2  - Altered Beast

Roan wondered how he could be so naïve. Did he really think Dylan being angry with him was the worst thing that was going to come of this?

For the first few hours, it was. Dylan had seen the news footage and figured out that he put himself front and center, making himself the number one target. He admitted he hadn’t told him that was his plan because he knew it would piss him off, and that didn’t make Dylan any happier. He didn’t even get brownie points for honesty.

Roan assumed he’d be sleeping on the sofa, but no, he didn’t. Dylan didn’t say it, he never had to say it, but he was terrified of losing him; he was afraid he was going to up and die on him any second. On the one hand, it was touching; on the other, it was fucking annoying. Dylan accused him of wanting to hasten his own death, which was just the stupidest thing he’d ever heard. What he wanted to do was protect Grant – the rest of it was bullshit. He didn’t know if Dylan believed him or not; ultimately he didn’t care. Randi asked him to help her brother, and he was. Dylan could believe it or not, it was his choice.

Roan was woken up at six in the morning by the phone – that was the beginning. The beginning of publicity hell.

It started with local media, but some national media tried to contact him too. He just hung up and unplugged the phone, turning off his cell as well. He had no comment, wanted to do no interviews, he just wanted to be left alone. He turned the sprinklers on to get the local action news team off his lawn.

Fiona volunteered to become his PR person – she told the news people politely to fuck off on his behalf. Doctor Rosenberg called to cuss him out for almost transforming in spite of his aneurysm warning. (It was hard to tell on camera he was starting to transform; luckily, it just looked like he was jutting his chin out, and for some reason was bleeding from the mouth, but Rosenberg knew what it meant. Sadly, the oddly inhuman jump and show of strength was the thing getting him the attention.) Somebody called from a local production company, suggesting that they might be open to turning his life into a film.

Pissed off beyond all measure, he asked Dylan if he wanted to go to Vancouver with him for a week. Dylan, who was starting to get bugged by reporters at Panic (they found him), happily agreed.

They ended up spending ten days in Vancouver. Roan showed Dylan around, and surreptitiously loaded up on painkillers and downers, which were so much cheaper in Canada. They stayed in a nice hotel just off the water, small but quaint, and very gay friendly, so they didn’t get any shit over that. Their third night there, as they were sitting on a pier, people watching and boat watching, Dylan guessed that this was a special place for him and Paris. He said it was, but only because Paris was from British Columbia; Roan had come to think of it as a second home. He felt better in Vancouver for no reason he could ever name. He thought if he ever got tired of Washington State, he would move up here.

He thought about paying a visit to Paris’s parents, just to say hello, but ultimately decided against it. What would he do besides remind them that their son was dead far before his time? Best to just leave it.

Roan had never done “touristy things” in Vancouver because he was always with a native, who knew where to go if you wanted to score crack at two in the morning, or pick up scalped tickets at ten at night (not that they ever bought crack, but it was good to know). But he did a couple of touristy things with Dylan, at Dyl’s urging, and it was kind of nice to pretend to be brain-dead for a while. They had a really good time, and it was good not to be arguing with him, or to have the subtle but obvious subtext of ‘You’re gonna die soon’ influencing everything.

By ten days, they had no choice but to come back. Dylan could get no more time off work, and Roan’s viral cycle was fast approaching. Fiona had said either it was starting to blow over or people were getting the message that he had no interest in participating in a media circus. She also said she had fielded a couple of “really good offers” and had written them up in case he wanted to look them over. She was holding out hope he’d do an interview with Anderson Cooper and drag him kicking and screaming out of the closet. (A CNN researcher had called, not Cooper. But Fi insisted “she could dream”.)

He intended to go back to work, but as soon as he saw a news van in the parking lot, he decided to stay home. Instead, he asked Fi to man the office and give him a ring if a genuine client – not a media plant (which had happened) – showed up. He did wonder if, this close to his cycle, he should bother working, but fuck it . If he didn’t die this time out, he still had bills to pay.

At least as a professional courtesy, Dennis drew up legal papers for him gratis. He hadn’t told Dylan, but he was leaving him the house and a couple other things; he was leaving stuff to Fi and Dee and Randi as well, and at the last minute he threw in some books and stuff for Holden, as he would appreciate them. He also left a note for Matt, as he still felt bad how that all went down. He also knew he was lucky that he had no living family to contest the will, as leaving stuff for your boyfriend wasn’t always seen as legitimate. Roan had no idea leaving stuff to other people was for heteros only, but hey, you learned something new every day.

And while he said he wanted to be ultimately cremated, he actually left his body to Doctor Rosenberg and her institute. If they wanted to chop him up and see if they could find what made him different from all other virus children, why he didn’t get the same kiss of brain damaged death as the rest of them, they were free to go nuts. Pulp him in a blender for all he cared. A dead body was just a piece of meat, and dead people didn’t give a shit what you did with them. The bright side of being dead, as far as he could tell, was no longer having to give a shit about anything.

