Love's Battlefield - Volume 10 (Part 2)
Love's Battlefield: Volume Ten - Blood, Sweat, And Tears: Part Two
By Joseph Raszagal
"Rain?" Mumbled Thomas weakly as he opened his eyes and blinked away the sand. "I dreampt about... rain. But why?"
Reaching up with one paw to rub at his tired eyes, Thomas's padded fingers came back damp as they traced down through the fur of his right cheek. 'I've been known to sleep like a hospital patient in a medically induced coma, sure, but I'm NOT a freaking drooler', he thought to himself. Chewing on that thought for a second, the azure dog attempted to sit up but found that he didn't have the strength to prop himself up with either arm... or with both of them working together for that matter.
"Alright, what the fuck's going on?" Grumbled the Lucario, his words coming out with an edge of exhaustion. "Why do I feel like I just ran a marathon or two?"
From the furthest corner of the room, a small voice quietly whimpers, "Me, that's why."
"Adam?" Questioned a startled Thomas.
With a huff of exertion, the cerulean canine tried to sit up again, forcing his elbows back behind him and using the added leverage that they offered to lean forward. Upon finally managing an upright, sitting position, the drained and dizzy Lucario had to keep his arms locked in place like steel reinforcement beams or else run the risk of toppling over, timber style, and starting the whole process all over again. His head swam and the room seemed to spin in chaotic circles around him, but Thomas calmly slowed his breathing and closed his eyes, refusing to allow the disorientation to get the better of him. He'd been slipped his fair share of rufies in the past, not to mention all of the iffy substances that he'd had to imbibe at the behest of some of his wealthier, wilder clientèle. Some people just like a bit of ecstasy with their sex. Well, cocaine too. Oh, and a few hits of acid. And pot... lots and lots of pot. Regardless, whatever was short-circuiting his systems, it didn't hold a candle to any of the REALLY bad drug trips that Thomas had stumbled through and survived.
But with that said, it was still comparable, which worried him nonetheless.
"Adam, what the Hell happened to me?" Asked Thomas, his tone troubled.
As the navy dog reopened his eyes, peering blurrily across the room, his list of worries only lengthened. About as far from the bed as possible, or perhaps as far from Thomas as possible, Adam was curled up into a tiny, furry ball and shuddering violently; his webbed wings were draped tightly around his knees like a blanket and effectively obscured the view of the rest of his shivering form like a natural curtain. Judging by the deep rings under the brown bat's eyes, how thoroughly bloodshot they were, and the unchecked running of his nose, he had clearly just started coming down from a long and emotionally taxing cry. The worst kind, really.
Thomas gulped nervously at the sight. He'd seen his friend in a hospital gown, unconscious, with breathing machines pumping his chest up and down for him, but THIS was something else entirely. The lazuli lupine had never seen Adam like this before.
"Holy shi~
Thomas couldn't even finish his exclamation.
Instead, he completely ignored his body's desperate pleas for him to fall back against the mattress like a limp ragdoll and started struggling over to the side of the bed, hoisting himself up with all of his strength. At least, that was the theory anyway. 'This sounded a Hell of a lot easier on paper', grunted an irritated voice in the back of Thomas's mind, 'just standing up shouldn't be this goddamn hard'. At least twice, he slumped down uncontrollably, like a pile of wet laundry, as his arms gave out and resigned to defeat. But with some very forceful effort and a disgruntled growl, quite possibly a growl of pain, the blue pup successfully pushed himself up off of the plush, comfortable surface and onto his bare hindpaws. Huffing and puffing, he noted that it only took about four tries. Again, very troubling. The cold hardwood floor was not an inviting feeling to the weary canine's paw pads, not at all, and neither was the spinning-room sensation from before as it returned with full force, like a concussive explosion, but only once Thomas was completely standing. Taking another deep breath, the discombobulated Lucario focused hard and once again forced the disorientation down. The room rapidly orbiting his head like a out of control centrifuge, or the metaphor that he was using to better fight off the strange sensation, respected the imperial command to cease and eventually slowed down to a much more manageable level of nausea. Then, like a tree swaying in the wind, but with just a bit more multicolored dreadlocks, Thomas teetered over to his distraught friend, nearly staggering into everything that could be staggered into along the way, and knelt down beside him. However, Adam had preempted this by curling up even tighter, hiding his face back behind his knees and refusing to register the sapphire dog's presence right next to him. He'd slammed shut his eyes at this point too, a failing effort to hold back the tears that mercilessly continued to flow and streak his furry face a damper, deeper shade of brown.
