HT100 FlashFic Challenge #25: Nothing Remains Quite the Same -- "Change of Plans"
Title: Change of Plans
Prompt: 25 - Nothing Remains Quite The Same
Timeframe: Canon up to that moment in S2 when Metzger brings Toby to the gym.... then it's all AU from there!
Word Count: 2477
Authors Note: Also written for levitatethis for Christmas 2009.
Change of Plans
by Severina
Beecher comes awake slowly, crests along on a wave of indistinct pain and a cloud of fuzzy memories. The infirmary smells of harsh chemicals, of disinfectant that can never really mask the rank odours of bodily fluids, of sweat and piss and stained sheets. Beecher knows when Dr. Nathan has stepped closer to his bed by the hint of her perfume, something fruit-scented that his mind refuses to name, strawberry or mango, possibly pomegranate. He faintly hears the scratch of her pen over the dim beep of a machine, and wonders if he is hooked up to wires and tubes. Wonders if some device is forcing air into his lungs or pumping blood into his body. He wonders if he’s going to die.
When next he surfaces, some indeterminate time later, the odours are stronger. There is a babble of muffled, faraway noises that eventually reveal themselves to be voices, and a short time later Beecher is able to identify actual words.
He can’t move his arm.
He opens his eyes, blinks and hisses sharply when all he can see is a blurry field of green, then exhales out a breath when the olive tones that crowd his field of vision coalesce into the folds of a rumpled hospital uniform. The nurse looks up sharply at the intake of breath, pats his arm and methodically checks the IV needle before standing and moving away from the bed.
“He’s awake,” she calls out.
Beecher strains to see past the nurse, clenches the fingers of his one good arm around the bed rail at the sudden hammering pain that crawls along the small of his back and stiffens his spine. His left arm is a mass of throbbing nerve endings encased in thick white plaster, and he holds his breath and counts all the way to fourteen before the spasm abates enough for him to flop back down on the pillow, his hair sweat-soaked and a dull ache behind his eyes. He closes them, rests for a long moment, and when he opens them again Dr. Nathan is standing silently at the side of his bed.
She holds up a hand and raises a glass of water in the other. He purses his lips around the bent head of the straw and takes careful sips of the luke-warm water, and thinks that not even a dry martini has ever tasted as good.
“What happened?” he finally asks, wincing at both the cracked timbre of his voice and the tender rawness of his throat.
Dr. Nathan raises one finely shaped brow. “You don’t remember?”
Beecher wrinkles his brow. “I remember…” he begins.
Metzger, he thinks. The fucking Nazi took him to the gym, told him he needed some rec time to clear his head. He remembers the squeaking sound of his shoes on the hardwood floor. Remembers looking up from the contemplation of his feet to see Chris and Vern huddled together, smiling, fucking smiling, and remembers the shock of it turning his skin to ice even as his blood boiled and red clouds of rage blanketed his mind. He remembers Metzger’s arm choking him as Chris taunted him -- I never loved you -- remembers the spots clouding his vision as he struggled to breathe, as he struggled to think. And he remembers darting across the room to tackle Chris, the take-down a parody of every previous wrestling lesson, their bodies landing together hard enough to jar the breath from his lungs, and Chris’s lips against his ear, whispering…
Beecher swallows, grimaces at the raw hamburger feel of his throat. “I don’t remember much,” he says.
“Ryan O’Reily says that he saw Officer Metzger take you to the gym.”
Beecher narrows his eyes. Metzger being identified was only going to cause trouble for him later, but there was no getting around it… though he’d have thought O’Reily would have had the sense to keep his big mouth shut.
Dr. Nathan appears to be waiting for confirmation, so Beecher nods. “Yes,” he says.
“Do you remember what happened when you got there?”
I never loved you.
“I…” Beecher frowns. “It’s all fuzzy.”
“I understand,” Dr. Nathan says. The sympathetic look in her eyes makes him feel guilty for not being forthright with her, and he looks away, studies the rough nubs on the blanket, and only looks up again when she pats his hand. “Tell me what you do remember.”
I never…
“I think… I think I was attacked?”
Dr. Nathan nods. “By Vern Schillinger. By the time another CO got there, you were huddled on the floor, unconscious. Chris Keller was standing over you… just barely; almost dead on his feet. From what we can gather, he was protecting you from Schillinger and Metzger.”
“Protecting me,” Beecher repeats dryly.