It wasn’t long before he was going out of his mind. He had no idea what was wrong with him, he bought a lot of used books at a bookstore in Vancouver and he had lots of shows to catch up on, but after a pointlessly big breakfast (scrambled eggs with salsa and cheese; bacon; spicy sausage; toast with cinnamon sugar, chai tea liberally cut with cream – fuck it, if he was dying, it wasn’t going to be on a diet) he found himself full of restless energy. He popped a couple of Vicodins along with the experimental meds Doctor Singh gave him. He had no idea if they were working, if they would prevent an aneurysm, and he wasn’t sure she knew either. All he knew was sometimes they left him with an odd light-headed feeling that wasn’t altogether unpleasant. As side effects went, he didn’t mind.

He’d started working out on his heavy bag, but gently, because he didn’t want to accidentally bring out the lion, and he didn’t want to wake Dylan, who had closed the bar last night and didn’t get home until almost four in the morning. He was thinking of quitting the bar, but not until he found another job. Sadly, there wasn’t much out there for an art major, but maybe he could get in at another bar where they would let him wear a shirt.

When the phone rang, he let it go to machine, but he heard Doctor Rosenberg cussing at him, so he picked it up. “You were gonna let me go to machine, you bastard,” she carped. “Here I am trying to save your life, and this is the thanks I get. Schmendrek.”

“Hey, you get bugged by the press and answer your damn phone.”

“I have been. I’m the expert in infecteds, remember? They all want to talk about you. Luckily, I get to point out you’re a patient, and confidentiality rules prohibit me from discussing you or anything about you. So they go to that shithead Riley, and he makes these outrageous statements like infecteds can take on psychosomatic feline tendencies. What fucking bullshit. I bet he gets a book deal and goes on Doctor Phil.”

He had no idea who Riley was, but he assumed a rival doctor. “So I’m a psychosomatic lion? Interesting. What about the bleeding?”

“I dunno. Maybe he thinks you bit your lip. Look, you’re gonna go into cycle this week, aren’t ya?”

She really wasn’t much for foreplay. “Yeah. I’m not turning myself in to the hospital.”

“Turn yourself into me. Come by tomorrow. I’m gonna chemically induce a coma.”

“Pardon?”

“Listen to me: you need more time for the meds you’re on now to work. You know we got safe rooms here, private safe rooms. You’ll still change while in a coma, but it shouldn’t be as hard on your system; if your blood pressure was absurdly low, raising it twofold won’t matter. This will work.”

“You’re guessing.”

“But it’s a good guess. Look, fuck your pride- you wanna live another month or not?”

Man, she was relentless, wasn’t she? That was why he liked her, but also why he hated her at the same time. “Yeah, of course, but -”

“So get your ass down here tomorrow. I’d prefer morning, but, knowing you, I’ll have to settle for  afternoon. Now, you gonna do it, or do I tell Dylan?”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“Wouldn’t I?”

He sighed. “Oh, goddamn it.”

“See you tomorrow, Roan. Or else.”

She rung off, and he wondered why he kept her as a doctor. Just because she was smarter than everyone else and seemed to treat him like an actual person and not a piece of meat. Surely there was another doctor who was like that, he just hadn’t looked hard enough.

Ah, fuck it. He just liked people who didn’t take shit, and Rosenberg just didn’t take shit from anyone. He should have kept in mind that included him.

He’d only been working on the bag for another five minutes when the drugs started to really kick in, and his cell phone rang. He’d changed the number to one only three people knew: Dylan, Fiona, and Dee (he’d have to give it to Holden one of these days, or Fi would), so he had no problem answering this phone. “Yeah?”

“Oh, you have to come in,” Fi said, keeping her voice low. “We got an actual customer, and Christ on a stick, you hafta look at this guy.”

“Cute?”

“No – huge. I mean, shit, you need a guy your own size to pick on? This may be him. He also has fresh stitches in his chin, but he doesn’t look like an assassin otherwise.”

Fresh stitches in his face? Possible domestic violence and/or bar fight was the most likely answer, but if the guy was a professional troublemaker, he might be wearing his work home with him. “You’re not getting a bad vibe off him, are you?”

“No, he’s been as pleasant as can be. Looks like he’s had his nose broken a while ago. Could he be one of those MMA cage fighters?”

“You tell me. I’m on my way.”

He hung up and a quick sniff told him he hadn’t had enough of a workout to stink, so he simply changed into more presentable clothes and took the bike out, since it was a clear day and it was much easier to outrun news teams on the Buell. The Vicodin gave him a pleasantly mellow feeling.

