Gym Buddies II: Part Nine
#9 of Gym Buddies II
Gym Buddies II: Part Nine
"Luke... can you hear me?"
I opened my eyes slowly to Al's voice. The room was bright, definitely not the gym I'd just been tortured in. A huge piece of plastic was obscuring most of my vision, so I couldn't see the coyote. Not thinking, I lifted my right paw to move it and winced. I might have been high on morphine, but I could still feel the pain. I took my other paw and went for the oxygen mask that was sitting on my face. Al stopped me.
"Luke, you're in no condition - leave it on." My neck was heavily bandaged, my mangled paw was in a thick cast, and my face felt like it was the size of a beach-ball. I wheezed through the mask when I wanted to speak to him, but he placed a kind paw on my shoulder and interrupted me with a shushing sound.
"Don't try and speak, Luke," he comforted me, "you don't want to hurt yourself." We looked into each other's eyes for a moment. "Are you okay?" I shook my head and started crying. Unable to speak properly, I reverted to using a basic sign language. I tapped my left paw on my chest until he understood. "I," he spoke for me. I nodded his head to tell him he was right. Unable to think of an action for the next word, I continued tapping on my chest and my face crumpled. "Are you in pain?" I shook my head. "Do you want something?" I nodded. "Do you want someone?" I nodded and wheezed out my brother's name through another torrent of tears. Al silenced me comfortingly. "Shh... it's okay, he's on his way."
Dan was safe, and that gave me a great deal of comfort. I whimpered happily, though I'm sure it sounded quite pitiful. I'd been so scared that they'd try and do something similar to him - or maybe worse. I know they said they were doing it for his sake, but I worried for him nevertheless. I pointed to the coyote for another play of primitive sign language.
"Me," then to my head, "think?" I shook my head. "No?" I nodded enthusiastically, to which he understood, "no... know," and then pointed to my chest again. "Me know you," Al repeated as he tried to make sense of the words. "I know you... how did I know you were there?" I nodded as another wheeze escaped me. "I was waiting for you," he explained. "When I left it took me a few minutes to see your car had gone. I thought that you didn't want to talk to me, so I went out for a wander and called Dan. I figured you would have called me back and told me to stop harassing him, but when you didn't, I thought that something must be wrong. I went back to the gym and... that's when I heard you screaming."
A tear rolled down my cheek as I heard my own screams tear through the silence. I reached my left paw up to the mask again. The coyote rushed to stop me, but I was too fast. I only wanted to say something quickly, so it wouldn't be off for long anyway. I opened my maw and let out a raspy voice. "Th... th..."
"Luke!" Dan rushed in to the room and hugged me tightly. I winced from the sheer force of the hug and had to readjust my mask before Al could. "What happened?" he asked, looking at the bandages on my neck.
"He can't speak, Dan. Not yet, just give him some time." I smiled weakly at him, though he couldn't see through the frosted plastic.
"Wh-what happened?" Dan asked, his breath fraught with tears.
Al sighed heavily. "Tom. Tom and some of those trainers, they got together and..." The coyote left the sentence there and displayed me with his paw. I saw Dan wrap his arms tightly around Al, who groaned at the unexpected hug.
"Thank you!"
"What for?" Al asked, now stroking the fur on Dan's back. Part of me wondered if he was staying purposefully away from his head, which it looked like he wanted to hold.
"If you hadn't found him... if you didn't know!"
"Dan, don't thank me. Please." Al was suddenly morose as he looked over at me. "I don't deserve thanks."
"What do you mean?" the husky asked, wiping his nose along his arm. If anyone were to compare my brother and I to see which of us was hurt more, they'd be in for a tough decision. Al looked at the floor and then at me. I pointed at him, then my mouth and then my chest. He nodded.
"Yeah, it is," he confirmed. Dan looked utterly confused. "I wanted to talk to Luke earlier. I needed to tell him something." We were now both eager to hear what he had to say. The coyote twiddled his thumbs and glared into them. "I-It's my fault."
"What do you mean?" Dan repeated with a sniffle. "If it wasn't for you, he wouldn't be here!" Al shook his head.
"You're right. If it wasn't for me, they wouldn't have attacked him in the first place." There was an uneasy silence as the conversation sank in and Dan's face twisted.
"You? You organised this?"
"No," Al insisted without a moment's hesitation, "God, no! I didn't think that this would happen, I... I..."
"You what?" Dan shouted. I was still barely able to move, but willed him to calm down. I could tell that Al was sincere and that he'd never do anything to hurt me or Dan. "What did you think would happen, you fucking moron?" Al's neck sank into his shoulders.
"I just wanted you kicked out," he admitted shamefully. "When you told me, I said to Tom that you two looked like you got on really well and that... well, I said I thought you might have known each other beforehand. That's when he got Pippa to find out something about you two." I could feel waves of anger pulsing from Dan so reached out to touch his paw. I couldn't reach, but he saw what I was trying to do. He held it gently and looked into my eyes as he stroked it with his thumbs. He calmed in seconds, almost as if he was trying to lull me to sleep like a newborn.