"I-I... told you..." Said Adam, choking on each individual word. "I-I happened, I... h-happened to you."
Taking a deep breath so as to steady his wobbly self, Thomas cups the vampire bat's chin between his thumb and forefinger, gently tilting his head up so that they can lock eyes, and says, "I still don't know what you mean by that, Fly Boy, but I can guarantee that this is NOT your fault. Don't be ridiculous."
Almost five minutes of weeping followed the Lucario's consoling words. Five long, painful, seemingly never-ending minutes. It took every ounce of strength that Thomas had not to break down and cry along with his shuddering friend; the reasons why still unbeknownst to him and endlessly confusing, but the emotional power behind it no less heart-wrenching.
Looking up at the wall-mounted clock, the cerulean canine noted that in the time he'd spent being uselessly unconscious, night had fallen. That meant that the house was full; every adjacent room had at least two or more sleeping bats nesting in them. Gritting his teeth, Thomas hoped that the coming conversation wouldn't be the one to wake them all; he wasn't sure if he could face them afterwards.
Mercilessly, the internal voice between his ears echoes, 'Would they still treat me like a member of the family if they knew just how much of a sick freak I really am?'
"N-no, you... you d-don't understand." Whispered Adam morosely as he drifted further and further inward, into his tightly compacted ball, almost as though he were trying to disappear. In an instant, Thomas snapped out of his daze. "M-my saliva... It acts l-like a surface anesthetic and n-numbs the skin before my fangs pierce. It helps to ease the p-pain of p-penetration, something that w-would normally rouse a greater struggle out of the v-victim. But when it hits your b-bloodstream it hits harder... a LOT harder... and starts to n-numb your whole body like a sh-shot of morphine. A c-couple shots of m-morphine." Unsuccessfully, he had to fight the involuntary quaking of his own voice as he continued, "I-it m-makes it... easier... to d-drain a victim th-that's aware of their s-situation by stunning th-them, temporarily paralyzing th-them. After all, you can't fight off a... a m-monster... w-while you're unconscious."
Had it not been connected to the rest of his furry head by both bone and muscle, Thomas's lower jaw would have gone straight through the floor and kept going down through to the basement.
'Our first kiss', silently pondered Thomas with gradually widening eyes, 'I thought I was imagining the numbness. So it was... it was Adam? It was real? It was really real?'
Stupefied, the navy dog mutters the last thought to fly at light speed through his head, "Are you serious?"
"D-do I sound like I'm joking?" Cried Adam woefully. "D-do I LOOK like I'm f-fucking joking?"
Pinching himself in order to regain his focus, Thomas wraps his arms around the weeping bat and rests his muzzle in between Adam's ears, allowing the troubled teen to nuzzle into his strong, supporting chest. In an effort not to show the quavering that has taken hold of his voice as well, he says assuredly, "No, no you don't."
Uncertain of what to do next, the Lucario decided that the best course of action for him to take would be to simply stay close and continue offering his dear friend the protection of his embrace. They stayed like that for the better portion of an hour, the featherless flier carefully shielded from the world around him by two blue arms. Despite having seen Adam in various states of sickness and near-death, seeing him break down completely was still an all too new and painful experience for the cobalt canine to bare through. The emotional stress of living his double life and constantly lying to both himself and others normally had the current situation reversed, Thomas crying and the bat consoling, so the azure pup hadn't the faintest clue of what more to say or do. Adam had always been the strong one; he'd always been the one to stand unyielding against the storm in the Lucario's stead. Watching someone so strong and so unflappable, someone that he loved with every fiber of his being, helplessly resign themselves to their sluice of tears hurt him inside more than anything had in a long time. Thomas hugged the weeping bat tighter and tighter to his chest as the hands on the clock continued to tick, determined to protect him from nothing in particular and everything on Earth at the same time.