He parked out behind the cemetery (oddly, there was one across the street from the office park, kind of run down and overgrown – if it was a statement of some kind, he wasn’t sure what) and walked into work, still wearing his mirrored motorcycle helmet, so if there was someone snapping photos in the lot, they get a shitload of nothing. Once inside his office, he took off the helmet.

“Ah, here he is,” Fiona said, gesturing to him, as a huge man got up from the front room’s chair and approached him with his hand out.

He was six foot three at least, maybe two ten, all muscle, his shoulders and chest nearly Paris broad. He was wearing a baggy black t-shirt and baggy jeans, so he wasn’t trying to show off, and his worn Converse sneakers and even more worn brown leather jacket seemed to indicate he either had no money or nothing approaching fashion awareness. He had a beaten up olive drab backpack  slung over one shoulder.

His brown hair was cut short and streamlined, but it did inadvertently highlight a face that had seen many fights. He had the ghost of a white scar on his forehead, something of a divot in his right cheek, the bump on the bridge of a strong nose (definitely suggesting at least one previous break), and those fresh stitches Fi had mentioned, stretching out for an inch and a half in a rough perpendicular line across his chin. He was neither handsome or ugly, but his many facial wounds made him interesting to look at and strangely fascinating. His eyes were that odd watery blue you sometimes encountered and could never quite believe was real. He was in his early to mid twenties at a best guess, but he was one of those guys who probably never looked boyish.

“Hey, hi, I’m Grey Williams,” the big man said, shaking his hand. He almost crushed his fingers, and Roan knew he was actively trying not to. Hell of a grip. If Roan heard the flatness of his vowels correctly, he was either originally from Minnesota or spent a lot of time there.

“Hello, Roan McKichan. Why don’t we go into my office?”

“Sure,” he agreed amiably. He followed him in, saying a polite “Bye” to Fiona as they went. What the hell was he, a brawling farm boy?

“So what brings you here, Mr. Williams, and who beat the shit out of you?” Roan asked, as he shut the door.

Grey looked back at him, surprised and briefly confused. “Huh? Nobody’s – oh! Y’mean the stitches? Nobody hit me, I just stopped a puck with my face. Didn’t mean to, but hey, shit happens.”

For a moment, he wasn’t sure he said “puck”, but that was the only thing that made sense. “You a hockey player?”

“Yep, defenseman for the Seattle Falcons.”

Roan sat behind his desk and gestured to the chair in front. Grey sat down, sliding his backpack to the floor. “Oh. Defenseman’s code for “enforcer”, isn’t it?” The Falcons were a minor league team, or at least they weren’t in the NHL. Roan honestly didn’t know how these things worked, as sports had never been a passion of his. All he knew about hockey he knew from Paris, who, as a Canadian kid, was forced to like it under penalty of death.

Grey chuckled at this. “Can be. Is in my case. What gave it away?”

“Besides you being just incredibly fucking huge? You look like you’ve been in a few fights in your life.”

“Yep, and won all of them. Well, not in the third grade, but I don’t think that counts. Ain’t much of a scorer, but shit, can I hit people.” He grinned in a kind of goofy pride, revealing a missing tooth on the lower half of his face, pretty much parallel with part of the stitches. The puck must have taken out a tooth too. Ouch. “And by the way, I gotta say, really impressed by the whole crowd thing. Y’know, where you took out the Nazi and his friend? Really cool.”

The man that tried to shoot Grant was a self-professed Neo-Nazi, along with his bat wielding pal. They had a manifesto posted on their respective MySpace pages calling infecteds the “Armageddon of the human race”, but best of all, nearly every other word was misspelled. They were so fucking stupid they couldn’t even spell “believe” right. “Just doing my job. Now, what’s this about? I take it you’re not married, so this can’t be about your wife.”

He had lifted his backpack to his lap, but froze, cocking his head at him curiously. “How d’ya know I’m not married?”

“No ring.”

“Oh.” He looked down at his own hand, and chuckled faintly. He had big hands, and the knuckles were slightly calloused. He hadn’t been lying about getting into lots of fights, but Roan wondered if they were all on the ice. “Oh yeah. That’s pretty obvious, huh? It’s just, I’ve heard things about you, and I thought you were doing some Sherlock Holmes shit on me.”

“No, no Sherlock Holmes, just basic observation.” He was going to let it go, but damn it, he couldn’t. “What have you heard about me?”

He shrugged as he unzipped the backpack. “Just that you look into weird cases, y’know, strange stuff. You don’t scare easy. That right?” The look in his eyes was almost challenging, like he was daring him to be honest.

Sure, he was a big boy, but he was going to have to do better than that. “Yeah, it is.”

