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whimpered. Brian would not be out the next morning.
    “Would the police really arrest him?” he asked after a moment.
    Jed negotiated a right hand turn onto Alta Arden before he
    answered.
    “They would if they thought Brian’s attack was unprovoked.”
    Tate didn’t have anything to say to that, so for once, he stayed
    silent.
    The hospital was a nightmare, but a familiar one. Tate had
    spent over a year in the hospital after the fire that had scarred the
    right side of his body, and even though he’d been a kid then, he still
    understood doctors and nurses and the rhythms they danced to. In
    fact, it had been a nurse in the burn ward, a kind one, who had first
    brought him music to listen to while he was healing. She’d been
    young, and she’d brought him Green Day, The Cult, and Pearl Jam,
    as well as old stuff (for her) like The Ramones and The Clash. He’d
    clung to that music when the pain had gotten too bad. When other
    people had simply whimpered or cried when they’d ripped off the
    burn scabs, Tate had been screaming the lyrics to Pearl Jam’s
    Talker’s Redemption | Amy Lane
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    “Jeremy,” and bless his nurse, she’d been singing with him. Jeremy
    spoke in… class today…
    Talker found he was humming that song while he sat next to
    Brian’s bed and heard the doctors talk about ultrasounds and
    internal damage and whether Brian had it or not. He knew what
    internal damage was too. He’d been beaten by a foster father once,
    and had spent a few nights being measured for the big medical
    boogie man of internal damage. It had been a “no” on the surgery
    (and a new foster home, one a little more “gay-friendly”) but he
    remembered the somber looks on the faces of the doctors as they’d
    palpated Tate’s swollen abdomen, and he feared for Brian now more
    than he’d ever feared for himself.
    His body was tough: damaged, but tough. His body could take
    one more surgery, one more beating, one more disaster.
    His heart couldn’t take even the thought of no more Brian.
    There was a motion behind him, and he had to suppress a
    violent twitch as he felt a thin, female hand on his shoulder.
    “How’s he doin’… oh God.”
    Tate closed his eyes and grabbed the hand on his shoulder.
    “Hi, Aunt Lyndie.”
    Lyndsay Cooper was Brian’s only living family—Tate had called
    her while Brian was being triaged and prepped for a room. It was
    the only thing he could remember doing in the last three hours,
    besides trying not to climb out of his own skin.
    Lyndsay’s arms came around Tate’s shoulders, and he
    shivered into her hug. Brian’s Aunt Lyndie had spent the last six
    months trying to make herself into the family that Tate had never
    had. Feeling those thin arms around his shoulders made him
    suddenly feel safe. Safe enough to be weak.
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    “He looks really bad,” Tate said, his voice wobbling. “They think
    he’ll be okay, but his nose is broken, and his shoulder—they’re
    talking about going in to bolt shit back together and he’ll be in a
    sling for a while. They’re…” deep breath. “They’re still waiting to see
    if he’s going to need surgery for his insides.”
    Brian’s face had been cleaned of the blood, but it was still
    swollen and blood-filled and unrecognizable. Brian, Talker’s
    beautiful, perfect Brian, and his face was never going to be the
    same.

    “YOU’RE beautiful.” Brian’s voice from the side of Talker’s bare thigh
    sounded reverent, and Tate had been forced to cover his eyes, just
    to let his lover see his disfigured genitals.
    “Man, don’t bullshit me.” Not Brian—not Talker’s Prince
    Charming.
    Brian shifted up in the bed and Tate felt fingers gripping his
    chin fiercely and forcing Tate to look Brian in his cornfield-sky eyes.
    “You are beautiful. You are perfect. Let me look at you and love you,
    Talker. Don’t shit on what I’m saying because you’re embarrassed or
    ashamed. I love you, so you’re beautiful, okay?”
    Talker nodded, willing Brian to go back to looking at his
    shriveled testicle and scarred thigh and cock, because as ugly as
    he thought they were, they were nowhere as naked as his face right
    now. Brian ignored that and caught his mouth in a kiss, and by the
    time the kiss was done, and Talker was arching his bare body
    against Brian’s hand, Talker was willing to concede to anything,
    anything, as long as Brian kept touching him, kept kissing him,