Inferno // dreamnotfound

f o u r t e e n

TW: blood

"Oh my god, Clay!" George gasped when he felt wetness pooling on Clay's back when he hugged him.

They'd driven back to Clay's house and he'd promised to make George some spaghetti since they never got dinner.

George pulled his hand away and stared at the red liquid that coated his fingers opaquely. "Did one of them stab you or something?" George's words were laced with worry.

"No, no, I just have an old cut there that I'm pretty sure must have just opened up," said Clay nonchalantly but George didn't miss his wince. George frowned.

"We should probably go and deal with that, no?" He offered.

"I can just go and do it myself, I know how," replied Clay. George wasn't having it.

"It's on your back, don't be silly, I can do it and then you can do my face? You don't need to be a martyr," George told him kindly. Clay agreed in the end but seemed very cautious. George soon found out why.

When Clay had removed his flannel and T-shirt, George was at first excited because he could finally check out his body but before he could he noticed some faint and some bold scars.

They swarmed his entire chest, abdomen and back with the pearlescent glimmering lines. George looked up and saw Clay's face full of shame. "What- who did this to you?"

Clay was silent, he was looking at the floor, looking completely embarrassed. George moved around him to look at the cuts in his back and was shocked by the bold, red lines etched on it. "Oh my- Clay, don't tell me this was from those people at the orphanage as well." George pleaded.

The silence was enough to give George his turn for rage to boil inside his blood. "Those cunts. How could anyone possibly do that?" George could see that there were faded ones and more prominent ones and gathered this had been going on for a while.

Clay was still silent.

"Clay you need to go to the police about this."

Clay looked up in alarm. "No, no I can't. I can't and you definitely can't," I rushed his words out a George looked confused. "Look, you need to promise me that regardless, you absolutely under no circumstance go to the police about this. Promise." He looked so earnestly at George that George's face softened a little but was still fuming.

"Ok, I promise, just you need to stop going there, or- or something. I don't know what I can say that you haven't already thought about," George finally said.

George fumbled around for bandages and wipes, just thinking to himself that sometimes murder can be ok.

"Thanks, Georgie," Clay said meekly.

"Ugh don't even, I'm not doing anything special," he grumbled, coming off a little harsher than he would've wanted. He came back to where Clay was sitting at the kitchen table and began wiping away fresh and dried blood before putting the bandages on.

"Clay, what you don't need to be is insecure or embarrassed, you're still beautiful to me and they don't change that," spoke George sincerely in a low voice, just fitting the last plaster on.

Clay smiled to himself and turned round to hug George again. "Come on, now it's my turn to help you," Clay nodded towards George's face, which was still with a line of blood meandering down his cheek and his eye beginning to darken from the blow.

Clay seemed off. His mood seemed relieved, traumatised, afraid and yet still happy. He began to clean the small cut on George's face and fix a very cute little bandage over top. Oh no! I've got school in two days!