Talker's Redemption Read Free

and Brian was still mumbling “Won’t let him hurt you….” as the staff of Gatsby’s Nick covered Brian in their own jackets and shivered in the a.m. cold. He’d stopped mumbling, though, by the time the world became red lights and harshly barked questions. Talker just sat there, ignoring the authority people and the aching cold coming up through the sidewalk to his knees. Brian was lying there, covered in other people’s jackets and winter mist and blood. Talker’s grip on the battered hand was the only thing that kept Talker from screaming.
     
    By the time the paramedics hefted him into the ambulance, Brian was completely silent. They drove off, after Jed managed to get a hospital name from Talker. Brian had insurance which was a blessing that hardly registered, because for the moment, Brian was leaving, leaving, leaving Talker on the icy sidewalk, feeling as though a bomb had gone off and he was the only one left standing.
     

Shade of Winter Sky and Concrete
     

     
    Dr. Sutherland sighed and looked away from Tate as though there was something in his tattoo-masked face that was too awful to bear. Instead, he caught Brian’s eye, and Tate felt his lover physically recoil.
     
    “So, Brian,” the nice man said in a voice that was a little too hearty. “You’re trying to tell Tate that what hurts him hurts you too. How did you feel after The Worst. Date. Ever.?”
     
    Brian, steadfast Brian who could endure about anything, went very, very, very terribly still.
     
    Talker turned to him, a little surprised. There was a look on Brian’s face, like he’d gone to Mars on vacation and had left his body there to answer messages.
     
    “He was fine,” Tate said, unnerved by Brian’s silence. “He was great. Helped put me back together. Made me feel safe. It wasn’t….” Tate’s voice faltered, and he looked down to his hand with the half-glove on it. He had this game he played, with his scarred, damaged fingers, where he’d try to get them to twitch, and then a little bit further, and then a little bit further. When he was a kid, the doctors told him that it would help him keep mobility in his hand, and he liked that. Now that he was an adult it just made him feel in control. He could control that hand, even though it had been damaged. The analogy to his life was just too hard to ignore.
     
    “Brian?” Dr. Sutherland asked carefully. “Brian, you know….” The doctor sighed, seemingly at a loss, and slouched back against his comfy tapestry chair. “You boys know, you’ve been coming to see me for about six months, and… I’m glad. I look forward to seeing you in here every week. But I’m worried. You’ve made some progress in some things—Tate, you seem to be less… uhm… high-strung every week, and you can keep your attention focused for almost the entire session. But….” He looked away from them, his eyes seeming to find patterns in the random dance of tinsel across his bookshelf.
     
    When he looked back, he was as resolved as Talker had ever seen him.
     
    “You boys have got to start to talk about this thing like it really happened—both of you. You have to grab it by the horns and stare it in the face, and call it what it is.”
     
    Talker heard his whimper and hated himself, and his hand twitched in his lap hard enough to startle himself. Brian moved, finally, to put his hand over Talker’s and to calm him down.
     
    Dr. Sutherland watched them, and his jaw tightened, and he sighed determinedly.
     
    “Brian, if you think I’m less worried about you than I am about Talker, then you haven’t been paying attention. You’ve got a lot of shit, just threatening to explode out your chest, and I don’t know what you’re going to do if you can’t let it out….”
     
    Brian made an unexpected sound then, as he held Tate’s hand in his lap and stroked absently at the wrist with his thumbs. Tate had to look at him carefully before he identified it as a bitter, ironic sort of