pills into his mouth and drinking water to chase them down, Adrian looked away, a light blush spreading over his cheeks.
“Need anything else?”
He shook his head.
“All right. Tell me a little about yourself, Adrian.”
Uh…
“I… Um.”
“It’s all right,” Isaiah said after a pause, a little bit of a laugh in his tone. “You can talk to me; all of this is confidential. I just want to talk, but you don’t have to spill your guts if you want to. But…” Adrian looked up and was graced by another one of the man’s smiles as he said, “If you want to spill your guts, that’s fine too.”
“Why are you here?” Adrian asked then.
The smile didn’t drop from his nurse’s face as he said, “I’m sort of a special doctor. I’m also a counselor, but I’m not here to lecture you or tell you how to live, man, I’m just here to talk and to help you relax. You good with that?”
“Yeaaaahhh… Sure,” Adrian mumbled, glancing away from Isaiah’s brilliant blue irises.
“So, you wanna talk to me?”
“Um.”
He did. He wanted to talk to the man for forever. He loved his voice, loved his eyes, his smile, everything about him… And Atia hadn’t bothered him once yet; the thought of the other didn’t even trouble him now. That was certainly a change, and for the fucking better for once.
“I-I like… to read…”
“Well, that’s a start. What do you like to read?”
“Uh, fiction, fantasy, sci-fi, horror, shit like that…” Well, this was kind of weird. Someone was actually asking him what he liked… Granted, the man was paid to do it, but, still… “L-like, uh, Wheel of Time, and The Crown of Stars, and, u-um, The Last Herald Mage… If you’ve e-ever read… any of them.” He knew his cheeks must have been red. He felt dumb.
“Oh, really? I’ve read The Last Herald Mage and only about five of the Wheel of Time series… What did you think of The Last Herald Mage?”
Shit. He’d never met anyone who’d ever read that series before…
Isaiah knew what it was.
Damn, why did he have to go and mention that shit?! Fuuuuck… Should he be honest? He might as well be… Hey, all this was confidential, right? So it wouldn’t matter if he just went out and made it pretty clear that he was gay?
“I thought… that it was really good, a-and sad as shit, I guess. I dunno, it was pretty depressing at the end. M-my aunt threw away all of th-those books when she found them, though…”
“Why?”
“She’s…” Adrian pushed his hand through his hair and looked Isaiah directly in the eyes as he said, “She’s very anti-gay, far right, psycho bitch, know what I mean?”
“Yeah…” Adrian almost jumped when he felt a hand sliding into his bandaged one. He glanced down quickly at the nurse’s hand in his own and then quickly back up at the man’s face. His eyes held nothing but concern as he said, “I know exactly what you mean. My father was very anti-gay, all that crap, and when I started showing signs of being… not right… he started becoming a very unpleasant person. But I talked it through with him and my mother, and it took a while, but he finally got over it, and he finally started calling me his son and he accepted me the way I was.”
Whoa, whoa, whoa, WHAT.
“You’re… Um…”
Isaiah smiled slightly, this time a little mischievously. “Mmhmm. Bi, actually…”
“But… Jus-just because I read a g-gay series doesn’t mean I’m gay.”
“Well, are you?”
“Uh…”
Christ. His hand felt really good; it seemed like a perfect fit, Isaiah’s palm cradled against his own. Was this a sympathetic gesture… or… What did the nurse want? There didn’t seem to be desire in his expression, but he could just be able to cover that up pretty good…
“I guess…”
“You guess?”
“Well, yeah, I a-am.”
“And your aunt doesn’t agree with that?”
“No.”
Fuuuuck, fuck, fuck, this was making him nervous… His eyes kept sliding down to stare at the other man’s lips. They looked like they would look fucking gorgeous around his cock…
Ah, FUCK! He really needed to get those thoughts out of his head! If he didn’t stop he was gonna get a damn boner, for Christ’s sake!
“I can help you try to talk to her…”
“NO.”
Isaiah looked sort of surprised at the strong protests. Adrian paused and took a deep breath before shaking his head and saying, “No, please don’t mention it to her…”
“All right. So, you like to read. What else do you like to do?”
Adrian looked back up into his nurse’s eyes and was instantly captivated by their brilliant blue hue. God, this was almost painful, being next to this temptation… Damn. He licked his lips a little and noticed that Isaiah’s eyes flashed for just half a second to glance at his lips when his tongue ran across them. Hmm… So subtle; did that really just happen or had he imagined it?
