Chapter 13
EXHAUSTED, Zach lay breathing in the warm, musky scent of David’s sweat, his head resting on David’s shoulder. He’d sucked up a deep bruise at some point that darkened the skin of David’s neck an inch or so from his face; he studied it ruefully, then realized with a shock that he was lying on top of David. “Shit,” he murmured, “I’m sorry, Taff,” and carefully eased himself from David’s body. David murmured sleepily and sighed. Zach lay tight against him in the narrow bed, his arm around David’s waist, his head on David’s shoulder.
He drifted off for a little bit, but not so much that he was disoriented when he woke; he knew just where he was and with who. For a moment it felt good, right—and then reality sunk in and his stomach dropped. What the hell had he been thinking? This wasn’t right. This was so not right that Zach didn’t even have a word for how wrong it was.
Then he thought—why not? Maybe he and David would be able to work it out. Maybe Mike was right: maybe he was selling David short, that maybe the scars, bad as they were, wouldn’t matter to David after all? He looked over at David, lying asleep in the dim glow of the lamp on the nightstand. Maybe David wouldn’t get grossed out by the wreck of Zach’s body. Maybe they had half a chance.
Zach shook his head. Maybe. Maybe. In the meantime, the condom was cold and slimy on his wrung-out dick and he needed to ditch it. He eased out of bed, careful not to wake David, and, tying off the used condom, went over to the garbage can by the desk and dropped it in, refastening his jeans automatically, without even being aware of it.
There was a sketchbook open on the desk, a half-finished drawing of Annie on the page facing. Zach glanced at it, then, out of curiosity, flipped back a few pages. There was a sketch of a dark-haired, vaguely Italian-looking guy, handsome and grinning out at him; as Zach paged through the book he saw a few more pictures of the guy, some against a backdrop of skyscrapers. The absent Jerry, he assumed, and his heart hurt just a little at the evident affection in the drawings. There were a few others he recognized—more of Annie, Maggie, Annabel—and then he turned the page to a charcoal sketch of himself. He swallowed. The other drawings were done carefully, lovingly; this one was rough, almost violent. Was that how he came across to David? The tough biker dude he tried so hard to appear to other people? He didn’t think David saw him that way, but maybe he was wrong. Did David think of him as unfeeling, mean, angry like this picture? No wonder he’d thought Zach didn’t want him….
And then he turned the page again and went cold.
The style of this drawing was more like the others; in pencil, detailed and careful. But the Zach in that picture wasn’t anything like the Zach he was—it was a fantasy Zach, whole and beautiful. Yeah, David had paid lip service to the scars on Zach’s neck, but even those were subtle, almost invisible. Zach felt sick. This was the Zach that David wanted, this imaginary, beautiful Zach. This was what David thought he had. Not the ugly, worthless piece of shit that had just fucked him.
“Do you like it?” David’s voice came from behind him—too close behind him. Zach closed the sketchbook with a thump and glanced over his shoulder. David stood there naked, his body still shiny with sweat and his sun-streaked hair standing on end. He gave Zach a sweet, sleepy smile.
“It’s okay,” he said indifferently.
“Oh.” David looked disappointed. Did he think Zach would get all googly over a stupid sketch like that? It wasn’t even real. Then David went on and said, “Why don’t you take your clothes off,” tugging again at the hem of his shirt, “and come back to bed?”
“No, I don’t think so,” Zach said.
There was silence in the room, and then David asked quietly, the hurt plain in his face, “What’s going on, Zach?”
“Nothing. This—this was just a mistake, that’s all. It shouldn’t have happened.” Zach waved his hand. “I shouldn’t have come here. I’m sorry. I gotta go.” He brushed past David and went for the door.
David beat him to it, and slammed his hand on the door just as Zach started to open it. “What. The. Fuck?”
“Don’t start anything, David,” Zach warned.
“Start anything?” David demanded. “You come in here and fuck me and then you’re going to just walk away like nothing happened? You fucking bastard.”
“Yeah,” Zach said icily. “Yeah, that’s me. So back off and I’ll get out of your life.”
“I told you, asshole, that I wasn’t going to be just another one of your fucks,” David snarled, shoving Zach around and back against the door.
“No, you said you weren’t one of my anonymous fucks,” Zach temporized, “and you’re not. I do know your name….”
“You fucking son of a bitch,” David said, and punched him in the face.