Grey stared at him for a moment before nodding, as if seeing what he wanted to see in his eyes, and pulled out a folder held closed with a rubber band stretched precariously around its bulging sides. He placed it on his desk, right in front of him. “About a year ago, my oldest friend’s sister was killed. She was murdered execution style in an alley beside her apartment building by two men. It remains an open case, no suspects, no leads.”

Roan glanced at the file, but didn’t open it. “If it’s an open case, I can’t get involved.”

Grey didn’t react. He remained stone faced, which was actually pretty intimidating considering the amount of facial wounds he had. “Can you if the police did it?”

Okay, this just went in a direction he didn’t expect.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1 – Lost At Birth

 

 

 

Roan was so bored, he’d decided that “Tanning Salon Pervert” would be the perfect name for his biography.

Flipping through the TV channels last night, the information bar was visible at the bottom of the screen, and as he surfed past one news magazine program, he saw their episode was titled “Tanning Salon Pervert”. He didn’t watch it, on general principal he refused to watch anything that called itself a news magazine, but the words intrigued him. They sounded wrong in a wonderfully obtuse way, like “peanut butter hut” or “purple elephant pedophile”. Now he’d never been in a tanning salon, and whether he was a pervert or not was subjective and almost totally hinged on your personal interpretation of the Bible (or if you even had one), but the phrase just stuck with him. He bet he’d sell thousand of copies to disappointed people actually wanting the sordid tale of a man who got off on watching women fry under UV lights or get sprayed with fake bake. Instead, they’d get the mundane story of a gay ex-cop with anger management issues who could change into a lion at will.

Come to think of it, not that mundane. But nowhere near as a interesting as tanning salon pervert.

Perhaps Dylan was right. Maybe he was way too blasé about hate. Here he was, standing in front of a crowd chanting “Kill the cat!” some waving homemade signs reading ‘Drown them in the river!’ (and some brought sacks – how cute) in front of the county hospital along with a cordon line of other cops, trying to keep them back from the doors. Grant Kim was out of cycle, and was being transferred to a special holding cell at the county courthouse until he could be arraigned for several counts of second degree murder (all murders committed while in cat form were charged as second degree). Imprisoning infecteds was difficult, mainly because no one felt safe releasing them into a prison’s genpop (not only was their blood super infectious, but they were obvious targets for harassment by other inmates), and the erratic natures of the viral cycles made it difficult to say for sure when they’d change. Most were kept in special hospitals, although lawsuits had been filed over that. (There was only one prison specifically made for infecteds only, and that was in – of course – Texas.)

Normally he wouldn’t be part of the cordon, but Chief Matthews was seriously concerned about the threat level, and asked him to come in and help. He was glad to do so, even though Dylan was afraid: “If someone recognizes you, Roan, they will target you.”

What he didn’t tell Dylan was that was fine with him. He had always been one of those aggressive queers. Instead of adopting a victim mentality, whenever anyone accused, “You’re a fag!” his response would always be along the lines of “What of it?” He was the same way as an infected. He was supposed to be ashamed because he had some fucking mutant virus? Because he was born with it? Fuck them. Yeah, he was infected, what of it? If someone wanted to attack him for it, they were free to, but he’d only let them leave a bruise. A bruise was all he needed to legally prove self-defense, even if he ended up kicking the living shit out of them. Which he would do, definitely; he’d make them pick their teeth up off the street. If they were very lucky, the lion wouldn’t come out.

The other cops were uneasy about having him around. He thought maybe it was because he wasn’t actually on the force anymore (adviser just didn’t count), or because he was gay or infected (or both), but he discovered the real reason from a rookie, Hawkins, a cute little short haired bottle blonde who seemed almost too darling to be a cop. (That could actually work in her favor in some cases – some men might be reluctant to hit her. Others would attack her eagerly though, so it was a give and take.) She came up beside him to take her place in the cordon, and after looking him up and down, said, “So, you’re Batman.” Ah, so that was it. Everybody had seen the security tapes, and now everyone just assumed he was superhuman or something. He’d deny it, but he wasn’t sure if he was being completely honest. Not that he was superhuman, but other than human? Yeah, he might be in the other category.

It was a sunny but cool day, and he was trying to look as butch as possible to discourage any of the lunatics. He wore mirrored sunglasses to fit in with most of the other cops, but he was only dressed in biker boots, jeans, and a black These Arms Are Snakes t-shirt, but one that was kind of tight, to show off a well developed torso. (Which he got through a bit of muscle manipulation. Okay, so he wasn’t supposed to ever let the lion out or risk a blood vessel popping in his brain, but again, his attitude was fuck it – he was going to live his life as always, and if it killed him, it killed him. So he let out the lion just enough to make him seem a bit more muscular than he actually was.) It was cold enough he had to cross his arms over his chest, allowing him to do some subtle bicep flexing to make them look bigger, and the short sleeves showed off most of the new tattoo on his arm, Dylan’s tiger sketch now made permanent in blue and black ink. It was so new he’d just taken off the bandage this morning. It didn’t hurt, but then again, as full of Vicodin as he was, he’d have been surprised to feel anything.