“I like music, li-like, um, Tool, and, Dead Can Dance, Static X, Deftones, System of a Down, Fiona Apple, Tori Amos, A Perfect Circle, Alice in Chains, Linkin Park, um, y-you know, cool shit… I guess… Your hand is very soft, by the way.”
…
What a fucking thing to say. Dumb. ASS.
Isaiah laughed a little and squeezed Adrian’s hand, sending a jolt through the younger man’s spine. Nn, god…
“Thank you. Your hand is pretty soft, too.”
Fuck me now. Please. Just, bend me over the bed and fuck me now, PLEASE.
“I love Tool. And that lead singer, damn, Maynard makes me wanna cry… He’s got a wife and a kid and everything. It’s horrible, but I still love him, you know?”
Adrian let out a nervous little chuckle and sat up a little further, saying, “I’d let that man do a number of things to me, all right? I don’t even care, I wanna kidnap him and get the joy of experimenting with bondage.”
“Oh, god,” Isaiah laughed, rolling his eyes. Adrian was starting to finally relax, despite all of his stupid slips, but instantly his nervousness returned as his nurse leaned forward, but he tried to calm his nerves when the other man simply rested his elbow on the side of the bed and perched his chin on his palm. “I’m sorry, my hand was just cold, do you want me to stop holding your hand?”
No, he didn’t want the nurse to stop. But would it be creepy if he told him to keep on holding his hand? Was he being too obvious; was this okay, to flirt like this? Was it flirting? He was being pretty obvious, always looking at the other man’s lips and blushing all the damn time…
“You can if you want to… I don’t care.”
“Hmm… Is that a yes or a no…?”
That was it. Was this guy flirting with him? He didn’t know, and he was confused as all shit.
“Look, man, I don’t know what’ s going on… Are you flirting with me, or what? I mean… I’m confused right now…” Adrian frowned. He really hadn’t wanted to ask that question, but he needed to know.
Isaiah quirked his slender eyebrows at the question and gave Adrian a sort of half-smile. “I’m not allowed to flirt with you, what are you talking about? I’m just messing around. Why, am I making you uncomfortable?”
“N-no,” Adrian stuttered, feeling his cheeks heat slightly. “I-I j-ju-just…”
Smooth.
Can’t even get a damn sentence out…
“Are you okay?” his nurse asked, furrowing his eyebrows in concern.
“Yeah,” the boy mumbled, shaking his head slightly. “Yeah, I’m fine, it’s all good, I was just a little… confused, like I said. I’m sorry, I di-didn’t mean to ac-accuse you or anything, b-but it just seems li-like…”
“It’s okay,” the older man said, his smile returning to his face as he added, “and I’m sorry if it seemed like that.”
“Don’t be,” Adrian replied quickly, locking eyes with his nurse again. “B-but… I wouldn’t mind… if you were…” Shit! What was he saying?! “I-I mean, I just mean you’re, um, really cute, I-I guess, uh, shit…”
Oh.
My.
God.
Were these words really slipping out of his mouth? Was he retarded? Did he have no fucking control over the shit he said all of a sudden? Where was this coming from?! Why was he spilling his guts, not consensually to his tongue? Uh, god, WHY him…
He felt like crying. Isaiah just laughed, though, and squeezed Adrian’s hand before saying in an almost disbelieving voice, “Well, um, thank you.”
“I’m such an idiot…” Adrian mumbled, looking away from the nurse. He didn’t budge when he felt a hand on top of his head.
“You’re not an idiot,” came Isaiah’s voice, almost right next to his ear. “Just confused… It’s all right; I was pretty confused at your age too.” Adrian shuddered slightly at the gentle caress of breath against his ear when his nurse breathed out. “So, if you want, you can continue to have sessions with me as a therapist when you get out of the hospital, and I can help you along with what I had gone through as well.”
Isaiah backed away and Adrian looked up and watched as his nurse pulled up his shirt. Across his chest were two deep, long scars that crossed exactly in the center of his chest. Each line started from one end of his collar bone down to the visible ribs beneath his upper torso.
“I know what you’re going through,” the other man said softly, looking Adrian in the eye. “Or at least I know something like it.”
Jesus… Those must have been horrible; the lines looked so thick and like the wounds had been deep… How had the man survived that? Even after his nurse lowered his shirt, Adrian’s eyes stayed glued to his chest like he could see the scars from beneath the fabric. Oh…
“H-h-how did you… d-do that?”