Zach stared at him in disbelief, his hand coming up to cup his suddenly bloody nose, then slid down the door to sit on the floor, his eyes wide and shocked. David stood looking down at him, still naked, hands fisted, hurt and rage and frustration in his face. “You son of a bitch,” David repeated, and Zach realized he was crying. “You fucking son of a bitch.”
“I’m sorry,” Zach said, and then he was crying, too, his bloody hands over his face as he sobbed heartbrokenly, weeping for David and himself and for mistakes and stupidity and lost opportunities and might-have-beens. “I’m so damn sorry, Taff, I’m so sorry….”
And then David was on the floor beside him, holding him, and Zach was in his arms and sobbing into his shoulder and bleeding all over him. David rocked him back and forth as he cried. David was crying, too, and that made it even worse, so Zach cried harder. It felt like all the grief and longing and despair he’d felt over the last seven years had suddenly decided to manifest itself. The sobs weren’t just sobs, they were great, wracking things that threatened to tear him apart, and for a moment he wished they would, wished that he would just disintegrate into component atoms and that maybe then the hurt would stop….
But when he ran out of tears and was hanging limply on David’s bare shoulder, wrung out and aching, he was still there, still in one piece, still hurting. David was stroking his hair gently, his other arm tight around Zach’s waist. Zach lifted his head from David’s shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he rasped, his voice almost gone. “I’m so fucking sorry. I should have never come here, shouldn’t have done this to you, should have never fucking come back from fucking Venezuela. God, I wish I’d died there like I wanted to instead of coming back to fuck up people’s lives.”
“Jesus, Zach, what the hell?” David drew back in shock. “What are you talking about?”
“Nothing,” Zach said hurriedly, realizing he’d spoken aloud. “Nothing. I’m just babbling.”
“No, no,” David said. “Do you really feel that way? That you’ve fucked up people’s lives—my life, your parents’ lives, just because you aren’t dead?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re a moron.”
Zach choked out a laugh. “Thanks. You always make me feel so much better.”
“Just telling the truth.” David leaned forward and rested his forehead against Zach’s.
“Look, dweeb, just because you fuck up occasionally—or in your case, constantly—doesn’t mean that people don’t love you or that they wish you were dead. Although it’s not infrequently that people wish you weren’t born, like me just a few minutes ago, asshole. But it doesn’t mean we don’t love you or that our lives were fucked up because something, God or fate or just blessed luck, brought you back to us alive. Fucked up, but alive. So shut the fuck up, apologize for being a dick, and come back to bed.”
Zach raised his head and looked at him wonderingly. “Just like that? Just like that you’re going to forgive me for being a complete soulless bastard?”
“No. But I’m going to give you the chance to earn my forgiveness. Shit. You’re still full of blood. Come on, let’s get you cleaned up.” David stood and tugged Zach to his feet. “I hit you pretty hard. I’m sorry about that—I hope I didn’t break your nose.”
“You didn’t. And besides, I deserved it.”
“Grovel a little more and I’ll start to believe you mean it,” David said, and fisted Zach’s T-shirt. “Get this off; it’s all gory.”
“I can’t.”
David stopped and drew back. Evenly he said, “You think I’ll put up with you fucking me and then taking off, but that I’ll go all girly at seeing your manly chest?”
“No,” Zach said, pulling his shirt back into place. “It’s just—scars, you know.”
“Yeah. It’s just scars.”
Zach shook his head. “No. You don’t get it.”
“Not so far.” David sighed. “I know you were flogged, Zach, and you have scars on your back. I’ve felt them when I touched you, and for them to be that noticeable, I know they’re bad. But I can deal with it. It breaks my heart that you were hurt like that, but….”
“It’s not the back,” Zach said. “It’s….” Then he realized it wasn’t something he could explain. “Fine. You asked for it.” He reached for the hem of the t-shirt and pulled it over his head.
“FUCK…” David breathed. He’d expected scars, but this… this was unexpected, an ugly mass of scarring that completely covered Zach’s right pectoral muscle. Where the nipple should have been was a palm-sized knot of twisted tissue, purple and red and painful-looking. Other scars radiated out from the center, equally deep and violent, looking like a combination of cuts and burns. David swallowed hard.
“Yeah,” Zach said bitterly. “Esteban kept trying to break me. He beat me, but I kept fighting him. So he whipped me. I kept fighting. He broke my fucking fingers, and wrist, and ribs, but I kept fighting. Then he did this.” He indicated the scarring. “He broke me. I stopped fighting.”