'The rain', said a hushed voice in the back of his head, 'must have been Adam's tears. While I laid there like an unconscious vegetable, he must have been crying his eyes out above me. God-fucking-dammit, I'm a failure.'
"Do you..." Began Thomas, finally emboldened enough to proceed with what was sure to be another emotionally rending conversation for Adam. "...feel any better?"
"W-what do you mean?" Whispered the bat in reply, some 30 seconds later.
As though his question had been completely clear, Thomas tilts his head ever so slightly, confused as to why he hadn't been understood, then asks again with just a bit more clarification, "Did it help any? Did taking my blood do anything for your headaches, for the nausea, or for any of the other problems that I'm still in the dark about?"
Silence. Utter silence. It was, of course, a heavy one.
"Almost immediately." Answered the brown-furred bat as he turned his head to look away, his face twisted in disgust. His eyes threatened to loose another torrent but his jaw remained firmly set in its expression of self-contempt. "My headache is gone completely and that's saying something; it was a migraine. The nausea is fading fast too. I won't feel either at all in a few minutes. And then there's the atrophy; I feel like someone either gave me a full-body deep tissue massage or just went for broke and replaced all of my muscles with brand new ones." Narrowing his eyes into resentful slits, he spat, "It's... it's not right. It's fucked up. I shouldn't feel so good after doing something so terrible. All I had to do, all along, was bite a neck and steal what wasn't mine. Really? Fucking REALLY?"
"Slow down, Batman, there's no reason to go down that route again." Sputtered Thomas as he struggled to take control of the situation before it got out of hand again. He thought that the use of one of their affectionate nicknames might ease the tension in the room, even if only by the slightest of margins.
He was wrong. It did not.
"Slow down?" Growled Adam, his voice a low but furious rumble. "How can you expect me to just slow down, to calm down, after what just happened? I'm a fucking train wreck; I feel like I deserve to die after doing what I just did." Covering his face with both paws, the vampire bat quickly lost control of himself and the volume of his voice. All consideration for the sleep of the building's seven other occupants was gone in a sudden flash of self-directed rage. "I feel like crawling into a hole and dying right now! Do you have any idea how awful that was?! Do you?! One minute I'm taking your blood, sucking on your neck like a freaking vacuum pump, and the next minute you're out like a light! It... it was instantaneous! You just passed right out in my arms and went as pale as a bleached sheet beneath your fur! I listened for your heart rate and it had dropped like a stone; your breathing became shallower than a puddle of fucking rainwater too!" Tearing up, he punched the floor beneath him with one fist and cried, "I-I hurt you, damn it; I-I thought I'd killed m-my best friend!" Morosely, he bowed his covered face and whimpered, "F-fucking Christ, m-man, I-I thought I'd killed my l-lov~
"But you didn't!" Interjected Thomas, pulling the winged teen's paws away from his eyes so he can see the determined Lucario staring back at him. "I'm alive and I'm not going anywhere any time soon! Maybe we overdid it this first time, maybe you took too much or something; I don't really understand how it works and, honestly, I don't really care. What matters is the fact that it worked. If we practice it a couple more times, making sure that I'm sitting down and in a safe position in case I pass out again, I'm sure we'll figure out how long is too long and how much is too much. With how well this worked at bringing your body back up to speed, we can't just cut it out of the equation like tha~
This time it was Adam who cut Thomas off, howling, "No! I don't care how many times you offer it, how many times you demand me to take it; I'm not going to drink your blood again!"
Sounds of harried rustling rattled through the walls of almost every surrounding room, but neither boy relented. This argument would come to a close with one, and only one, victor.
"Not tomorrow, not the day after, and not the day after that!" Continued Adam as he rose to his feet and crossed the room with his forefingers plugging his ears, protecting his flustered brain from whatever protest his combative friend might put forth.
"You're not even listening!" Shouted Thomas as he followed in suit and struggled, uncomfortably, to his hindpaws. Hobbling after the bat with a mixture of disappointment, worry, and anger flashing brightly in his scarlet eyes, he pointed with one padded finger and yelled, "At least give me the time of day, don't just shut me out like that, goddammit!"
