Paladin, page 7
Their laughing. His crying. Hands holding his wrists so tightly, it felt like his bones might actually shatter. The burning pain. The sour smell of his breath. The smell of cigarettes and sweat. He was going to puke.
All he had to do was cry out or scream or even just say Arsen’s name but the words stuck in his throat. Just like then. His head swam, his vision going fuzzy. Was this what it was like to faint?
Ever didn’t think, just raked his nails across Arsen’s side and lower back, the only place he could reach. Arsen reared back, a shout of pain on his lips. He sat on his knees between Ever’s legs, looking around in confusion, his hands going for his shredded skin.
Ever watched him come back to himself, saw him blink the cobwebs of his nightmares from his thoughts. That was when it happened, when his look of confusion morphed into one of horror as he realized he’d been on top of Ever.
“I—Are you alright?” he asked, voice hoarse from sleep. “Did I…” His eyes went wide and he blinked in confusion. “Did I try to hurt you?”
Ever shook his head. He didn’t answer out loud. There was no way he could find his words until his heart rate slowed. And that wasn’t happening anytime soon. Arsen’s hands were on him, running from his shoulders to his fingertips, then over his chest and belly, not in any sexual way but like he was checking him for any injury he might have caused.
“I’m fine,” he finally said, his voice equally raw, but not from sleep. “You didn’t do anything. I—You rolled over on me and I panicked. It’s my fault.”
Arsen stared down at him. “How is that your fault, besenok?” Arsen asked, shaking his head. “It’s all on me. I knew I should not let you sleep here. I have nightmares. Violent ones. It’s dangerous.”
The nightmares didn’t seem violent. He’d fallen on top of Ever but not with the intention of hurting him. “I have them, too, sometimes,” Ever said. “It’s okay.”
Arsen’s hand touched his cheek, and Ever’s lids fluttered closed. He just wanted to focus on the rough feel of his hand on his cheek, even if only for a second. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Ever opened his eyes, gazing at Arsen’s earnest face. “I…usually like your arms around me. But when you fell on me, I couldn’t move. I just got scared.”
Arsen went to move his palm but Ever snatched his wrist, holding it there, before realizing what he’d done and letting go quickly. What was wrong with him?
“I’m sorry,” Arsen said again, firmer this time. “Do you want to go sleep in the computer room?”
Ever shook his head violently. That was the last thing he wanted. That room was too big, too empty, too quiet. Too much like the closet. It made his skin crawl to be in there alone. “I wanna stay here with you.”
Arsen studied his face in the shadows for a long moment then collapsed beside him back on his side of the bed. “Yeah, okay.”
They laid there in silence for a long time before Ever finally said, “What are your nightmares about?”
Arsen turned his head to look at him. For a second, Ever thought he wasn’t going to answer, but then he said, “My mother.”
Had Arsen’s mother been a monster, too? “Was she bad like Jennika?”
Arsen gave a grim smile. “No. She was very good person. Very scary when she was angry, but she was never angry with me.”
The use of past tense didn’t escape Ever, leaving him with a hollow feeling low in his stomach. “What happened to her?”
“She died.”
Ever wasn’t sure he should be asking his next question but he did anyway. “How?”
Arsen caught Ever’s gaze, his expression grim. “My father shot her. In front of me.”
Ever sucked in a sharp breath. “Why?” It was a weird question. Why? Did people need a why to be evil? Not in Ever’s experience. “Sorry,” he said quickly, face in flames.
“Don’t be sorry,” Arsen said, giving him that gentle smile he seemed to only save for him. Ever didn’t know what to think of it. “He’s a violent man. He liked hurting people. Still does.”
Ever wanted to do something, to say something to make Arsen feel better, but he didn’t know what. He didn’t know how to make someone feel better about a dead parent or a bad one. So, he just took Arsen’s hand and held it.
Arsen looked down at their threaded fingers, then at Ever. “It’s not a nice story. But I’ll tell you if you want to know.”
