The nurse’s name was Janice. Janice took him to the door of room 311. Clark and Gonzalez stood at the door. Gonzalez talked in a low-pitched voice to Clark, whose arms were crossed over her chest. When they saw Justin approach in the wake of the mighty Janice, they straightened, their attention turned to him.

“We need to speak with Mr. Kenney,” Gonzalez said.

“Kinney,” Clark corrected.

“Kinney, right,” Gonzalez repeated.

Justin hated them. “Fine, but not you,” he said, nodding at Clark. Turning his head toward Gonzalez, he nodded in his direction. “You talk to him.”

Eyes cut Justin’s out of consideration as Clark and Gonzalez passed a not-so-private look.

“Uh…” Gonzalez said. “Actually, rape victims statistically respond better to women…”

“Because they usually are women!” Justin almost shouted. “And don’t you dare call Brian a rape victim! Oh, he’d just love that one…” he trailed off, almost muttering as his voice fell away, knowing it was a good thing Brian was heavily sedated for this. Well, besides the surgery and that. He almost started giggling. Oh, god, I am seriously losing my mind, Justin thought, mentally shaking himself. He snapped his gaze back to the police. “Okay… okay. Seriously. Brian… seriously. I know him, better than you do. Really. Fuck this.” Oh, god, what the fuck was he saying? He realized his entire body was trembling, little tremors all over the surface, as if his skin were the ocean and a huge storm was blowing. He felt a warm hand grasp his upper arm, and looked down, then up, at Janice. Her small eyes seemed to glitter at him.

“Justin,” she said. “The anesthesiologist and doctor are in with him. He should be just coming out of the anesthesia. You should go in.”

If his heart didn’t already belong to Brian, he would have given it to Janice, right then and there.

Clark and Gonzalez trailed behind, as Janice opened the door and ushered Justin in, her hand on his back. Dr. Hom looked up from the chart he was notating, and said, “Only two!” Clark spoke low to her partner, just before she left the room.

Justin walked over to stand next to another doctor who was examining one of the monitors about the bed.

He had never seen Brian look so pale. And he had never seen him beaten. The right side of his face bloomed one big bruise, puffing out his eye socket, his mouth ripped and swollen at the end. Justin moved as close as he could to the side of the bed, and the monitoring doctor said, “He’s coming out of it. But he’ll be very groggy.”

Justin nodded. He looked over at Dr. Hom.

“He’s doing well. He’s going to be fine.”

“Physically.”

“Physically.”

Justin turned his attention back to the man below him in the bed, whose eye, the one not swollen shut, fluttered. “Brian. Hey, Brian,” Justin said. He reached out and took the hand that lay on sheet, pausing to look at the long fingers, the fine grace of Brian’s bones, before twining his own fingers to hold on, holding Brian’s hand in both of his. Oh, god. Oh god oh god oh god oh god. “Brian, it’s me. It’s Justin. I’m here.”

The voice, barely a whisper, raspy. “Justin?... Water.”

Justin looked up at Dr. Hom, who nodded. He swiveled his head, looking around the room. And Janice was there, at his side with a cup of water and a straw. Justin took it, then held the straw down to Brian’s lips, watching him take it in his mouth and drink.

“Not too much,” Dr. Hom warned, but Brian was already releasing the straw with a small exhalation of breath.

“Brian, do you remember anything?” Gonzalez had moved to stand immediately to Justin’s right. It did not help that the man was so tall; Justin suppressed an urge to push him away, maybe even out of the room. Too bad his hands were otherwise occupied.

“Is this necessary right now?” Justin spoke as low as possible.

“Most cases get solved within the first 24 hours, or not at all,” the detective told him.

Justin bit his lip, and shut up.

“Brian,” Gonzalez continued, “Do you remember being assaulted? Do you remember the person who hit you?”

“Hit… um.”

“You were assaulted, Brian. You’re in the hospital.”

“Yeah… got that.”

Justin almost smiled, this time for real. He loved this man, did he love this man.

“…guy. Hot. Car. Fuck. My car?”

“We’re working on that, Brian. What did the guy look like?”

“Hot.”

Justin could practically hear Gonzalez’s teeth grind. “Can you describe him?”

“Leather…”

“Pants? Coat?”

“Coat. Black shirt. Black pants.”

“Was the guy black?”

“No… blond.”

Justin’s eyebrows rose imperceptibly.

“Okay. Can you tell me what happened?”

“Driving… parked. Just… hit. He hit me.”

“Excuse me, is this really necessary?” Justin interrupted. “Can you just ask what you need to know? He’s obviously in pain.”