"I'm not listening, I'm not listeni~
Suddenly, without so much as a single hint or signal, the lazuli lupine's paw came and struck Adam's right cheek in what can only be described as a blur. The vicious slap immediately ended the bat's juvenile statement and very nearly brought the owner of said slapping paw down to the ground. Inhaling and exhaling hoarsely, still clearly affected by the vampiric venom, Thomas straightened his stance, refusing to go down, and maintained his stern, rock-solid expression.
The navy dog was angry, seethingly angry, and at the root of his anger was the passionate love he felt for his friend. 'I will NOT let him block me out', trumpeted his inner voice, 'I will not let him die by choice!'
"No, I refuse to accept that!" Barked Thomas, his voice steely and strong and suddenly seven times more imposing. "I just can't accept it! I finally have the ability to help you, to do something good for one of the only people who have ever done good for me, and I'm not ALLOWED?! Fuck that! You just sit right there and listen for a minute because I'm about to tell you, someone who already knows, my life story! Maybe once you've heard it again you'll know why I have to help you! I don't care if I'm rambling; I won't let you not let me help you!"
Placing a paw on his stinging cheek, the brown bat did as he was told, surprised beyond belief, and simply listened.
An experimental jangle of the loose doorknob affixed to Adam's flimsy bedroom door told them that they were no longer alone and that each and every statement now had listening audience. No one knocked, perhaps out of digression, but it was clear that they were still there.
But that didn't stop Thomas. It didn't even slow him down.
"Not too long ago, I tried to juggle all of the people that I'd used and abused in order to feel strong AND all of the late night shoppers that I'd been selling myself to. While making the money that I needed for you, I'd sometimes be sating my appetite for power at the same time; killing two birds with one stone, so-to-speak. I mean, looking back at the person that I've been, that I can't deny still BEING inside, what could possibly be better? I could both earn my friend's future the hard way whilst also unhealthily asserting my authority onto dozens of others who had absolutely nothing to do with the psychological damage that my lust for power originally stemmed from." With gritted teeth, he sneered, at himself more than anything, "I wanted to hurt my father, not them. I wanted to rise up and finally stand against him. I wanted to strike him. I wanted to thrash him. Maybe with my fists, maybe with a bat. I wanted to feel stronger than him, more powerful than him, and finally able to protect myself from him. I wanted to... but I couldn't. He died. I still don't know how or why it happened, I just know that I'll never forgive the gunman out in front of that Los Angeles gas station for taking that one chance away from me. Without him to prove my strength to, to beat down into the ground like a wooden stake, I just didn't know what to do. I wanted to prove to SOMEONE that I was superior, that I couldn't be made to bow or kneel or crawl or beg or cry or bleed ever again, but that someone was gone. Without them to overcome, to defeat, I was lost." Clenching his fists until each and every knuckle popped, Thomas felt his eyes pooling at the corners but did not relent, "So I took out all of my sorrow and anger on the kids at school, who much like myself, didn't have the courage to stand up for themselves. I dominated them. I made them subservient. And I loved it. But oddly enough, after a while I started to feel weak again; something deep down in my gut told me that I had to have more, that I had to feel even mightier; the schoolyard just wasn't big enough to contain the sheer size and weight of my freakishly inversed inferiority complex. Fortunately, I'd already started hooking the midnight streets at that point and knew an all too easy way to find more spirits to crush. Patrons and return customers, ones that I knew were already into domination, preferably the master and slave variety that wouldn't have any qualms about being kicked around, handcuffed, paddled, whipped, etcetera etcetera. Not that I stuck to that regimen for very long; I quickly escalated to beating the shit out of all of my customers, S&M fetishists or not, and enjoyed the fuck out of it. The same people that had started off by giving me money in return for a good time soon became nothing more than my mere toys and playthings, discardables that I felt obligated to smack around with my iron fist on a near daily basis~
As the next few sentences streamed ever on, Adam simply stared with wide eyes and a quivering lower lip.
