Aleks cracked a smile. “You take your time with your naps.” He scanned the highway, looking for a chance to merge lanes and pull over on the side of the road. While Aleks merged, he popped a fruity tart in his mouth. Kevin had stumbled across these tangy little snacks shopping for supplies.
To put it simply, they had to turn around and buy more.
Aleks slowed the RV to a stop, flicked the hazard lights on, and unbuckled. He’s tired as shit.
“I’m tired as shit.”
Kevin nods to himself, mostly, popping off his own seatbelt before opening the door.
—”If you’ve been driving since we left that small shoppe,
Then it’s been a few hours.”
He knows he doesn’t sleep very long, but on an open stretch of road with nothing but a quiet radio and sleeping company? He can imagine. The solitude is nice, for him. Aleks, he isn’t so sure about.
Kevin waits until he’s on the other side of the RV to speak again, tipping his head up.
—”If you want to head back to the bed and sleep,
You’re more than welcome.”
It was even rarer that he would openly show it. Mostly, it was because he knew what happened to his eyes if he got angry. He knows that there’s something wrong with him, even beyond his obsession with his best friend, but he didn’t want to think about them.
But now, he feels it stirring in his abdomen. Waking up, and injecting itself into his veins like adrenaline.
They’d gone out to eat. At a fancy restaurant, Kevin wanted to treat Aleks. It was their second official date.
Everything was going well until they left, and there were guns pointed at both of them. Before Kevin could so much as blink, he heard two gunshots, and from the corner of his vision he saw Aleks go down.
He watched him hit the ground with wide, shocked eyes. Unsure of what to do for what felt like seven days, but could have really been no longer than three seconds, Kevin just watches him bleed out.
There are voices, assuring him that he’s safe now. He won’t be held hostage any more, but Kevin isn’t hearing them clearly. He’s just crouching, turning his boyfriend over with wet eyes, and he’s pressing his hands to the bullet wounds before he can stop himself.
—”Please don’t be dead,”
He’s aware that he’s crying, heart in his throat, and he hears something about Stockholm Syndrome, but he’s still just looking at his boyfriend’s eyes. They’re dull, staring blankly up at him, and he’s openly crying now. Pitiful sounds coming from his mouth as he scrabbles for anything to help. Anything to bring him back, but there are hands at his shoulders that are pulling him away. Away from Aleks, away from his love.
And then he realises that he’s not coming back from this. That there’s no time to get him to the hospital, and even if their were, it wouldn’t help.
Fury replaces his sorrow, and Kevin is slow to stand, as the thing in his stomach snaps and coils itself so tight before spreading through his torso, up his throat with thorns so painful, curling into his mouth and nose and eyes.
He blinks, and one of the guys are on the ground, he doesn’t recognise the uniform, but he doesn’t care either. He just uses anything he can, which at first is his fists, before he spots a steel pipe not twenty feet away.
It is rare that Kevin will get angry, but when he does, he does not stop until it is terminated.
“Fucking finally. It’s getting so damn irritating.”
Aleks bounced to the edge of the bed and presented his face —the gauze mostly— to Kevin. Please get this awful stuff off me.
I want to see my scar.
Kevin shrugs, flicking on the table lamp, nearest to Aleks.
—”That’s the joy of getting the eyelid.”
Still, he almost keeps himself from frowning. But then he remembers, Aleks didn’t want him to do that. So, he pauses again. And then makes a point to frown, this time in thought.
—”You really scared me though, bibi. How’s the pain?”
