Young and Loaded

Chapter Eighteen

   I clenched the note between my hands as I pushed myself off the hospital bed, my breathing shallow. Thanks to whatever instability in my body the doctors had not been able to detect, I had to stay in the hospital the night. Or maybe Gerard just happened to pull a couple strings to make sure the blood test had to get run again and so we could talk to one another in the privacy of the hospital bathroom, but I'll never know.

   Because apparently, there were bugged mics and cameras everywhere. 

   I don't know who to believe at this point.

   They were in this building and outside of this building. They watched us. They covered the ceiling and whatever available surface they could find to place them on, it seemed. It was funny how I had begun to notice that kind of thing, glancing wherever I walked and my eyes meeting cameras. You'd think that it would be obvious or something, but no one else seemed to notice this kind of shit. No one but Gerard, apparently, which meant I wasn't entirely crazy. Or maybe we were both going crazy at the same time. That would make a lot of sense. And absolutely none at all, all at once.

   Hell, I'd only been here two days and everything was falling apart for me on the inside and outside.

   As for the bathroom as a meeting place, though? It was the only place where there were never cameras, it seemed. I noticed this when I walked in sometime during the day, both needing to use the bathroom and to make sure where I was supposed to go at midnight. And the sudden curiosity for as to why the bathroom, of all places. At least Better Living had the decency to make sure that we had some sort of privacy when we were busy shitting ourselves or hiding from the overlord of a government to have real, decent conversations. Not that they knew that second little part anyways, I decided, feeling like a rebel already. I hadn't even done anything but make sure the bathroom wasn't bugged. Very heroic, I know.

   Pulling my IV out of my arm by myself wasn't ideal, but I could just pretend that I'd accidentally taken it out in my sleep in the morning. A nurse would believe something like that, right? I mean, it was either leave it in and walk with the bag, which was a major inconvenience, or take it out and just be free for a little while and just go about roaming the hospital hallways for some time. And quite honestly, I wanted to be free of a needle in my arm for just a little while. It made my skin crawl at the thought that I was so used to a needle piercing my skin thanks to the tattoos, so I was thankful Gerard had slid me that note even if it made my stomach churn with anxiety and make me want to throw up again. At least the anxiety was a different one, right?

   I crept quietly over the cool floor, a hand pressed to where the needle had formerly been. It was dark in the hallway I was in now, only emergency lights on. It seemed that not a lot of people got taken to the Better Living hospital. I guess Gerard and I were the exceptions for the night, along with the girl who'd been brought in not too long ago and had been frothing at the mouth, yelling incoherently like she was possessed. But she wasn't relevant right now, my focus on Gerard and what the hell he wanted.

   It took me longer than it should've to get to the bathroom. Maybe that was because I was trying my best to be as quiet as possible, praying that either the video was off on the cameras in the hallway or whoever was watching was just assuming that I was tip-toeing because I needed to piss and didn't want to wake anyone up or worry anyone. Me going to the bathroom wasn't any reason to send a squadron of Draculoids or worse, doctors, after me into the bathroom in the middle of the night. At least I hoped so. I just needed to pee. They thought I needed to pee. I hoped they did, anyway, and them thinking that gave me sufficient strength to complete my harrowing journey.

   These thoughts carried me into the bathroom, which led me to be surprised to not see anyone in there.

   Until, of course, I was grabbed by the shoulder and pulled into a stall.

   I squeaked, finding that whoever had pulled me in had an arm wrapped around my waist and a hand to my mouth, hissing a harsh bark of a command to shut the fuck up right into my ear. And I was pressed up against some figure, tense, and suddenly feeling like I was going to pass out from pure fear and weirdly not regretting taking the IV drip out.

   Gerard.

   I bit his hand, making him remove it from my mouth. Like I had no regard for his authority over me, which I really didn't. He'd just pulled me into a stall, for fucks sake, with no warning or anything, expecting me not to freak out. With my limited memory of the world, I could only describe this as the beginning of a porno.

   News flash, buddy, I'm not into bathroom sex.

   "What the hell?" I whispered harshly, eyes widening as I looked up at him.

   Maybe I was panicking. Just a little bit.

   At least he pretended to act sheepish at what he'd done, a vibrant red rising up to color his cheeks, very, very visible under the dim fluorescent lights. It reminded me of the hair I'd seen in that flash of a memory, the image surfacing again before fading into the abyss that was my brain. "Sorry," he offered without too much actual apology in his voice, shrugging a little.

   Motherfucker.

