Page 26

I’d only heard whispers before I woke up. Bits and pieces of voices that belonged to people that I cared about, but I was unable to locate who each one belonged too. There was a slew of big words from my left, coming from the person I had to assume was my doctor. Wait, why was I in the hospital?

The blood center. The riot . Uncomfortable memories filled my head to the brim, overflowing with an inability to sift through it all. I remembered the protestors breaking in, starting a fire with their makeshift Molotovs, but the rest was lost to me. Or it was too painful for my body to allow me to recollect.

A door closed as I struggled to flutter my eyes open. Eyelashes full of lead, I blinked away the weight of my slumber and tried to transition my vision to a more alert status.

The generic, blank, clean room splashed into my eyes. My senses started to come back to me all at once. Feeling the neutral comfort the hospital bed underneath me had to offer. Hearing the hum of the fluorescent lights that donned the ceiling as its home and the subtle whisper of the air conditioning running. Seeing double as two different versions of Thayer danced into view .

Wait. Two Thayers ?

“Bas!”

My head lolled to the right, toward the Thayer that looked more normal as he rushed to my bedside, slamming himself down in the chair waiting for him as the odd Thayer stared at me with crossed arms and a demeanor that was instilling caution into my bloodstream.

“Oh my god, you’re awake!” Thayer turned to his mirror made flesh and gestured toward the door of my room. “Go get the doctor!”

Weird Thayer just nodded and traipsed toward the door. Finally my eyes adjusted enough to notice stable differences between my Thayer and this one. The Thayer I knew had longer, scruffy hair that he kept longer than mine. The Thayer leaving the room had buzzed his hair down, fuzzy black hair remnants creating a textured helmet protecting his scalp. I turned back to the real Thayer and wondered what the hell was going on.

“What the hell is going on?” Apparently my brain couldn’t dole out more sophisticated sentences and clearly something bad had happened to me at the blood center. My voice was a gravely version of what it’d been before.

“The doctor said there was no way to know if you’d wake up soon, or ever. They’ve been running so many tests.” Thayer looked worried, shaking his head as he sniffled.

My eyes flared as the former sensations filled my head. Crazed kisses. Pale hands. A purple tongue. None of which belonged to Thayer.

“Kroven,” His name on my tongue sent tears to my eyes. I scoured the room, needing to see him, needing for him to know that I was okay. Terror tore a field through my chest. Why wasn’t he here? Did he know about the accident? Had I ruined our chances at getting help for the blood centers? “Where’s Kroven? ”

Exo and Wallace had been on their way to Piper last I could recall. Oh fuck. Had Kroven…left me here?

I sat up in bed, panic taking control of my withered body. I needed to get the fuck out of here. I needed to scream but couldn’t find the strength. I had to find out what happened to the blood center.

Most importantly, I yearned to figure out why Kroven wasn’t the first face I’d woken up to.

“Bas, calm down!” Thayer cried.

“No!” I cried. I realized I was actually crying, my tears finally finding claim to my cheeks as they slid down.

The sound of the door opening filled my ears. A gasp and the sound of something dropping to the floor followed, and I fixed my gaze on the interruption of my planned escape.

Kroven stood in a puddle of coffee, wide eyed and jaw slack with surprise. Three foam coffee cups were still rolling thanks to the kick of the air conditioning that kept the room cool and noisy. He was frozen as we locked eyes, his filled with the red that told me he’d fed semi-recently, enough that he could see the state I was in.

Before I could open my mouth, Kroven ran over to me, dragging the chair on the opposite side of the bed from where Thayer was to sit next to me. He grabbed my hands and cradled them into his, a safety blanket of touch making my earlier concern wash away like a forgotten nightmare.

“Bas,” His voice wobbled and he covered it by taking our collective hands and kissing affection between my knuckles. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t here, but you have no idea how happy I am that you’re awake.”

Knowing that he hadn’t left me made my heart rocket around the confines of my body. I’d been so worried, so momentarily convinced that something else had happened other than whatever had afflicted me during the riot at the blood center. Something that my heart couldn’t take. But he was here. Kroven was here .

Hearing him talk about me like that broke me, the invisible damn keeping me from losing it all over his absence unleashing out of me like an explosion. He stood up and sat on the bed, pulling me into his arms as I sobbed into his chest. Wrapping my arms around his frame, I never wanted to let go. I just wanted to touch him, to feel him, be near him.