(Now he felt vindicated in his pill popping. Downers lowered blood pressure, right? So downers might keep his blood vessels from going off like fireworks on Chinese New Year. Yes, it was self-serving and probably wrong, but he wanted to believe it, and that might just be enough denial to make it so.)

He was wearing an earpiece radio, just like the rest of the cops, which is how he knew that finally things were under way. Two different handcuffed men, surrounded by cops and with jackets over their heads, were going to be hustled out of the hospital and into the back of a goddamned paddy wagon (a “prisoner transport” - nice way of saying paddy wagon). One of them would be Grant, and the other was an undercover cop. That was how vicious and serious the threats were against Grant Kim – a decoy had been employed. How had a scrawny Asian kid who was barely a hundred pounds soaking wet and generally as harmless as all fuck become public enemy number one?

Roan had gotten him a lawyer, one of Dennis’s proteges, and Dennis’s office got sent a bit of white powder in an envelope with a note that said all kitty fuckers had to die. (It was soap, not anthrax, but that wasn’t the impression he wanted to leave.) There was a bomb threat against the hospital last week. Threats had been issued against cops on the web, or at least those who stood in the way of them getting Grant. Why this case had turned so ugly in the public eye was unknown. Was it because a teenage boy was a victim? A father of two? The number of victims? Because Grant and the first two victims were living in a relationship most found horrifyingly immoral? (The troika of Curtis, Tiffany, and him, with Grant still getting some on the outside of their threesome.) Maybe all of the above, maybe none. Roan had come to expect a certain amount of hysteria in these cases, but this seemed even more excessive than normal. He was so sorry he ever advised Dylan to have Seb bring Grant in, although if the cops eventually caught him and brought him in (likely), it would have been so much worse for Grant.

Would someone have actually been stupid enough to attack Grant with about a dozen cops on the scene? Considering how foaming at the mouth this crowd looked, Roan could believe it was a good possibility. There was an ugly feeling in the air, a sense of impending violence. It made the hairs on the back of his neck rise, and it was all he could do not to growl.

He was wearing an obvious gun, and had a taser on the side of his jeans, but he wondered if or when something went wrong if he’d actually use them. Lately his instincts had led him to go hand to hand. Perhaps that was just another reason for the guys to call him Batman.

The cops stood shoulder to shoulder, making a Human blockade, not only hiding the men being hustled to the van from view, but also trying to intimidate anyone who might be thinking about attacking. Roan made sure he was in the center near the end, so he was both the most exposed and had the best view of the restless crowd.

Somewhere near the person with the ‘Where is our civil right to be safe?’ sign a chant of “Kill the cats!” began, and Roan wondered what was wrong with him. In the face of this incoherent mob violence, he should be afraid, but he honestly wanted to anger them more. He wanted to grab Lieutenant Ramirez and tongue kiss him before transforming into a lion, and he really didn’t even like Lieutenant Ramirez (he was way too fidgety, and he hated his porn ’stache). Something in him just lived to be contrary. If he couldn’t have their respect, he’d accept their hate.

As the officers started coming out with Kim and the undercover stunt double, Roan noticed an almost Brownian motion in the crowd, and he saw the ghostly pale scalp of a man pushing forward, so wan his skin was almost the exact same color as his off white hooded sweatshirt. He was elbowing people aside and reaching into his pocket, and Roan knew in that second he wasn’t going for his phone. “Gun!” he shouted, diving into the crowd.

There was screaming, cops shouting in his radio, people running one way or another, but the man was focused on Grant, and Roan was focused on him, so much so that the crowd of people around him, even those he was reflexively shoving aside, dwindled away to mere spots in his peripheral vision. Noise was nothing; all drowned in the blood pounding in his ears and the growl burbling up from his throat.

The man had managed to pull the gun out of his pocket before Roan was on him, tackling him and riding him to the ground, hands firmly grabbing his wrists and pinning them to the asphalt parking lot. The man, tall and lean but still fairly strong, tried to buck him off, but Roan had too much experience riding guys (ha) and wasn’t moved. “Motherfucker!” the man shouted, spittle spraying from his lips. “Cat fucking fascist p -”

Roan felt the bones in his wrist like fish bones, fine and fragile, and with just the tiniest squeeze they crackled like dead leaves under his fingers. The man screamed incoherently, arching in pain, as the gun fell out of his useless hand. He saw a fast moving blur in his peripheral vision, a bigger, chunkier guy pulling a baseball bat out of one of the cat drowning sacks and charging him. He was vaguely aware of a cop – maybe more than one – yelling “Freeze!” But he ignored it as much as the man did.