Her brow furrows. “Do you remember any of it?”
He remembers darting across the room to tackle Chris, their bodies crashing into the floor, and Chris’s lips against his ear, whispering… You and me, Toby.
He remembers the startled look in Vern’s eyes as Chris’s arm stretched out to sweep Vern’s legs out from under him, and he remembers thinking the look must be mirrored in his own face when Chris smiles at him, fucking smiles, and pushes him away. He remembers rising to his feet, dodging beneath the baton in Metzger’s hand, and realizing that he was returning Chris’s smile with a cracked, inane, lunatic smile of his own.
“Beecher?” Dr. Nathan says.
“I’m… not sure,” Beecher says hesitantly.
“Chris Keller saved your life,” Dr. Nathan says, and her eyes flick to the right before returning to his.
Beecher knows what he’ll see before he moves his head, and part of him wants to just pretend that he didn’t notice that aborted little movement, wants to just stay still and quiet and stare at the smoke-stained ceiling. But he’s shifting on the bed before he can stop himself, peering past the two other occupants in the row to the third bed on the right.
Of course it is Chris who is attached to the machine that beeps monotonously every thirty seconds, Chris who is hooked up to wires and tubes.
“Did he?” Beecher says.
* * *
Beecher waits until Dr. Nathan is ensconced in her office before convincing the mute orderly to manhandle him into a wheelchair. He’d slept long and well throughout the night, courtesy of a Dixie cup full of painkillers, and he’s discovered that if he slouches a certain way and props his broken arm on the bedrail, the pain in both his back and his arm are minimal.
The orderly doesn’t want to move him, but Beecher used to be a lawyer. He makes a good case.
The orderly tries to be gentle, then tries to stop when it’s obvious that Beecher is in agony, but Beecher grits his teeth and grips his powerful arms painfully and refuses to let go. The small of his back snarls its protest, and his legs are barely able to support him for the brief time he is upright, and then he has flopped into the chair, his legs still shaking, blinking back the tears from his eyes and watching the orderly shake his head and regard him with a curious expression of mixed amusement and admiration.
He tries to move the wheelchair with his one good hand, and succeeds in shifting an inch to the right. The orderly shakes his head again, but pushes him over to Keller’s bedside and engages the brakes before leaving him alone.
He sits there a full minute, watching the rise and fall of his chest. Studies the bruising around Keller’s eyes and the fingerprint-shaped marks that ring his neck. Watches the slow drip from the IV bag, and follows three sets of tubes to their bruised entry points on Keller’s arm.
He huffs out a shaking breath and it’s only then that Keller turns his head, opens his eyes, and looks at him.
“You’re alive,” Keller says, and if Beecher’s voice is sandpaper then Keller’s is ground glass.
Beecher presses his lips together, swallows. “Everyone thinks you saved my life.”
“Did what I could.”
“Bullshit!” Beecher looks around guiltily, sure that his raised voice will have drawn the presence of a scolding nurse, but the pale blonde boy in the next bed had been released that morning, and the room is deserted but for a Latino who mutters in an uneasy sleep and the mute, who frowns at him. He leans back into the wheelchair, lowers his voice. “You set me up.”
“No.”
“You played me,” Beecher continues. “You must have found me so fucking amusing. Poor needy little Toby. Such a little bitch. Ready to roll over and stick his ass in the air for any tiny scrap of affection.” He watches the muscles clench in Keller’s jaw, smiles bitterly. “What I wonder is… was any of it true? The late night conversations where you bared your soul, the concern over my relationship with the kids, the attention, the… friendship.” His voice cracks despite his best intentions. “Any of it?”
Keller holds his gaze steady. “All of it.”
Beecher‘s good hand finds the arm of the chair, and he clamps his fingers tightly around the frayed padding. “You used me, you betrayed me, you lied to me--”
“Only lie was what I said to you in the gym,” Keller says.
“Like I said… bullshit.”
Keller manages a shrug. “You know, I only made one mistake durin’ Operation Toby--”
“Oh, Christ,” Beecher laughs cynically, “you even had a name for it.”
“I made a mistake. I did what a good con man never does,” Keller says quietly. “I fell in love with my mark.”
Beecher hangs his head, hisses out a breath. Remembers the warmth of Keller’s hand on the back of his neck, long talks in the hours before lights out, the fear-shock-relief of knowing that someone had his back. That someone cared. Remembers following Chris with his eyes across the quad. Waiting anxiously for him to return from his work detail. Laughing over cards and patiently explaining the rules of chess for the tenth time.