Ever chewed on his bottom lip before remembering Arsen didn’t like it. “I want to know.”
Arsen nodded then flopped his head back on the pillow, staring up at the ceiling. “He used to beat me and my mom all the time. I never fought back, but she did. I think she did it to keep him away from me. To take the focus off of me and put it on her so my punishments were less severe. They fought more than they didn’t, always about something different, but really all the same. Then, one day, there was a fight that didn’t end like the others. She ended up dead and he ended up in prison.”
Ever thought about all the times Jennika had beat him, had brought him to the brink where he’d hoped she would finally just kill him. But she had been too cruel for that. She had relished in his suffering. Still, there was always the chance she would go too far.
But she was dead.
“What made that fight different?” Ever asked.
Arsen looked at him thoughtfully. “Nothing. It started like most of their fights, over nothing important. Over my report card.”
Ever had heard the term, seen it in books, but was not entirely certain what that was. “What’s a report card?”
Arsen gave him a sad look that made his stomach dip. “It’s what they send to parents to tell them how their kids are doing in school.”
“Did you get a bad grade?”
Arsen’s laugh was bitter. “No. All As. He didn’t like that. He said I was trying to embarrass him. Make him look stupid. He said my mother and I were laughing at him for his lack of education.”
Ever knew what that was like. The trepidation. The walking on eggshells. It was like sharing space with a hungry tiger. You never knew where or when they would strike, but eventually, the urge to hunt would overwhelm them and you were always prey. It was that gnawing anxiety that was the worst. Almost more than the punishment itself.
“How old were you?” he asked.
Arsen sighed. “Eleven.”
Ever squeezed the hand he held. “Was your mom defending you?”
Arsen nodded. “Always. But he killed my mother to prove a point,” he said, voice dull. “Or maybe it was an accident.”
“An accident?”
Arsen let out another big breath.
“You don’t have to tell me,” Ever said.
Arsen shook his head. “Maybe it was a lesson that went too far. His gun was on the table where it always was. He took it and made me stand up, put it in my hand, tried to make me put my finger on the trigger and point it at her.”
Ever’s eyes widened. He couldn’t imagine pointing a gun at someone he loved. Not that he’d ever had someone to love, but he understood the notion of love.
“He told me to kill her or he’d kill me. But I couldn’t do it. I just…fought him, fought back, got out of his grip. That was what pissed him off. That I’d gotten away. My mother ran at him…and he shot her. And she was just…gone.”
“Gone…” Ever said.
Arsen nodded, still staring straight ahead. “During the day, I’m fine, but at night, my brain won’t let me forget. That is why people don’t sleep in my bed.”
“You let me sleep in your bed,” Ever said, frowning.
“I do. Yeah,” Arsen said, giving him a small smile.
Ever didn’t know what to do with that information, so he ignored it, inching closer to Arsen then wrapping his arms around Arsen’s much larger one, pressing his cheek to his shoulder. “I’m sorry about your mom.”
Arsen looked down at him. “I’m sorry I scared you.”
Ever thought about it. Really thought about it. “It was because my arms were trapped. I don’t think I’d mind if I could just move my arms. It just made me think of something bad. I didn’t mind you on top of…me,” he finished in a whisper, his face hot.
“Something bad?” Arsen asked, pointedly ignoring Ever’s confession.
Ever nodded. “The last time Jennika sold me.”
Arsen was quiet for a long moment, and when he spoke again, his voice was much…harder. “The last time? She’d done it before?”
Ever nodded, trying to use the same distant tone Arsen had used. Maybe it was easier to say the hard stuff that way. “Not a lot. Only when she needed something from someone who had certain interests in people who look like me.”
“Look like you?” Arsen asked.
Ever couldn’t look at Arsen when he said, “She would tell them I was a little kid.”
“Jesus,” Arsen muttered.
Ever flushed. Was he mad at him? Should he have kept this to himself? “It wasn’t a lie the first few times, technically. I was a kid, just not as small as they hoped.”