“A butcher’s knife. A very hot one, at that. It was not… pleasant. And it wasn’t worth it. I was just going through some hard times, but it’s never worth it. I got over it and now I’m really glad to be alive.”
“How did you live?”
Isaiah rolled his shoulders a little at that, furrowing his eyebrows. “No idea. My mom and dad were asleep when I did it, and I did it in my room, but they told me that they found me on the living room floor and some loud noises had made them wake up. I really have… no idea what happened.”
Adrian sighed and looked down at his free hand, his fist balled up close to his lap. That was… weird. That made him wonder, then, too. He was sure that when Atia had flung him from the stairs that it had been simply an image the other had put into his mind, like when he’d been strangled in the bathroom. So, how had his aunt found him? Had he really fallen down the stairs? Or had she found him at the top of the stairs?
Why had she found him at all? She always slept until nine. Uh, god…
“H-how…” Adrian started slowly, not looking up from his hand, “did my aunt find me?”
“I don’t know,” Isaiah said after a moment. “She’s not here right now, but if you want, you can call her any time…”
“No, no, it’s f-fine.” Fuck, why did he have to STUTTER so damn much?! He’d always done it, but it was just pissing him off more than usual.
“Do you not like your aunt?”
Adrian looked at his nurse through the corners of his eyes, and nearly void of emotion he said, “I hate that fanatic nazi bitch.”
“Ah… That’s all right, I can relate. We all have someone who we feel we would be better off without… But I’m sure she loves you, she probably just has some issues getting around her prejudices. You just have to give her some time for that, though.”
“No, you don’t understand,” the younger man quickly interjected, shaking his head. “She hates me. She hated me from the day she found out that my dad’s sperm cell was decapitated in my mom’s egg, all right? That woman could never get over anything that deviates even slightly from her perception of ‘normal.’” Not one stutter! Damn. That was a first… Though, usually when he started talking like that, he didn’t stutter too much. All the words just flowed freely in those situations under the influence of bitter anger; he wished he could do that all the time to save himself the embarrassment of his stupid speech impediment.
Isaiah pushed back some dark strands of hair from his caramel skin, the silky locks having been covering up one of his eyes slightly. Fuuuuck, the man was just so damn hot… “Well,” the nurse started in that goddamned sexy-ass voice of his, “Why do you think she’s like that?”
Why was that woman like that? Hell, he’d like to know, too.
“I don’t know,” Adrian mumbled after a pause and shrugged. “S-she’s just a bitch, I g-guess… Always fucking ha-has been.”
“Tried asking her?”
“She slapped the shit out of me when I did that,” the younger man said in practically a whisper. Oh. Shit. He shouldn’t have said that… He knew he could have that whore’s ass in jail in half a second for beating him around like she did, but he didn’t have anywhere else to go. He did NOT want to move in with any of his other relatives; for one thing, all of his other relatives were really old, some of them senile and not a few in nursing homes. Besides, he could stand his aunt’s blows; the hits sure as hell weren’t nearly as harsh as they had been when he was smaller. Now the worst she could do to him was make him bruise.
“Oh, really…”
Adrian frowned and looked over at the window. He didn’t want to talk about this…
“Does she… do that often?”
“The fuck’s it matter?” Adrian snapped in response. Isaiah looked just slightly surprised by the harshness of his tone, but with a stab of guilt to his gut, the younger man quickly covered for himself, saying, “No, wait, sorry… I d-don’t mean to be ru-rude o-or mean, it’s just a tou-touchy… I don’t want to talk about it.”
Isaiah nodded in understanding, his thumb suddenly stroking Adrian’s knuckles in gentle, soothing motions. Ooh, damn, he felt like he could just melt, that felt so damn good… He wondered, if a simple gesture like that could make him feel like that, what would something more intimate feel like…?
“Do ya’ll tolerate each other all right?”
“We don’t fight much, if th-that’s what you mean,” Adrian muttered.
“How is your home life otherwise?”
“Um…”
That thumb was getting really distracting. The way he could feel the soft skin of the other man rub slowly against his own in small circular motions. Nn…
“It’s all right.”