“Oh, blomsjett ,” His nickname for me just made me cry harder. “It’s okay. You’re okay.”

Kroven stirred, his head moving toward Thayer. “I would’ve been here if it wasn’t for you and your brother croaking on about coffee.” No malice was audible in his tone, but I could practically feel the nerves Thayer must have been wearing.

Which brought me out of my sobbing so I could face Thayer to ask an earlier conundrum I’d faced upon waking up. “Wait, brother ?”

I’d known Thayer for the better part of ten years. Not once had the mention of a brother, or any other family for the matter, had come up.

Thayer ran a hand through his hair, a tell I’d come to learn over the years that meant he’d either been caught, he was nervous, or a combination of the pairing. “We can talk about Troian later.”

“Why wait?”

The buzzcut version of Thayer appeared in the doorway, the sound of the door being opened lost on me in my hazy confusion. A doctor was behind him, clearly being the one I’d heard those medical terms pouring out of when I’d been slowly coming to.

My doctor was an older man, but he had kind green eyes that made me feel at ease. That ease left when he spotted Kroven, his eyes growing in size, but he cleared his throat with a fake cough to try and hide that he’d held any reaction at all to seeing the Orb currently cradling me.

I managed to dislodge myself out of Kroven’s hold, though the last thing I wanted was to be separated from him. He took a stance next to the bed as I geared up to hear the news. Thayer’s brother, who’s name was apparently Troian, walked over to his brother and waited, still crossing his arms like he was annoyed at just being there.

“Kidding, obviously.” Troian snorted, but there wasn’t a single hint of facial movement from him.

One thing at a time. I could yell at Thayer for not sharing this news with me later. Right now, I needed to hear what the fuck had happened to me.

“What happened to me?” There it was again, the directness. My head still felt a little foggy, still trying to wrap my brain around the fact that I’d been attacked, or at least damaged enough to warrant a hospital stay. “How long have I been out?”

“A little over a week.” The doctor nodded.

“Eight days, thirteen hours, and twenty-two minutes.” Kroven clarified, reaching over to caress a pattern across my hand as we both shared a smile. “And it was agony every second.”

“Yes, well,” The doctor coughed again, clearly uncomfortable by the display of slight affection. Maybe it was because we were in an obviously more-than-friends situation or maybe it was because we were gay. It was sometimes hard to remember that we could have multiple degrees of bigotry aimed at us at any given moment. “You suffered severe head trauma during the riot at the blood center.” Sounds of shattering glass filled my ears, but the doctor distracted me with more details. “Your co-worker says someone deliberately kicked you in the face after you were knocked to the ground and subsequently trampled once you lost consciousness.”

Fuck. I’d been out that long? I knew that what had happened was bad, but it didn’t seem like I should have been comatose for that long over something that appeared so little to me. Then again, I’d always handled physical pain fairly well and had never been kicked in the face and then stomped over repeatedly .

Babs’ face flashed in my mind, a sweat sheen of worry coloring my face. “Is Babs okay? What about the sangamar? Did anyone…” I couldn’t say the word. Survivor’s guilt screamed through me at the thought of anyone dying from the riot.

“Everyone survived. There were no human or Orb casualties.” The doctor explained, stuttering over the last part. He wasn’t exactly doing a good job of hiding his Orb bias. “Your co-worker, Babs, suffered from some smoke inhalation, but she was discharged several days ago.”

Fuck, this was bad. Really bad. But it could have been a hell of a lot worse.

“And the blood center?”

“Still structurally sound, but it’s seen better days.” Kroven said, nodding along and gesturing at the doctor. “They’ve closed it for now, but you should focus on resting.” He turned to the doctor. “Right?”

“Correct. I need to run some tests, make sure that you waking up after sustaining those injuries wasn’t a fluke.”

“Then I can leave?”

The doctor hesitated. “We’ll…revisit that conversation once I’ve run your current vitals, okay?”

Leaning back against the support of the bed, I sighed, nodding because I knew that it was best for me to go along with whatever the doctor was saying. I wanted to go back to my apartment. I wanted to be alone with Kroven at his house. I wanted to check the blood center and assess the damage myself. But right now, I was chained to my weakened body. There was no way I could handle that level of effort right now.