"It took Dex's intervention to shake me free of that bad habit; he didn't know what I was trying to do with all of the money that I'd been saving up at the time, but he gave me a good bit of advice about how to keep pooling it up." Said Thomas, his mouth clearly dry by this point and made all the more evident as he licked his lips periodically. "'Some guys and girls are into being slaves among slaves and they'll gladly pay top dollar for that kind of thrill, but if you treat them all like that, 24/7, pretty soon you're not going to have anyone left who'll be willing to pay you, not even bottom dollar.' He said that to me the first time I met him and I think the second time we met was probably in his office, over a cup of coffee, while I was signing the barely-legal paperwork that would earn me a spot on any one of his three stages. He was right, too right; I'd been letting my own fucked up needs get in the way of your very real, life-threatening needs." Shaking his head, Thomas placed his paws on both of Adam's shoulders and whimpered, "I wish that I could tell you I was strong enough to stop, that I'd seen the light that night and found it in my cold heart to finally start treating the people around me like... like real people and not fucking trash. But I'm not going to lie, no, not to you. I stopped the abusive domination with my clients and JUST my clients. However, according to my twisted mind, the school-grounds were still open for business. I'm sure you can guess the kind of business; the kind that's earned me the exact same fear and infamy within one building that a militant dictator might receive within the sovereign nation that they rule." Slumping his head down, the cobalt canine shivered for a moment as the roles were reversed and Adam's arms encircled around him. Despairingly, he muttered, "And if I got my chronology right, that should bring us to Forrest and Danni, my most recent crime. Two kids who love each other in a way that I've been jealous of almost my entire life and yet I had to step in, royally fuck it up, and then promise to fuck it up some more in the future. And I probably would have too, I would have continued to torment them for no reason. They were happy and I knew I could make them sad, so I did, just like someone else would have had HE been given the chance. I was convinced that the only way I could ever find my own happiness, my own joy, was through the utter destruction of anyone and everyone else's joy. I had to stand in domination over all and watch them wallow in their subservience." Laughing pitifully, the act consisting less of any real laughter and more of the hollow shell of some internal wound long since buried, he concluded, "But then there were always those three that I just couldn't bring myself to try and enslave. Hell, it wasn't even something that I could TRY to do, I just knew that it was impossible. You, Andrew, and Dex. I couldn't even think about it; it wasn't even conceivable to me. I didn't know why for such a long time and I tried to deny it once I did come to the right conclusion. The answer was so obvious too; I practically slapped myself once the riddle was finally solved. You see, you three were the only ones that I felt I could trust enough to... to be myself around; you were the only ones that I felt wouldn't strike at me and take advantage of me once the charade was dropped. You three were... you three are... the only ones that I feel so thoroughly comfortable around that... that I can allow myself to be dominated without my psychological complex flaring into action and telling me that I'm somehow in incredible, unimaginable danger."
Kissing the top of the azure dog's head, Adam gently lifted him back up and nodded, finally knowing where all of this was going.
"I had sex with Dex; I'm sure that even without being told, you must have known that already." Stated Thomas with a slight sniffle as he gazed deep into the bat's lavender eyes. "He mounted me, not the other way around; again, something that should be pretty obvious. What I haven't told you is how right it felt being beneath him, especially compared to all of the past outrageous physical assaults that I've indulged in and then tried to pass off as sex afterwards. For the first time in, practically my entire life, I was under someone else's power and... and I was at ease. I was at peace. This was a person that wouldn't beat me to a pulp, wouldn't throw me to the lions, and wouldn't stab me in the back at a moment's notice. And I mean, sure, maybe Dex isn't someone that I could ever really be with, but dammit, he's someone that's gone out on far too many limbs for me not to trust with my life. With my body. He's someone that, if I asked for help, would send it in the blink of an eye. And after I got home that night and spoke with you, after you confided in me and I confided in you, I figured something else out as well. What I'd been projecting onto Dex for months and months, projections that had been building and swelling inside of me for years even, had been in front of me all along. You've always been there to protect and comfort me; you've stood tall in the face of adversity with all of the strength and charisma that I've had to PRETEND to have. Even while trapped in a hospital bed, tubes and wires going every which way all over you, you still stuck your chin out and waited with brass balls for Death to come along with his scythe and try to take you. Emphasis on the TRY. Shit, after that motherfucker died and left me for dead in the hands of one orphanage after the other, you were always the one who made sure that I had a shoulder to lean on so I wouldn't fall flat on my face. You were, and still are, my hero."