He might have felt like he was staring in 100 fucking questions or whatever, but he actually didn’t mind. He liked talking to this man… He was saying things he’d never said before. Then again, no one had ever asked him before, either…
“What do you do when you’re there? Or do you go out with friends?”
“I do-don’t… have any friends…” Adrian said softly. His tone retained its quiet level and sad undertone as he continued, “I stay in my room a-and… listen to music all day…” Wow. That sounded really fun. “B-but, I mean, it’s not b-bad, I kind of l-like being alone.” Alone? He guessed that was what he always was. Alone… Ah, god, that hand!
“I’m sorry,” the younger man mumbled then, staring down at his and his nurse’s twined hand. “Th-that’s making me… really ne-nerv-nervous, so, um…”
“Of course,” Isaiah said instantly, removing his hand from Adrian’s but leaving it close to the teen’s on the mattress. “Why do you like to be alone?”
Shrugging slightly and not looking up from where his eyes were glued to the mattress, he responded, “I don’t know… Well, I mean it gi-gives me time to th-think, and I kind of like that… Besides, no one has ever really tried to b-be my friend, but I-I don’t really no why.”
“Want me to be your friend?”
Adrian looked up quickly into the other man’s eyes. Yes.
“Yes.”
Isaiah smiled brightly then, saying, “Cool. Why wouldn’t you have friends? I like you, and I don’t tend to like unlikable people, know what I mean?”
“People just don’t talk to me,” Adrian said, shrugging slightly. “N-no one hates me, just, no one likes me…”
“Except for me.”
“Except for you,” the blond said after a short moment of silence. “But you-you’re paid to like me.”
“I’m not paid to like anyone,” the nurse responded instantly, shaking his head. “I can like whoever I choose to like, you couldn’t give me money to be someone’s friend. I’m paid to talk to you, yeah, but for what they pay me I sure as hell wouldn’t be wasting my time talking this much to someone who I didn’t want to talk to.”
Well… Why would the man like him? If no one else had before, why all of a sudden would this random stranger choose to befriend him if it was not simply because he was paid to? Did the man want something from him, did he have other intentions other than friendship, or…
He seemed so genuine, though, his face open, honest, and all around fucking gorgeous. Maybe he was being sincere… Maybe…
“You’re weird,” Adrian said after a long pause. He couldn’t help the smile that spread across his lips as his nurse broke out laughing.
“Maybe a little, but why would you say that?” Isaiah asked, looking up at Adrian with a drop-dead beautiful smile on his face, his blue eyes deep and piercing, like he could see right into the younger man. The effect was so astounding that Adrian could only sit there, staring, that smile still on his lips.
“Because… You actually like little e-emo kids with all their i-is-issues and shit? ‘N-no one understands me, I’m go-gonna go write bad poetry and c-cry and cut my-myself i-in the corner…’”
“No,” Isaiah replied, leaning forward very slightly. “You’re not a little emo kid… I’ve met those kids, they’re all just fake, always whining about shit that’s not even relevant… I like you, though, you’re not like them. Um, but you might write bad poetry, I don’t know...”
Adrian shook his head slightly. He felt really fucking good right then, it was awesome, like a breath of fresh, clean air after having been suffocated for so long… And the sunlight pouring into the room lit everything up so perfectly; it was almost surreal, this feeling… He felt… content?
“No, I’m not a poet, but I write sto-stories… I can tell a g-good poem from a bad poem, though.”
“Mm, so you like to write, now? What do you write?”
“Erotica.”
Isaiah leaned back into his chair, laughing. “Really? What, uh, what kind, if you would like to share?” Adrian just quirked his eyebrows at that and gave the other man a mischievous grin. Hmm… He would never share the things he wrote about. He burned his stories after he finished writing them or deleted them after typing them; they would get him in a lot of fucking trouble.
“Not a few thi-things that would get my ass beat e-every day for the rest of my life if they were ever sh-shared,” Adrian said with a small smirk on his lips. “If you’re r-really good, though, maybe I can le-let you read one… if your eyes d-don’t start bleeding after the first sentence, th-that is.”
“Please,” Isaiah said, rolling his eyes slightly, “I’ve read some things that would make a serial murdered cringe—“