Remembers the insistent press of Chris’s lips, the hard lines of Chris’s chest melding against his, Chris’s hand warm and urgent on his hip.
“Why?” he asks finally. He raises his head. “Why did you do it?”
“When I came here, you weren’t nothin’ but a name and a number, an‘ I owed Vern and didn‘t want to spend the next eighty-eight years with a target painted on my back. But like I told ya before, Beech, I ain’t real good at thinkin’ things through.” Keller struggles to sit up further on the bed, grasps at his ribcage with his good arm and sucks in a laboured breath. “I knew I couldn’t go through with it,” he continues, “but I couldn’t figure no way out of it, either. Eventually I figured, we take our chances with Vern and Metzger.”
Beecher snorts. “Great fucking plan.”
“You bit off some asshole’s dick, Beecher. You knocked a man out and took a shit on his face,” Keller points out. “I knew you were one mean motherfucker. Figured the odds were in our favour. I just knew I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t hurt you.”
“Yeah, well I’m pretty fucking hurt, Keller!”
“Me too,“ Keller says. He lifts his right arm carefully, wiggles the fingers sticking out of the plaster. “Just got the other cast off,” he says wistfully.
“Beecher!” Dr. Nathan’s voice cuts through the silence of the ward. “What do you think you’re doing? You’re supposed to be in bed!” She stalks toward the row of cots, glares daggers at the orderly, who only stares back at her blankly. “Alvarez, are you responsible for this?”
“Don’t blame him,” Beecher says quickly. “I can be pretty convincing.”
“Be that as it may,” Dr. Nathan says, “Alvarez is well aware of the orders concerning the patients. You risked ongoing, permanent injury to your back by getting out of that bed!” She shoots the speechless orderly a second glare before crossing the rest of the room and angrily releasing the brakes on the wheelchair. “And you,” she says to Keller, “have three broken ribs and a minor concussion, not to mention all the other cuts, scrapes, and bruises. Neither of you should be moving around!”
Keller raises one hand wearily in surrender.
“I’m sorry, Dr. Nathan,” Beecher says meekly.
“Yeah,” Keller puts in. “Me too.”
Beecher watches the doctor melt under their combined penitence. She shakes her head. “I understand why you’d want to… talk,” she says gently. “Just next time, wait until I can arrange it properly, okay?”
“Will do,” Beecher says. She smiles absently, tucks an escaping strand of hair behind her ear before wheeling him over to his own bed. She parks the chair at the head of the bed and gestures for the orderly, and Beecher grimaces at the mere thought of the torture that he knows is coming. He feels Keller’s eyes following his every move. Feels Keller’s very essence beneath his skin.
“Hey. Keller.”
“Yeah.”
“Maybe we can convince them to get us a chess board,” he says. He flicks a glance at the doctor. “When Dr. Nathan says it’s okay, of course.”
“Sounds good,” Keller says.
“I don’t think that would be a problem,” Dr. Nathan says, “when you’ve both recuperated enough for sitting up for long periods to be manageable.”
“Thanks, Doc,” Beecher says.
Alvarez takes one side and Dr. Nathan the other as they lift him out of the wheelchair, and Beecher focuses on Dr. Nathan’s warm dark eyes and clutches at the orderly’s bicep and bites back the cry that threatens to explode from his already damaged throat.
“Hey, Beecher,” Keller calls.
Beecher‘s fingers are bone white, surely leaving bruises on Alvarez’s arm, and his back is screaming at him, and he feels faint and thinks he might actually pass out in a second. “Yeah?” he grits out.
“Just…” Keller hesitates, and Beecher is dying, at any moment his spine is going to rip out of his back, his arm is going to separate from his shoulder and drip blood and sinew onto the scuffed white tile, and surely the process of getting out of bed didn‘t take this long, wasn’t this mind-numbingly painful.
Keller hesitates, and Beecher wants to scream at him, wants to hit him, wants to kiss him.
“WHAT?” he yells.
“You and me, Tobe,” Chris says.
Beecher hears the smile in Keller’s voice. He leans back on the bed and closes his eyes. He swallows past the bile in his throat. Takes shallow breaths and tells himself that he will neither vomit nor faint. He is stronger than that. He can handle anything.