As if on cue, my body started to ache. I winced as my legs tensed up. After all, I had been asleep in this god forsaken bed for over a week.

“Can someone bring me some things from my apartment?” I said this to the doctor, but it was Thayer who answered me.

“I knew you’d ask for this sooner or later.”

He revealed my iPad from somewhere behind his back, a strap of a backpack lingering from the chair. Had Thayer camped out at the hospital ever since I’d been asleep? My conflicted feelings toward him were crashing and capsizing inside me violently, transitioning from volatile anger over not being told about this secret twin brother and insurmountable gratitude that he knew me well enough to know I’d need something to pass my prison sentence in this bed.

I gratefully took the iPad from him and held it close to my chest. “Thank you.”

“Just focus on getting better, okay?” This was from Kroven, and his hand caressed my cheek.

The doctor had another coughing fit, saying he was going to send in an intern to monitor my vitals and excused himself. Thayer nudged his brother and gave me a smile as he stood. “We’ll give you guys a minute. I’ll run to the apartment and grab some clothes for you.”

“Thanks.” I nodded, letting my eyes slide over his twin a little too long. The twin just gave me a nod. No smile, nothing more. Something about Troian made me feel like I was on the edge of my seat, in the worst way. I didn’t like it one bit, but I wanted them out of the room so I could focus all my attention on Kroven.

Once the door clicked shut behind them, Kroven lifted up and sat back down on the bed, both of us meeting for another embrace.

“I was so terrified, Bas.” Kroven’s tone choked with emotion. “They told me you might not ever wake up. ”

I pulled back, confused again. “That’s so…weird to hear. Scary, sure, but over a week? I was just knocked out.”

“No.” Kroven said sternly. “You were intentionally kicked in the face, knocked your head against the floor of the blood center, and then those pieces of shit stampeded over your body! I heard that Babs attacked them while screaming for you. She fought against them so hard until she was able to get to you.”

“Babs fought them for me?”

Kroven nodded. “She clawed her way toward you. Apparently they didn’t think fighting back against her was in their best interest and they fled soon after that because of the sirens.”

He looked away from me then and the only reason I thought it was weird was because he still had his hands on my shoulders, still needing to touch me and the feeling was immediately mutual. I reached for him, turning his face to meet mine as I saw the tears parading there, waiting to descend.

“Kroven, what is it?”

Not answering right away, he shook his head as he closed his eyes. He wiped his face prior to staring daggers into my eyes. “I realize that this isn’t the most opportune time to do this, but what happened at the blood center has taught me that it’s now or never.”

His hand soothed the edges of my jaw, and I leaned into his palm like a cat in heat. Which was pretty accurate despite my lack of feline features.

“I love you, Bas.”

All sound left the room once I replayed his words. As little time as we’d been spending together, as different as we were from each other and as societal pressures labeled us a not-quite-right interspecies couple, Kroven loved me. I’d been toying with the idea to tell him myself, I finally realized, before the riot at the blood center had happened, I’d been gearing up to tell him the same thing .

That was the thing. I felt the same. I’d thought it was way too soon, but the truth couldn’t be ignored.

I was without a doubt, head over hells in love with the sangamar.

I opened my mouth, but Kroven shook his head. “You don’t have to say it back. Actually, I’d rather you wait.” He craned his face away. “I shouldn’t have said anything until you were out of the hospital.”

“Hey.” I squeezed his hand, earning me a look of sadness from him that I needed to replace with reassurance. “I don’t care that this is where you told me. I just care that you feel the same way about me that I feel about you.”

Kroven’s eyes flared with the appearance of more tears, hopefully more happiness based ones. “You do?”

“Of course I do,” I laughed, shaking our conjoined hands. “I love you too, Kroven.”

I grabbed his face with both of my hands, our lips melding together in an accurate portrayal of our feelings for one another. His mouth opened and our kiss turned sensual, but our tongues remained coy as we expressed the love thrumming beneath our chests.

We broke apart and Kroven rested his forehead against mine. “I’m so relived you’re okay, Sebastian.”

A smirk curved my lips. He usually reserved my full name for when we were getting down and dirty. I was pleased to learn that my dick had remained unaffected by my accident as it plumped with arousal.

“Thank you for being here after I woke up.” I nodded. “I was worried that I’d scared you off or something.”

“Never,” Kroven reassured me. “There’s no place else I’d rather be than by your side.”