With a snarl he jumped, and he slammed bodily into the man, who was too surprised and hit too swiftly to react. He went crashing to the parking lot, still managing to hold on to the bat, and as he brought it up, Roan caught it and yanked it out of his hands, throwing it across the lot. Although the Vicodin was helping to keep his anger in check, he still felt a sharp, deep pain in his jaw as it shifted, and tasted blood. “Who else wants some?!” he roared at the onlookers. The ones who didn’t want trouble already fled; those who were considering whether or not to join the fray if there was any chance of winning were still loitering about, and most were in the dangerous demographic of men in their late teens and early twenties, the probable age group of the would be assailants. The sideliners stared at him in goggle eyed horror, and he could smell the sudden fear like a toxic spill of vinegar. The fight was over; no one wanted to chance it.

“Jesus fucking Christ Batman, couldn’t you leave some for us?” Thompson carped. He was the cop that looked not unlike a young Jim Brown and had been at the head of the escort line. Roan wouldn’t have minded tongue kissing him; he was much more attractive than Ramirez.

“Oh, he’s always been a show off,” Dee said, kneeling beside him and putting his EMT kit on the ground. Yep, ambulance teams were standing by, and since they were at a hospital, it seemed almost silly. There were doctors inside – why couldn’t they use them? Probably some damn insurance thing.

Dee looked him in the eye, an eyebrow raised in concern, and asked, “You okay, Ro?”

It was probably the Vicodin, but he felt much more in control of himself. The lion hadn’t come out enough to run away with him, it had just come out enough to distend his jaw a bit. Oh, and allow him to throw a body slam on a guy trying to assault him with a bat. And break a man’s wrists like they were made of spun sugar. Okay, so the lion had come out a bit more than he intended. At least no one was dead, himself included. Roan wiped the blood away from his mouth, and said, “Peachy.”

“I can’t breathe,” the man beneath him gasped, obviously breathing, but wincing in pain all the same. Roan got off of him, and he rolled over on his side and curled up into a fetal position, holding his ribs.

“You know, if you just Googled this red haired bastard you’d have saved yourself a world of hurt,” Dee scolded him, snapping on a pair of rubber gloves. Roan stood, and noticed Shep and some other paramedic he didn’t recognize were attempting to work on the gunman, who was still screaming and writhing in pain. Three cops were standing around them, but only one still bothered to have his taser out. Roan visually confirmed the paddy wagon was gone; Grant and the other cops got away, as they were supposed to have done. Mission accomplished.

He rubbed the back of his neck and scanned the rest of the lot, freezing as soon as his eyes fell on a cameraman for channel five standing crouched beside an SUV, the hair helmeted “action news reporter” beside him (his name was Chip or Flip or some damn cartoon name). Roan only needed to see the blow dried wonder’s mouth moving in profile to know he was saying to his cameraman, “Tell me you got that.”

Oh shit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 21 –  Midnight In A Perfect World

What was he expecting? Roan didn’t know. It didn’t help that he was still woozy from meds, and from some weird nightmare where he felt like he was suffocating and was sure he wasn’t ever getting out of this fucking hospital.

Doctor Singh noticed the tray shoved aside, and asked, “You didn’t eat your breakfast? Are you nauseous?”

He poured himself another glass of water – he sweat a lot during his nightmare; he needed the water – and said, “No. I didn’t eat it because it’s hospital food. If it smells bad to you, imagine how it smells to me.” Dylan had already snuck in this morning, and after a discussion, Dylan nipped out to go buy him some decent food. He kind of hoped Singh was gone by that time, but he had a feeling Singh liked Dylan, or at least liked looking at him. (Who could blame her?)

“It smells fine to me.”

“It’s not, trust me.” He took a gulp of water, then said, “Whatever it is, break it to me. I’d like to be out of here within the hour.”

Singh frowned, her brow furrowing, but it was the worried look in her eyes that bothered him. She seemed like a cool and rather aloof doctor, a veteran with a steady poker face, but it was now breaking. That was never a good sign. “I’m not sure that’s advisable.”

“Why not? Am I dying? If so, no offense, I’d rather do it elsewhere.”

“Your headaches got worse, didn’t they?” she asked, deciding to get to the point in a roundabout way. “You had an incident you didn’t report to us.”

“Incident?”

“Severe head pain? Blurry vision? Unconsciousness? Vomiting? Any of those ring a bell, Roan?” Now she was scowling at him like an upset mother.

He sighed, and figured there was no point in denying it, as obviously she had some evidence of it. “I may have passed out for like a minute. It wasn’t a big deal. And the next day I got a pain in my head bad enough to make me stagger, which is why I took what turned out to be elephant tranqs.”