“Yeah,” Beecher says, when he can trust his voice again. “We’ll see.”
.
Prompt: 25 - Nothing Remains Quite The Same
Timeframe: Canon up to that moment in S2 when Metzger brings Toby to the gym.... then it's all AU from there!
Word Count: 2477
Authors Note: Also written for levitatethis for Christmas 2009.
Change of Plans
by Severina
Beecher comes awake slowly, crests along on a wave of indistinct pain and a cloud of fuzzy memories. The infirmary smells of harsh chemicals, of disinfectant that can never really mask the rank odours of bodily fluids, of sweat and piss and stained sheets. Beecher knows when Dr. Nathan has stepped closer to his bed by the hint of her perfume, something fruit-scented that his mind refuses to name, strawberry or mango, possibly pomegranate. He faintly hears the scratch of her pen over the dim beep of a machine, and wonders if he is hooked up to wires and tubes. Wonders if some device is forcing air into his lungs or pumping blood into his body. He wonders if he’s going to die.
When next he surfaces, some indeterminate time later, the odours are stronger. There is a babble of muffled, faraway noises that eventually reveal themselves to be voices, and a short time later Beecher is able to identify actual words.
He can’t move his arm.
He opens his eyes, blinks and hisses sharply when all he can see is a blurry field of green, then exhales out a breath when the olive tones that crowd his field of vision coalesce into the folds of a rumpled hospital uniform. The nurse looks up sharply at the intake of breath, pats his arm and methodically checks the IV needle before standing and moving away from the bed.
“He’s awake,” she calls out.
Beecher strains to see past the nurse, clenches the fingers of his one good arm around the bed rail at the sudden hammering pain that crawls along the small of his back and stiffens his spine. His left arm is a mass of throbbing nerve endings encased in thick white plaster, and he holds his breath and counts all the way to fourteen before the spasm abates enough for him to flop back down on the pillow, his hair sweat-soaked and a dull ache behind his eyes. He closes them, rests for a long moment, and when he opens them again Dr. Nathan is standing silently at the side of his bed.
She holds up a hand and raises a glass of water in the other. He purses his lips around the bent head of the straw and takes careful sips of the luke-warm water, and thinks that not even a dry martini has ever tasted as good.
“What happened?” he finally asks, wincing at both the cracked timbre of his voice and the tender rawness of his throat.
Dr. Nathan raises one finely shaped brow. “You don’t remember?”
Beecher wrinkles his brow. “I remember…” he begins.
Metzger, he thinks. The fucking Nazi took him to the gym, told him he needed some rec time to clear his head. He remembers the squeaking sound of his shoes on the hardwood floor. Remembers looking up from the contemplation of his feet to see Chris and Vern huddled together, smiling, fucking smiling, and remembers the shock of it turning his skin to ice even as his blood boiled and red clouds of rage blanketed his mind. He remembers Metzger’s arm choking him as Chris taunted him -- I never loved you -- remembers the spots clouding his vision as he struggled to breathe, as he struggled to think. And he remembers darting across the room to tackle Chris, the take-down a parody of every previous wrestling lesson, their bodies landing together hard enough to jar the breath from his lungs, and Chris’s lips against his ear, whispering…
Beecher swallows, grimaces at the raw hamburger feel of his throat. “I don’t remember much,” he says.
“Ryan O’Reily says that he saw Officer Metzger take you to the gym.”
Beecher narrows his eyes. Metzger being identified was only going to cause trouble for him later, but there was no getting around it… though he’d have thought O’Reily would have had the sense to keep his big mouth shut.
Dr. Nathan appears to be waiting for confirmation, so Beecher nods. “Yes,” he says.
“Do you remember what happened when you got there?”
I never loved you.
“I…” Beecher frowns. “It’s all fuzzy.”
“I understand,” Dr. Nathan says. The sympathetic look in her eyes makes him feel guilty for not being forthright with her, and he looks away, studies the rough nubs on the blanket, and only looks up again when she pats his hand. “Tell me what you do remember.”
I never…
“I think… I think I was attacked?”
Dr. Nathan nods. “By Vern Schillinger. By the time another CO got there, you were huddled on the floor, unconscious. Chris Keller was standing over you… just barely; almost dead on his feet. From what we can gather, he was protecting you from Schillinger and Metzger.”
“Protecting me,” Beecher repeats dryly.
Her brow furrows. “Do you remember any of it?”