“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”
Ever shrugged. “She never let them do what they really wanted to do. She said that was a sin. That sex between two boys was wrong. So, she only let them use my hand…or my mouth. Most of them just wanted pictures.” Ever shivered. “Until the last time. She said he’d paid for the privilege and that it would only be one time.”
There was a low rumble from Arsen that sent goosebumps rippling along Ever’s skin.
“I’m sorry,” he said instinctively.
Arsen frowned at him. “Why are you sorry?”
Ever didn’t know why he was sorry, just that he was supposed to be. Why was everything so confusing? “I wasn’t trying to upset you.”
Arsen flopped onto his side until they were almost nose to nose. “You didn’t upset me, besenok. She upset me. She had no right to do that to you. No wonder you got scared tonight. I’m sorry.”
It felt wrong for Arsen to apologize. He’d rescued Ever, saved him from a life in that tiny closet. There was nothing that would ever repay that. Even if he didn’t know what to do now that he was out of it. “Do you think I’m screwed up?”
“Screwed up?” Arsen echoed.
Ever nodded. “Jericho said I have trauma. Like it’s a disease. But Levi said you all have trauma, too. Does that make all of us screwed up?”
Arsen sighed. “I don’t know. Most days, I feel like other people. But what happened to me happened a long time ago. Same with Levi and the others. The stuff that happened to you was two days ago. You’re bound to be feeling it more than we do.”
Ever’s voice dropped to a whisper. “I don’t, though.”
“You don’t what?”
Ever’s gaze flicked to his then away again. “Feel it. I feel scared. Anxious. Everything feels really big and loud. I am scared, deep down, you’re a bad person, too. Or that I’m not going to be what you need and you’ll send me away. I’m scared that I don’t know anything or anyone. I’m scared that I don’t know how to do normal things. But when I think about the things that happened, that she did to me, what he did to me, I feel…nothing.”
It was true. Jennika had done horrible, disgusting things to him. She’d beaten him, berated him, used him, sold him, had abused him in ways he’d never utter out loud to anybody because they were humiliating. But there was no…feeling there. It was like he had stepped out of his body and just watched from a distance.
“Does that make me more normal or less?” Ever asked.
“I don’t know,” Arsen said. “But normal is overrated.”
Normal sounded nice to Ever. Even though the only normal he’d ever known was in fairy tales and the books Jennika let him get from the collection box at the church sometimes. Did people like them get normal? Jericho and Atticus seemed normal.
“Are Jericho and Atticus boyfriends?” Ever blurted.
“They’re married.”
“Boys can do that?” Ever said.
Arsen nodded. “Sure. Anybody can marry anybody.”
“Do they have trauma?”
Arsen gave a soft laugh. “I think everybody has trauma to some degree. Bad things happen to everybody, but the degree of suffering is relative to the life experiences of the person it happens to. A dog that has never been beaten might think having its paw stepped on is traumatic. A dog that only gets beaten might think getting hit by a car is no different than any of its other suffering and continue to run not knowing how injured it is.”
Ever thought about it. He knew which dog he was in that scenario. “How do people do it?”
“Do what?”
“How do they go through life pretending the bad stuff never happened?”
“Some forget with time, some stuff it down with drinking or drugs or sex or food. Some develop weird kinks and coping mechanisms. There is no one way to deal with trauma.”
“Kinks? What’s a kink?”
Arsen thought about it for a long minute. “People whose sexual preferences are considered outside of societal norms.”
Ever chewed on that. “Like what?”
“That seems like a conversation for another time.”
Ever frowned. “Why?”
“Because you were held hostage for most of your life by a person who hurt you and forced you to do things against your will.”
“I can’t talk about kinks because I have trauma?” Ever asked.
Arsen shook his head. “Not exactly.”
“You said people with trauma sometimes turn to kinks, so why can’t I know about it?”
“I also said they turn to food. Do you want to ask me about that instead? Between kink and food, ice cream seems like the lesser of two evils.”