She shook her head. “Good lord. Now I really have no idea why you aren’t dead. You had an aneurysm, Roan.”

“No,” he replied reflexively. He had no idea why he was denying it.

“Yes, you did. The scans we did confirmed it.”

“Don’t people who have brain aneurysms usually drop dead?”

“Often, not always. But from what I’ve seen, you probably should have.” She looked at her clipboard aggressively, holding it like she was considering hitting him with it.”The problem is treatment. You’re an excellent candidate for another one – in fact, when your change cycle comes in, I advise you get yourself hospitalized in advance. Your boyfriend said it was due in about two weeks. Is that true?”

“Round about. You now how erratic the cycles are.” He didn’t mention he could basically shift at will, as, if she believed him, she might order him hospitalized now. “But are you gonna have a vet handy? ‘Cause I really don’t see how you can treat me in lion form if something does go wrong.”

“Doctor Rosenberg’s volunteered to be on call for you.”

”She’s not a vet.”

Singh fixed him with a look that could have blown the back of his head off. “Knock it off now. This is very serious.”

“Infecteds are prone to this kind of shit. Kills a lot of us. I’m not dead yet, so can I go now?”

He thought she was going to lose her temper at him, but she reined it back at the last minute. “Surgery is an option.”

“Brain surgery? Look, I’m not still actively bleeding in the brain, am I?”

“You’d be dead if you were.” She scowled again, but her dark eyes seemed turned inward. “The bleeding stopped on its own.”

“That’s good, isn’t it?” But even as he said it, he knew that didn’t sound quite right.

She held the clipboard up like she was brandishing a sword. “This doesn’t make sense, you know. An aneurysm ruptured in your brain, and may have been bleeding for some time. This should have killed you, Roan, this should have at least laid you flat. There’s a theory that you actually overdosed on elephant tranquilizers at just the right time, as it lowered your blood pressure to an absurd degree, limiting damage and slowing bleeding until it stopped.”

It was just the way she said it that gave it away. “But you don’t think that’s it.”

“It could be. For all I know, it was as good as inducing hypothermia. But it doesn’t make sense. In all my years on the job, I’ve never seen anything like this, and I don’t know what to make of it.” This seemed to really trouble her, as if it was a failing on her part.

“No one knows what to make of me,” he told her, trying to comfort her. He wasn’t sure why. “I’m a puzzle that can’t be solved. Kind of like the virus.”

She shook her head, and slapped her clipboard against her other arm. “Everything can be solved. It might take decades, but there’s a solution to everything.”

“Spoken like a true scientist. Or maybe House. I don’t have decades, do I?”

She threw up her hands (and clipboard) helplessly. “I don’t know. You could die tomorrow, Roan. You could live another twenty years. But once you have one aneurysm - and this one was out of the blue; your blood pressure wasn’t high, which is the most common aneurysm trigger - you are likely to have another one. This is the gift that keeps on giving.”

“Like the virus. Look, I get it, and you’re absolved. Release me. I want to go, and there’s nothing you can do for me here. If I die, I die. Maybe I’ll get lucky and my whole head will exploded, ala Scanners. I always wanted to die in a way that would leave people cleaning up after me for days, so I’m good with that.”

“Can you be serious for one second? We’re talking about your mortality here.”

“And I’ve lived with death all my life, and I’m kind of bored with it now. If I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die. About twenty years overdue, according to most estimates, so at least I beat the warranty. Not many people can say that.” It sounded comforting, it sounded true, but he didn’t honestly know what he was feeling at this point. Maybe it was the drugs, maybe it was the fact that he’d been pronounced to be on death’s door a million times, or maybe it was the fact that the virus somehow ended the bleeding. That was it, wasn’t it? No, it didn’t make sense, viruses didn’t work like that and they certainly didn’t have intelligence or direction, but viruses did have the innate drive to survive. If he was half virus or whatever the fuck, maybe that was enough.

It struck him then that that was what they meant when they called him a hybrid. Not a hybrid of man and lion, but man and virus, DNA strands locked mercilessly in a struggle that neither would ultimately win. In the meantime, that left him … what? A walking disease?

Probably. Was he surprised? He needed to wear that bell around his neck and randomly intone, “Unclean” to warn people.

“I still think you’re taking this too lightly. We’d like to keep you for observation -”

“Trust me, there’s nothing to see. I’m amazingly boring.”

“Would you stop being an asshole for one fucking second?” she snapped. “We think we spotted another potential aneurysm in your CT scan. Do you even care?”

“I care, but what can you do about it? Is brain surgery actually the answer here?”

She grimaced, scowled, glared at him as if he’d caught her in a lie. In a way, he had. “It’s not in a part of the brain I’d advise operating on. There’s few who’d attempt it.”