He remembers darting across the room to tackle Chris, their bodies crashing into the floor, and Chris’s lips against his ear, whispering… You and me, Toby.
He remembers the startled look in Vern’s eyes as Chris’s arm stretched out to sweep Vern’s legs out from under him, and he remembers thinking the look must be mirrored in his own face when Chris smiles at him, fucking smiles, and pushes him away. He remembers rising to his feet, dodging beneath the baton in Metzger’s hand, and realizing that he was returning Chris’s smile with a cracked, inane, lunatic smile of his own.
“Beecher?” Dr. Nathan says.
“I’m… not sure,” Beecher says hesitantly.
“Chris Keller saved your life,” Dr. Nathan says, and her eyes flick to the right before returning to his.
Beecher knows what he’ll see before he moves his head, and part of him wants to just pretend that he didn’t notice that aborted little movement, wants to just stay still and quiet and stare at the smoke-stained ceiling. But he’s shifting on the bed before he can stop himself, peering past the two other occupants in the row to the third bed on the right.
Of course it is Chris who is attached to the machine that beeps monotonously every thirty seconds, Chris who is hooked up to wires and tubes.
“Did he?” Beecher says.
* * *
Beecher waits until Dr. Nathan is ensconced in her office before convincing the mute orderly to manhandle him into a wheelchair. He’d slept long and well throughout the night, courtesy of a Dixie cup full of painkillers, and he’s discovered that if he slouches a certain way and props his broken arm on the bedrail, the pain in both his back and his arm are minimal.
The orderly doesn’t want to move him, but Beecher used to be a lawyer. He makes a good case.
The orderly tries to be gentle, then tries to stop when it’s obvious that Beecher is in agony, but Beecher grits his teeth and grips his powerful arms painfully and refuses to let go. The small of his back snarls its protest, and his legs are barely able to support him for the brief time he is upright, and then he has flopped into the chair, his legs still shaking, blinking back the tears from his eyes and watching the orderly shake his head and regard him with a curious expression of mixed amusement and admiration.
He tries to move the wheelchair with his one good hand, and succeeds in shifting an inch to the right. The orderly shakes his head again, but pushes him over to Keller’s bedside and engages the brakes before leaving him alone.
He sits there a full minute, watching the rise and fall of his chest. Studies the bruising around Keller’s eyes and the fingerprint-shaped marks that ring his neck. Watches the slow drip from the IV bag, and follows three sets of tubes to their bruised entry points on Keller’s arm.
He huffs out a shaking breath and it’s only then that Keller turns his head, opens his eyes, and looks at him.
“You’re alive,” Keller says, and if Beecher’s voice is sandpaper then Keller’s is ground glass.
Beecher presses his lips together, swallows. “Everyone thinks you saved my life.”
“Did what I could.”
“Bullshit!” Beecher looks around guiltily, sure that his raised voice will have drawn the presence of a scolding nurse, but the pale blonde boy in the next bed had been released that morning, and the room is deserted but for a Latino who mutters in an uneasy sleep and the mute, who frowns at him. He leans back into the wheelchair, lowers his voice. “You set me up.”
“No.”
“You played me,” Beecher continues. “You must have found me so fucking amusing. Poor needy little Toby. Such a little bitch. Ready to roll over and stick his ass in the air for any tiny scrap of affection.” He watches the muscles clench in Keller’s jaw, smiles bitterly. “What I wonder is… was any of it true? The late night conversations where you bared your soul, the concern over my relationship with the kids, the attention, the… friendship.” His voice cracks despite his best intentions. “Any of it?”
Keller holds his gaze steady. “All of it.”
Beecher‘s good hand finds the arm of the chair, and he clamps his fingers tightly around the frayed padding. “You used me, you betrayed me, you lied to me--”
“Only lie was what I said to you in the gym,” Keller says.
“Like I said… bullshit.”
Keller manages a shrug. “You know, I only made one mistake durin’ Operation Toby--”
“Oh, Christ,” Beecher laughs cynically, “you even had a name for it.”
“I made a mistake. I did what a good con man never does,” Keller says quietly. “I fell in love with my mark.”
Beecher hangs his head, hisses out a breath. Remembers the warmth of Keller’s hand on the back of his neck, long talks in the hours before lights out, the fear-shock-relief of knowing that someone had his back. That someone cared. Remembers following Chris with his eyes across the quad. Waiting anxiously for him to return from his work detail. Laughing over cards and patiently explaining the rules of chess for the tenth time.