The word "hero" hung in the air for several dramatic seconds.
"...Thomas..." Whispered Adam in what was practically awe.
"Just the knowledge that you're here, that you're with me, is enough to keep me going." Assured Thomas with a resolute expression, one more courageous than any to ever cross his face before. "And I will do anything in my power to make sure that you feel the same. I fucking mean it. I want to be your shield, just as you've become mine; just as you've been all along. If I have to shed blood for you, Adam, then I will; I will fucking bleed for you. So please, please reconsider." After having shuffled back a few feet on his knees, Thomas dropped down onto all fours, groveling, and pleaded, "Take my blood; it'll be the first good deed that a single bit of my body has done in a long time."
Another brief moment of silence followed, but this time, it was one free of the crushing, atmospheric weight that had permeated the room before.
"You really aren't going to take no for an answer, are you?" Questioned Adam quietly as he buried his face in Thomas's fluffy, navy chest.
Tenderly kneading the bat's head of hair, the gentle and intimate caress a soothing sensation to both boys, Thomas replies, "If it helps, just think of it as a selfish decision rather than whatever knight-in-shining-armor mental image of me you've got waltzing around in that brain of yours. I'm no martyr; I don't even know how to sacrifice myself for the greater good. I need this just as much as you do. It'll be like my first necessary step towards becoming a better person and overcoming my messed up power craze." Playfully tickling the winged teen's sides, he muses, "How's that? It's like the whole 'drinking blood thing' is just a stop at second or third base along my way to home plate; barely even worth mentioning."
"You've always been a terrible liar." Chuckled Adam as he leaned back and locked eyes with his canine friend. "Or maybe it's that I know you too well. Blue, you are an armor-clad knight, charging with banner in paw, you just don't know it yet."
Placing a paw along the contour of the mahogany bat's cheek, Thomas softly smiles and admits, "Alright, so maybe your wellbeing sits just a bit higher on my wish list than anything involving myself; you caught me. But still, I double-dog-dare you to tell me, with a straight face, that it didn't make the thought of it at least a teeny, tiny bit more tolerable."
"Fine, fine." Laughed Adam, rolling his eyes. "The idea of it being less about me, even if only a little... does make it easier, actually. Is that weird?"
Shaking his head from side to side for the visual effect of doing so, the sapphire dog answers, "Not at all. It just means that you're a self-sacrificing martyr too and that you'd rather help your friend than help yourself." With a big, dumb grin, he adds, "Sound about right, Fly Boy?"
Gently tapping the Lucario on the head, the brown bat blushes and retorts, "Now why'd you have to go and say something like that? What if I get all scared again?"
"That's easy." Assured Thomas as he pulled his mate closer and touched noses with him. "Flip out on me again and I'll be right there, ready and waiting, for you to come back down to Earth. I'm won't leave your side, not even for a second."
And then their muzzles slid forward, overlapping each other's at the sides and interlocking as their words faded into silence and gave way to actions. With paws clasped together, fingers interlaced, they loving lapped and licked at each other until the darkness began retreating from the glory of the morning sun. By the time the dawn's early light had broken through the mismatched curtains, both furs had at some point in time made it to the bed and, by virtue of groggy laziness, neither of them possessed the necessary strength or energy to get back up and draw the cloth barriers tighter together. They simply laid there, clutching each other as though they were both tuckered-out teddy bears with eyes dreamily fixed on nothing in particular, and happily awaited the deep sleep that would surely overcome them very soon. It would likely prove to be one of the most restful ones either had ever experienced.
"Blue?" Spoke Adam sleepily, just barely piercing the quiet.
"Yessir?" Replied the dog with a soft giggle as he turned his head from the ceiling to face his lover.
Apprehensively, the furry flier shimmies closer, pressing his sparsely clothed body up against the blue dog's, and asks, "I have another hospital appointment set up this coming Friday. Heh, tomorrow, I guess. Would you like to come with me? I think Dr. Ernst would like to meet my blood donor."
Nuzzling the space between Adam's ridged ears, Thomas closes his eyes and whispers, "I've been waiting for that invitation. Of course I'll come."