David reached up and touched the knot of scar tissue at the center. “Zach,” he whispered, horrified.
“He used a knife. Dug the nipple out. It’s amazing, the amount of pain a person can tolerate without passing out. I wish I’d passed out. But I didn’t.” Zach’s voice was wooden, as if he were reciting a tale told about someone else. “He said if I kept fighting, he’d do it to my other one, and then my balls, and then my dick. I stopped fighting.”
“Jesus,” David said.
“It got infected; that’s why the scarring is so bad. They did something with cauterizing it or something. I don’t know. I wasn’t exactly on top of things by that point. All I know is that it looks like shit. And that’s not all.” He turned around. His back was a mass of raised welts and slashes, still red and twisted and ugly. Over his shoulder, he said, “That wasn’t a particularly accurate picture you drew, you know.”
“I didn’t know,” David said.
“No. Nobody does. Dick and Jane saw some of this at the hospital, but I make a point of not letting them see anything I can hide.” He turned back around and David saw more scars on his abdomen, leading down beneath the waistband of his jeans. He saw David looking and said, “Yeah, he was pretty… thorough. And besides, every once in a while I’d try to rebel, hoping that maybe I could get him to kill me, but he was too good at what he did. He knew just how far he could go without killing me. I should have expected it; he liked to torture people. So. Seen enough?”
David ignored the harsh tone in his voice, and laid a hand on Zach’s left breast, which was unmarked except a thin surgical scar curving around the bottom of the muscle. “What’s that from?” he asked.
“From when they fixed my ribs. They’d healed wrong, but when I got back to the States they were able to go in and fix them so I could breathe right again.” Zach shrugged. “Eventually I’ll probably have plastic surgery to clean up what can be fixed, but not yet. I’m kind of tired of being cut up, you know? It’s not like these have an expiration date.”
“No,” David said. He leaned forward and laid his lips right where Zach’s right nipple should have been. Zach said roughly, “I don’t have any nerves left there, you know, so it’s not like it’s gonna turn me on or anything.”
“I don’t care,” David replied. He moved his mouth, exploring the scars; they were rough against his lips and tongue and fingers. “Not everything is about sex, Zach.”
He felt more than heard Zach’s sharp intake of breath and looked up to see a strangely vulnerable look on his face. “Seriously. Now come on and let me clean you up, then I’ll find a T-shirt for you so you don’t feel so exposed, if that’s what you want.”
Zach let David lead him into the bathroom and sat obediently on the closed toilet seat. David ran water on a washcloth and wiped the blood from his face, then said, “Do you want to take a shower?”
At Zach’s headshake, he said, “Do you mind if I do? You won’t sneak out while I’m in there?”
Again, Zach shook his head. David turned the shower on and climbed in for the fastest shower he’d ever taken, just sluicing the blood and sweat and come off. He heard Zach running the water and figured he was taking the opportunity to wash up without David watching, but when he turned off the shower and reached for a towel, Zach was back sitting on the toilet. His T-shirt was spread out on the tank, obviously rinsed and wrung out, and the scars on his chest and belly glittered water, testimony to his hasty cleanup. “I was tempted to flush just to hear you scream, but then I remembered your mom is sleeping,” Zach said solemnly.
“Wise decision, grasshopper,” David said, and toweled himself dry before tossing the towel to Zach for him to use. “Come on, let’s find you a clean T-shirt, and get some sleep.”
“Huh?” Zach frowned.
“Well, I’m too wrung out for sex again, and you look like you’re ready to drop, so I figured we can catch some shut-eye. Mom will wake us at six when she heads out; that’ll get you back to your Army buddy before breakfast. I take it our run will be cancelled this morning?”
Zach, still a little confused, followed him out of the bathroom. It was so easy to fall back into the way their relationship had been years ago, with David as the leader and Zach his adoring follower, despite David being shorter and slighter than Zach now, or having let Zach fuck him. Well, that was the difference, wasn’t it? David had let him fuck him. David was still in charge, would always be in charge. Zach didn’t know quite how he felt about that. For the last two years, he’d been something of a control freak—make that totally a control freak. Why was he so willing to give up control to David now?
Answers didn’t come to him, but he was tired, and took the T-shirt David handed him and pulled it on obediently; then David pulled off the damp quilt, and he crawled onto the warm sheets, laid his head on David’s abdomen, and went to sleep.