“‘S’fine… I’m fine,” Brian said. The weakness of his voice completely belied his statement, but his voice sounded stronger than it had just a moment before. And his eye opened fully, though it still seemed to not fully focus.

“He’s not fine,” Justin insisted. “Hurry up.”

“Do you remember any distinguishing marks?”

“Scorpion. Tattoo, on his neck.”

“Where were you parked?”

“Alley.” Brian’s eyelid slid downward, and he turned his face away, into the pillow.

“Do you remember the alley? Brian?”

Brian didn’t answer.

“Okay,” Gonzalez said after watching him for a moment, and then backing away from bedside. “We’ve got a search out on the vehicle, we’ve got someone going around Liberty to take a quick look-see. We already have an APB out. I’ll come back and talk to him when he’s more awake. Justin,” he added. Justin glanced over absently. Gonzalez hesitated, then shook his head. “We’ll do our best, but…”

“Yeah,” Justin replied. “I know all about the justice system.” He turned back to the bed.

The spare doctor was long gone and had taken Janice with him. Dr. Hom hung the chart back at the bed’s foot on his own way out. “He’ll probably sleep for a while. Don’t be alarmed, it’s normal. Do you have any more questions?”

Justin just shook his head.

The doctor left. And then they were alone. Or, Justin was alone. He still held Brian’s hand in both of his. It felt warm, smooth. Limp.

Justin looked up Brian’s arm, dark against the white bedding, to that awful hospital gown he had been dressed in post-surgery. Underneath the sheets, his long body, almost bony. How had he not noticed how skinny Brian was? Without the animating force of Brian’s personality, Justin could see through to a fragility in the suddenly delicate, battered body. He seemed so thin.

Maybe this had been the way Brian had seen him in the hospital, in those first days, when he’d still been in a coma. Before Brian had stopped coming. Justin shifted his weight from leg to leg, and then sat, carefully, on the side of the bed, by Brian’s right leg, still holding onto his hand. “Brian…” he started, and then stopped. Brian was out. His words hung in the deadened air of the hospital.

Oh, god, he hated hospital rooms. Not hospitals, they did good things, after all, hell, the people in them had saved him, and now Brian - but the rooms where you waited, that held you, trapped in an institutional setting which deployed its forces like clockwork, a time-keeping that only served to remind you just how long was being taken between each click forward in the schedule. And you never got anywhere, just a repeated cycle of shots and tests and bad tv and interrupted sleep, and one day flowing into the next more slowly than any day ever did in the entirety of your life.

He hated hospital rooms. Brian would surely go mad.

“Brian,” he started again, firmly this time. “I’m not going to leave you. You’re going to hate this, everything about this is going to suck. But anything I can do to help you get through this… you know I will. God, I love you so much…” His throat clogged, and he stopped talking before Brian, even unconscious, detected that weakness. He took a deep breath, forcing his anger and pain back, deep back, back into his bowels. It would wait. It would have to wait.

“You know,” he continued, “I know this is going to be hard. And besides, who am I, anyway? The guy you sleep with more than once, nobody, really…” He stopped. Shit. He only heard that one after it came out of his mouth. What the fuck? Deep breath. Um. Shit. Okay. Okay. Start over.

He clutched Brian’s hand a bit tighter. “But you know what? I don’t care. I don’t care, because you don’t know how much I love you, you can’t. I just, I just don’t get why anyone would want to hurt you like this, how they could. I’m still some naïve little twink I guess sometimes, huh? Yeah, but, I wonder the same thing when I think of Hobbes, how the fuck he could have violated me like he did, and that’s what this is, isn’t it? But it’s not the same thing, because that sick fuck…” He choked up again.

He felt Brian’s fingers spasm, then tighten on his. “Brian?” He looked up from where he had been staring at their clasped hands, to see Brian watching him. He sat up straighter, and moved his hand from Brian’s, to his cheek, pulling back when Brian winced. “I’m sorry, you should rest.”

“Justin…”

Justin stopped in the process of rising, and he leaned forward instead. Brian whispered, “I’m fine. Not like you. Don’t be… don’t be upset. Fine. Just…. tired.”

Justin almost laughed in disbelief, but caught himself immediately. He did not know what to expect, really, but told himself in that moment to expect anything. He should expect this. Don’t laugh.

“I know,” Justin answered. He leaned down, and kissed Brian lightly on the mouth, away from the swelling. “I know. Get your rest. I’ll be here, quiet though, so you can sleep.”

“Yeah… you. Quiet. Right. Out... loud.”

Justin smiled down at the man in the bed, but the effort to speak seemed too much for Brian. His eyelids slid shut again, and he slid with them into sleep.

Justin watched him for a long time, vowing he would be there, anything he could do to fix this, if it was fixable, no matter what.

No matter what.