They both looked up in slight surprise when the door to the room opened. Adrian’s good mood dropped instantly, his smile slipping as his aunt entered the room. She didn’t look pleased; the corners of her thin bright red lips were turned down and her plucked-to-almost-nonexistence eyebrows were furrowed just slightly, at least enough to put a small crease on her smooth, pale forehead. Her dyed brown hair was stiffly curled around her broad shoulders, and she wore some of her nicer clothes for the occasion of actually leaving her house for something other than work or grocery shopping.
Isaiah stood up then and stepped up to Adrian’s aunt and held out his hand, saying, “Hello, you must be Ms. Keaton. I’m Isaiah, I’m sort of like a councilor/nurse here. A hospital shrink, basically. Your nephew and I were just having a little chat…”
Isabelle took Isaiah’s hand and shook it slightly, her expression changing a little once she got a full view of Isaiah’s face. Adrian almost cringed when she smiled at the man; god, what did she think she was doing, Isaiah was his—
His thoughts stopped dead right then. His? His?! What the hell kind of idea was that! Did he actually think he could lay claim to the man; could actually get jealous just because his aunt smiled at him?! Shit, he’d only been talking with Isaiah for a few minutes, it’s not like they were fucking going out or some shit!
He was an idiot. He needed to let this ridiculous infatuation go; it would only amount to nothing but disappointment if he ever expected a man probably six years older than him to fall for him. For anyone to fall for him in general, in fact…
“Nice to meet you,” Isabelle said as she withdrew her hand, “and you can call me Isabelle.”
Whore.
She was always so nice to attractive men… and they all always fell for her act. He hoped Isaiah was different.
“So, are you here to visit? I can leave you two alone, if you’d like…”
“No, actually,” she replied, glancing over at Adrian before saying, “I’m here to withdraw him. They said he was stable now, so I felt it best to go ahead and take him off your hands…”
“Oh,” Isaiah said. Adrian’s heart jumped when he heard the twinge of disappointment in the older man’s voice. He actually… actually cared that Adrian was leaving? Wait, wait… He didn’t want to leave! He just woke up from a near-death experience and his bitch of an aunt was already trying to take him away?! But if his heart had been beating fast then, it started getting violent when Isaiah said, “Are you sure you want to do that? I mean, maybe he should stay here a little longer, after all he just came out of critical condition… And, uh…” The brunette before him looked past him for a moment, an irritated look landing on her nephew, making Isaiah turn to follow her gaze. He gave Adrian a quizzical look when he was met with the sight of the teen throwing his aunt a furious glare, his fists clenched tightly around wads of sheet. As soon as Adrian saw Isaiah looking at him, however, his angry expression faded and he looked down at his lap, his fists going limp beside him.
“Are you okay, Adrian?”
“Uh… Y-yeah, I’m fine, I just… don’t want to go yet…” The blond sighed a little, his soft, resigned voice gentle as he pleaded, “Please, Isabelle?”
His aunt’s expression turned to cold anger when he looked up at her with beseeching eyes. Naturally, it changed back immediately when Isaiah looked back over at her. “No,” she said with a slightly stiff voice. “I don’t have the money for you to stay any longer. You can rest at our house. I’ll go withdraw you and I’ll be back in a moment. Get ready.”
Before either of the men could comment the door was already shut behind her. Adrian felt a wave of disappointment and despair wash over him, his heart pounding unsteadily, as it had been doing pretty much the second Adrian had opened his eyes. Ugh, too many mood swings… Isaiah just watched him with a concerned look for a moment before walking over to him.
“Sorry, Adrian… She really shouldn’t take you so soon, but, she’s the guardian, not me…”
“Unfortunately,” Adrian mumbled, looking down at his hands. “What a bitch…”
“Seems like one,” Isaiah said in a quiet voice. Adrian looked back up at that, a slightly surprised look on his face. “What? I call ‘em like I see ‘em, kid, and she seems like a royal bitch… All those nasty looks when she thought I wouldn’t notice… But, you know…” He moved to remove the needle from his arm and Adrian looked away to avoid seeing the long, disturbing metal piece being drawn from his skin. “You don’t have much longer to deal with her. You’ll be a free man and you won’t even have to talk to her, ever again…”
“Can’t wait.”