Remembers the insistent press of Chris’s lips, the hard lines of Chris’s chest melding against his, Chris’s hand warm and urgent on his hip.
“Why?” he asks finally. He raises his head. “Why did you do it?”
“When I came here, you weren’t nothin’ but a name and a number, an‘ I owed Vern and didn‘t want to spend the next eighty-eight years with a target painted on my back. But like I told ya before, Beech, I ain’t real good at thinkin’ things through.” Keller struggles to sit up further on the bed, grasps at his ribcage with his good arm and sucks in a laboured breath. “I knew I couldn’t go through with it,” he continues, “but I couldn’t figure no way out of it, either. Eventually I figured, we take our chances with Vern and Metzger.”
Beecher snorts. “Great fucking plan.”
“You bit off some asshole’s dick, Beecher. You knocked a man out and took a shit on his face,” Keller points out. “I knew you were one mean motherfucker. Figured the odds were in our favour. I just knew I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t hurt you.”
“Yeah, well I’m pretty fucking hurt, Keller!”
“Me too,“ Keller says. He lifts his right arm carefully, wiggles the fingers sticking out of the plaster. “Just got the other cast off,” he says wistfully.
“Beecher!” Dr. Nathan’s voice cuts through the silence of the ward. “What do you think you’re doing? You’re supposed to be in bed!” She stalks toward the row of cots, glares daggers at the orderly, who only stares back at her blankly. “Alvarez, are you responsible for this?”
“Don’t blame him,” Beecher says quickly. “I can be pretty convincing.”
“Be that as it may,” Dr. Nathan says, “Alvarez is well aware of the orders concerning the patients. You risked ongoing, permanent injury to your back by getting out of that bed!” She shoots the speechless orderly a second glare before crossing the rest of the room and angrily releasing the brakes on the wheelchair. “And you,” she says to Keller, “have three broken ribs and a minor concussion, not to mention all the other cuts, scrapes, and bruises. Neither of you should be moving around!”
Keller raises one hand wearily in surrender.
“I’m sorry, Dr. Nathan,” Beecher says meekly.
“Yeah,” Keller puts in. “Me too.”
Beecher watches the doctor melt under their combined penitence. She shakes her head. “I understand why you’d want to… talk,” she says gently. “Just next time, wait until I can arrange it properly, okay?”
“Will do,” Beecher says. She smiles absently, tucks an escaping strand of hair behind her ear before wheeling him over to his own bed. She parks the chair at the head of the bed and gestures for the orderly, and Beecher grimaces at the mere thought of the torture that he knows is coming. He feels Keller’s eyes following his every move. Feels Keller’s very essence beneath his skin.
“Hey. Keller.”
“Yeah.”
“Maybe we can convince them to get us a chess board,” he says. He flicks a glance at the doctor. “When Dr. Nathan says it’s okay, of course.”
“Sounds good,” Keller says.
“I don’t think that would be a problem,” Dr. Nathan says, “when you’ve both recuperated enough for sitting up for long periods to be manageable.”
“Thanks, Doc,” Beecher says.
Alvarez takes one side and Dr. Nathan the other as they lift him out of the wheelchair, and Beecher focuses on Dr. Nathan’s warm dark eyes and clutches at the orderly’s bicep and bites back the cry that threatens to explode from his already damaged throat.
“Hey, Beecher,” Keller calls.
Beecher‘s fingers are bone white, surely leaving bruises on Alvarez’s arm, and his back is screaming at him, and he feels faint and thinks he might actually pass out in a second. “Yeah?” he grits out.
“Just…” Keller hesitates, and Beecher is dying, at any moment his spine is going to rip out of his back, his arm is going to separate from his shoulder and drip blood and sinew onto the scuffed white tile, and surely the process of getting out of bed didn‘t take this long, wasn’t this mind-numbingly painful.
Keller hesitates, and Beecher wants to scream at him, wants to hit him, wants to kiss him.
“WHAT?” he yells.
“You and me, Tobe,” Chris says.
Beecher hears the smile in Keller’s voice. He leans back on the bed and closes his eyes. He swallows past the bile in his throat. Takes shallow breaths and tells himself that he will neither vomit nor faint. He is stronger than that. He can handle anything.
“Yeah,” Beecher says, when he can trust his voice again. “We’ll see.”
.