"So you told them about us?" Dan demanded, not giving the coyote the satisfaction of looking him in the eye. Al nodded. "Why? What did we do to you?" Al looked up at him and whimpered.
"Because he's your brother." Surely Al couldn't be taking this route again. He knew that we were in love - why couldn't he accept it? "He's supposed to be there for you when your boyfriend breaks up with you! He's the one you're supposed to run to when your boyfriend's in trouble! And what if he breaks up with you - or what about now? Who are you going to run to then?" Dan now turned to face him and the anger started bubbling inside him.
"You did this to prove a point?"
"I didn't do anything," Al insisted. The tones in his voice told me that he was telling the truth. "I didn't have any idea that this would happen, if I did, I-"
"Get out." Dan didn't sound angry, he didn't even raise his voice. "Now."
"Dan, please-"
"Just get out," Dan turned to me and repeated the instruction to Al. "I don't want to see you ever again." Al stood and held back tears as he slowly left.
"I'm sorry," he said one last time. Before he opened the door to leave, I removed the mask and tried to speak.
"Al..." But before he could hear my weak voice, his tail was limply heading out of the door. Part of me wondered if he was deliberately ignoring me, and that same part didn't blame him one bit. Dan put the mask back over my muzzle and started to stroke my ears. Feeling his warm fur on mine again was heavenly. "Al," I repeated, now trying to get up.
"It's okay," the husky said as he eased my chest back into the bed, "he's gone now. He can't hurt you again." He was too stubborn to understand - too blinded by love to allow another possibility of what happened. I wished I could make him see the sincerity that I saw in the coyote.
"Dan," I tried. My voice was still too sore to be understood correctly. Dan looked around and picked up a pad and pen and pushed them to me.
"Write it down," he said. I picked up the pen in my left paw and started to scrawl something. The first word - 'I' - was a miserable attempt of a squiggle. Seeing the messy writing threw me over the edge. I flung the pen to the floor and turned away from Dan to hide the fact that I was crying. It was a stupid thing to attempt considering how close how was to. He lifted himself to tower over me and leant into my ear. "Luke, please don't cry," he said, "I can't stand it when you cry!"
I buried my muzzle into my paw to wipe away tears and muffle the sounds from him. He looked around to see if anyone was watching. When he realised no-one was, he propped himself up on the bed and sat my head in his lap, stroking my ear with his thumb again.
"Luke, you're supposed to be the strong one," he cried, his tears falling into my fur. Ever since we started seeing each other, all he did was cry. "If you're gonna cry, then... then..." he struggled to finish the sentence as heaved breaths took over. I took my paw and placed it on his as I tried to calm him down.
I pulled the mask away from my face again, much to my brother's displeasure. When he tried to put it back on, I refused to let him do it, took his paw to my lips and gently kissed it before nuzzling against the warm fur. When I was rested in his arms, he placed the cup over my muzzle and stroked my head. I could have fallen asleep here, and had the door not opened, I would have done.
"Dan, what are you doing? Get off there!" Our mother came rushing in to see me with a horrified tone in her voice. Dan tried to move away, so I tugged at his paw and groaned - the volume meant more for her than him.
"Hi, mum," I tried. She broke down into tears at my weak voice and cuddled me.
"Oh, my baby," she wailed. I was eighteen years old and still being called her baby. Right now I didn't care - if anything, it comforted me a little. "What happened?" I didn't want to tell her for two reasons. One, if she knew that I'd been tortured she'd never let me out of her sight. Two, she'd make sure the trainers got their comeuppance by calling the police. If they told her the truth, she'd disown me and my brother.
"I... I..."
"He fell," Dan invented. With a shattered paw, damaged windpipe and a gaping burn on my neck - what a fall it would have been. I moved the mask away from my nose and looked up at him.
"Da..." Speaking was still difficult, but I caught his attention nevertheless. I tried to tell him something, but could only make out a few syllables of the sentence. "I... ell... ou... lay..." He broke into tears and hugged me tight.
"I'll tell you later, too!" Our mother gave us a strange look, wondering what we were trying to hide from her. I wondered if anyone would be able to accept us. Mum, dad, Al, Tom. None of them would understand. As I slowly slipped into sleep in a cocoon of warm fur, I realised that none of it mattered.
I had my brother - and that was the most important thing in the world.
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Thanks to everyone for reading Gym Buddies II. If you started from Gym Buddies, big hugs! 
I have a few projects in the pipeline, though, so shall keep you informed via journals. I am quite determined to get something of this nature published, and should I ever get to that stage, I'll upload a sample. :-)
Thanks again, everyone. I hope you have enjoyed reading it as much as I have enjoyed writing it.