Isaiah grinned and took a card from the pocket of his light blue scrubs, slipping it into Adrian’s hand. “Call me any time. See if your aunt’ll set up some appointments… I’d like to talk to you more. And if she’s worried about costs, tell her it’s half off, all right? I would do it free for you, but I want to make that bitch pay.” Adrian choked for a second before bursting out laughing, his nurse grinning at him as he continued, “Anyway, I have an office down town, near that really nice big house, know the one I mean?” Adrian nodded and stared at the card after he finally calmed his laughter, reading Isaiah’s cell number over and over again to try to memorize it. “It’s a cool place… Looks like a house, has a big sign out front, and there’s a coffee place right across from it. Try to come see me sometime, all right?”
“Sure thing,” Adrian said, about to say something else, but his aunt chose that exact moment to open the door to his room and say, “Let’s go.”
Adrian sighed and swung his legs over the bed. He felt his cheeks get hot when the thin blanket that had previously been wrapped around his torso slipped down and he realized he still didn’t have a shirt on, his only article of clothing the jeans he had hurriedly put on that morning. Still commando, as well. He looked down at his thin body, his taught muscles broken up by protruding bones from beneath, shuddering slightly as his fatless, sinewy torso was hit by the sudden unprotected introduction of the cold.
Trying to fight down his embarrassment, he tried to stand and lost his balance as a wave of nausea swept over him, making him promptly sit back on the bed, all of his previous shyness forgotten. Lights seemed to swim before his eyes and he felt like he might throw up. He shut his eyes and took a few deep breaths and when Isaiah asked, “Are you okay?” he shook his head slightly.
“I really don’t think you should take him so soon,” Adrian heard his nurse say to his aunt. “At least let him stay for a few more hours…”
“Excuse me,” Isabelle said then, her tone irritated, “but I believe that I am the guardian of this child. I think I can take care of him myself, thank you.”
Adrian looked up, his vision clearer now, and caught a glimpse of Isaiah’s expression, which was a mixture of being taken aback and a little offended. “Of course, ma’am, I wasn’t challenging your parenting abilities…” He turned to Adrian then and rolled his eyes, making the younger boy smile before offering his hand to help him up. Adrian took his hand eagerly, reveling in the smooth texture and warmth of it, allowing himself to be hauled gently to his feet.
He stood there for a moment, swaying slightly on his feet. Although he really did feel like shit, the swaying thing was mostly an act as an excuse to hold onto Isaiah’s hand a little longer.
“Would you like a wheelchair?” Isaiah asked, concern in his voice. Adrian looked up into his intense blue eyes and, reluctantly, let go of his hand as he shook his head, saying, “N-no, thank you, I-I’ll manage…” God, it felt good, being so close to the other man. They were less than a foot apart and Adrian just wanted to bask in the shrink’s warmth for forever.
“All right, kid, I hope I’ll never see you here again… Be safe, okay?”
Adrian nodded and mumbled a soft “Thank you” before stepping past Isaiah and following his aunt as she exited the room. He looked back once to catch Isaiah watching him and waved slightly before the door closed behind him. He felt his heart drop with disappointment when the other man went from his sight and he turned his head back to walk after his aunt on slightly unsteady feet.

~!~

Reply, reply, reply reply tiiiiimmmmeee… *dance*
…
God I’m so gay. ><

Distant Raen
Indeed. Mary Jane is my lord and savior.
All hail the marijuana god!

Cherry Starburst
Ooo see see I LISTEN yeah.
Also yes robots are fuckin sexy, sexy things.

And, yes. Atia is a rather strange man... : /

Saminada
Ohhohoho no no not at all I’m not finished torturing my poor little Adrian.
‘Cause I’m a sick bastard and there’s nothing I love more than inflicting pain upon my main characters. *nodnod*

Aw everyone’s hatin’ on Atia... I guess if he had feelings he would care.
But you’re right, he is a right little bastard. But I love him. : )

Canis
Why yes, yes I am, thank you for noticing. ; )

Enchantress
Yeah.
Plot is always nice. *nod*
And my mind block died, possibly because you forbade it to exist. Thanks!

Who the hell is Atia?
Make up something fun; what do you think he is?
Hm hmmm…
:D


All right guysssssss…
I think Adrian is PMSing; oh, the mood swings... ><
Anyway
Peace out, baby.
-Alex