“So, what do you use to cope?” Ever asked. “Not kinks, I guess.”
“I don’t know, honestly. I guess I’m one of the ones who stuffs it down.”
“Do you not like sex?”
“What? No. I love sex.”
“But not kinky sex?”
“Ever!”
Ever’s eyes went wide and he recoiled, heart slamming against his ribs. “Never mind,” he mumbled, then flopped over, facing the wall, tears welling in his eyes.
Then Arsen was behind him, plastered against his back, arm around his waist. “Don’t be like that. Don’t pout. I…just didn’t think sex would be something you’d want to talk about.”
“Why?”
“Because you said she sold you to people for sexual purposes.”
Ever bit down on the inside of his cheek, his face so hot it felt like flames were licking his skin. He didn’t understand. He didn’t know much about sex. He read about it in books, mostly in perfunctory terms because Jennika was very strict about what he could read. But what they’d done to him and what sex sounded like in novels didn’t really seem like the same thing.
“And because of that, I shouldn’t want to know about sex?”
“I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Do people like me just not have sex? Normal sex? I don’t even know what that means.”
Ever could feel Arsen’s breath ruffling his hair. “You’ve been in a horrible situation for years. I just think it’s better to concentrate on other things…for now.”
“Like what?” he asked dully.
“Like just being out in the world.”
Ever let tears slide down his cheeks, doing his best to not let Arsen see he was upset. “Okay.”
He hadn’t been asking Arsen for sex. He’d just wanted to know. Was that wrong? Should he not want to know? If people with trauma sometimes used sex and kinks to cope, why was he in trouble for asking about it? Arsen had made it clear he didn’t want that with Ever. But he hadn’t said he couldn’t ask questions.
He hated feeling like he was wrong all the time. He hated feeling like an alien who’d crash landed on another planet where he didn’t know the rules or the laws or the language. Where he didn’t know what he was allowed to ask or want or care about. He’d only been asking.
He sniffled softly, wiping at his face as discreetly as possible.
The weight of Arsen’s arm across his hip had made him feel safe yesterday. Now, it just made him feel stupid. Almost like he sensed Ever’s distress, Arsen shifted. Ever could swear he felt his lips against the top of his head for a fleeting moment. But then it was gone.
Then he was gone, rolling away from Ever. “Get some sleep, besenok.”
Yeah, right.
Arsen didn’t go back to sleep. He was sixty percent sure Ever didn’t either. He’d stopped crying, but that didn’t make Arsen feel any less shitty for making him sad in the first place. There was a stiffness to the way he was lying, his breathing erratic, like he was trying to fake sleep for Arsen’s benefit.
Arsen was fucking everything up so badly. Should he have answered Ever’s questions? What did Arsen know about kink? What did he really even know about sex? He had it, he enjoyed it, but it wasn’t about feelings, just feeling…something. Sex hadn’t ever meant anything to Arsen. How could he be expected to explain it to Ever? But Ever did deserve some kind of explanation, just maybe not from him.
Arsen crawled out of bed, pulling the covers up around Ever before throwing on a t-shirt, grabbing his cell phone and heading downstairs where he was out of earshot. He looked at the time. It was seven in the morning.
Felix would probably be up already. He owned his own company but got up early to ride to work with his husband. Besides, Felix wouldn’t be mad if Arsen called with a crisis, especially this kind of crisis. He lived for drama of any sort.
Arsen hit the call button.
Felix answered on the third ring, sounding confused. “Hello?”
“I need you,” Arsen said in lieu of a greeting.
Felix snorted, his tone shifting to one of boredom. “Sorry, I’m happily married. You should have said something sooner.”
Arsen rolled his eyes. It was hard to believe he and Jericho were brothers sometimes. They were polar opposites. Jericho was a killer but, deep down, he was a softie. Felix on the other hand… His husband, Avi, called him an alley cat in a rhinestone collar and the description suited him.