   A beat passed. I shuffled as far away from Gerard as I could, pressing myself against the stall door while he leaned against the wall, one foot propped up on the toilet that sat between us like a barricade. Whether it was physical or emotional, I had no idea, but the toilet and his leg felt like a wall, like protection of some sort. I was staring at it instead of him and his vibrant eyes and flamed cheeks, feeling incredibly awkward. Hell, I had trapped myself in a bathroom stall with a hypothetically renowned Scarecrow like he was any other person. What was I even doing here? I should be curled up and asleep in my hospital bed, the IV drip still attached to my arm, the note crumpled in the trash can or reduced to ashes instead of in my hand. This was dangerous. He could shoot me if he wanted to.

   But he hadn't yet, and that was something. Maybe I'd get answers before I died.

   He broke the silence. "I looked at your files." That didn't faze me. "I want you to tell me what you saw, Frank."

   I looked up at him at that, finding Gerard's eyes on me. "Everything?"

   "Everything."

   So I did. I told him about the night before, I told him about the pills I took for the first time, and I told him about me throwing up and then passing the fuck out. I told him about waking up and rushing in the morning to make sure I was somewhat presentable, told him about taking a second round of pills, and told him about the cereal mishap. I told him about Mikey showing up, I told him about seeing the wanted posters on the side of the building when I walked out of the door. I told him about panicking and running across the street only to have the posters stripped before my eyes by city workers before I got a proper look to read or even try to memorize the writing that showed up on their monochromatic appeal.

   And finally, I told him about the vignette memory and throwing up on the side of the road, which earned me Mikey's concern and a spot in the hospital.

   He didn't interrupt me once, just nodded whenever I paused for a breath or maybe looked like I wasn't going to finish my statement, as if encouraging me to keep going. It helped a little, relaxing me just a little bit.

   When I finished, he didn't say anything.

   He just grimaced.

   What was that supposed to mean, you fucking imp?

   "Either the pills are fucking with your brain, or they're showing you your... your life."

   I stared, of course. Because that was the most outlandish theory I'd heard and I'd come up with plenty.

   And it was the only one that made any sense.

   It explained the desert. It explained the whole subplot of me recognizing Gerard. It explained the suddenness and the posters and my confusion and absolutely everything. And he'd just pulled that out of his ass like it was nothing more than his job, or something he'd thought about for weeks and weeks on end.

   "You're deadass?"

   He looked at me weirdly before responding. "Deadass."

   I let out a breath, carding a hand through my hair frantically. None of this made sense. But it did. And it didn't. It looked like I had a good life in the desert, with this guy by my side and the car and a map. We looked okay; happy, even, which had this been any other situation I wouldn't have questioned it. Hell, it looked like a happy life, living in the desert and eating lizards off of half-baked rocks under the sun or whatever sort of propaganda they were preaching in his god-forsaken city.

   Why would I ever get on my knees and beg to be let into the bland, whitewashed Battery City?

   I'd rather get on my knees for some 'killjoy scum' out in the desert or whatever the fuck and suck him off.

   And of course, with that incredulously logical dot connecting, then the door opened.

   "Frank?" came Mikey's exhausted voice as he entered the bathroom, his footsteps very clearly followed by someone else. I watched as Gerard lifted his foot off the floor, crouching over the toilet. I followed suit, positioning myself so that if you looked at my feet from under the stall it looked like I was just about to use the bathroom.

   "Yeah?" I replied after a moment, my voice cracking. Fuck.

   "We're just checking on you, dude," he said, stopping directly in front of my stall. I could hear the grogginess in his voice. "Its nearly one am, why are you taking a dump?"

   Who else was in here with him? I wished they would talk.

   "Who's with you?"

   "Ray."

   Ah.

   I let out a silent breath of relief and twisted back to a very strained-looking Gerard, who looked like he was trying his best not to pop open whatever stitches they'd placed in his arms earlier. I promised myself that as soon as these guys left, I'd ask him what the hell happened to his arm.

   Which was never gonna happen, because Mikey decided to lean against the door to the stall, and it being open, exposed the two of us.

   And of course, thanks to Gerard's brilliant idea to pull me in earlier and my messy sleep hair, it looked like maybe we had been having bathroom sex.

   The look on Ray's face was priceless, to say the least.

   It would've been kind of hilarious if it wasn't completely and totally embarrassing. I wanted to both laugh and cry at the same time, feeling an intense heat rise up on my face, making it my turn to blush. I was probably as red as a pornodroid's hair, but I wouldn't know. "Are you kidding me? You've been here two days and you're already getting fucked in the—"

   I guess the sight of Gerard cut Ray off, making his eyes go huge. Which only made me want to burst into laughter even more.

   To say the least, it seemed Gerard and I had very similar ideas, because next minute we were both nearly crying from awkwardly laughing at them and their reactions. And it was the most human I'd felt since I'd woken up.

   And it felt great, despite the looming reality that maybe I hadn't wanted to be here at all in the first place.