“Okay, that answers that question. I’m gonna get dressed now.” Dylan had brought him some clothes, like he asked, even though he wasn’t sure he should leave the hospital if the doctors didn’t advise it. He appreciated his concern, it was always touching, but he was sure Dylan didn’t yet understand his abiding hatred of being cooped up in hospitals. He’d have preferred prison, and they felt roughly the same.

“God, you are really going to be this much of a dick, huh?”

“This is your bedside manner?” he asked, slipping the boxer shorts on under his paper gown. Only then did he happily take the damn thing off and put a proper t-shirt on.

“I’ve given up with you,” she replied.

He could only shrug. “Fair enough.” He wiggled into his jeans – made infinitely harder since he was laying down – but he didn’t want to stand just yet, because he was afraid the drugs would make him woozy, and his almost falling over would be all she needed to get him re-admitted. He just wasn’t staying here, no matter how bad he was.

“There’s a new drug that might help. Will you at least try that?”

“Won’t make me a zombie, will it?”

“I doubt it.”

“Fine, I’ll give it a go. You know I’m not adverse to pills.”

She sighed and her shoulders slumped, like she was beyond tired. Or perhaps he simply drove her to the brink. She wouldn’t be the first. “This is your life, Roan. You shouldn’t be so cavalier about it.”

“Trust me, I’m not being that way. It’s just hard to work up energy about it when I’ve been told I’m about to die so often that I always felt they should just make a card of it and flash it at me every time I see a doctor.”

“Will you arrange to come here by your next cycle?”

“Maybe. Let’s see if I live that long, huh?” Maybe was actually a no, but since he was preparing for an argument with Dylan later, he didn’t feel like fighting with her any longer.

She must have felt the same way, because she shook her head in disgust and turned away, saying, “I’ll go get you the meds.”

As soon as she was gone, he collapsed on the bed and stared up at the ceiling. Shouldn’t he have been upset? Why wasn’t he upset? Did he really not care if he lived or died? He had no religion, believed in no gods and no afterlife, and yet maybe, somewhere in the back of his mind, he still held out some vain hope he’d see Paris again. Maybe. He could be an idiot as much as anyone else.

He was putting on his sneakers when Dylan came back, holding a fast food bag and a paper cup. “You are so lucky I’m such a nice guy.”

He didn’t have to ask why. The smell hit his nose, and his stomach rumbled in anticipation. “Oh, you beautiful man. You got me a steak breakfast burrito.”

“I can’t believe you even eat breakfast burritos. They’re disgusting.”

“Many are disgusting, yes. But ever now and then, you find one that’s pure ecstasy in a tortilla. And this one is, thanks to the chipotle sauce.” Roan got up, and found it easy with such impetus behind the movement. He went over to Dylan and kissed him before taking the bag and the cold cup from him.

Dylan shook his head, his lips thinning, but it was an affectionate sort of exasperation. “I’m glad I can’t have my vegetarian status revoked, because this would do it.”

“You’re doing it for love. People would understand. Well, maybe not PETA.” Even though he was eager to leave, he was ravenous, so he sat on the edge of the bed and opened the bag, pulling out the hot, paper wrapped burrito, which he peeled open eagerly. It was probably still too hot to eat, but as soon as he sunk his teeth into it, he didn’t care. Before the spicy sauce kicked in, he could taste all the hot fat and salty calories, the meat and the eggs and the crispy bit of hash browned potatoes they threw in as well. Bliss. He might have had an orgasm if Dylan had gotten him a pumpkin pie shake too, but he’d gotten him a Pepsi, which he had admittedly requested. (He needed the sugar and caffeine.)

He ate greedily, gulping half of it down in little over a minute, and Dylan sat down in the room’s only chair. “Are you going to tell me what’s wrong, or do I have to pry it out of you?”

He finished chewing, washed it down with a gulp of soda so sweet and ice cold it made his teeth hurt, and said, “You’re gonna want me to stay here. But I want you to know I’m not going to. I’m doing this my own way, and I hope you’ll support me even if you think I’m the biggest idiot in the world.”

Dylan stared at him in a way that suggested he wasn’t sure what to do: punch him or laugh. “You should get that printed on a card and hand it out to potential boyfriends. By the time most of us figure that part out, we’re in too deep.”

“I probably deserved that.”

“Look, I know you, okay? Something was wrong and you hid it from me, because you didn’t want to admit weakness. And you’re terrified of hospitals, so you want to get out of here as fast as possible, even if it hastens your death. How am I doing?”

He let a pause linger. “I wouldn’t say terrified.”

He rolled his eyes. “You also use humor to try and defuse situations and change the subject, or alternately you use it as a weapon. You do it a lot. You’re a closet comedian.”

“I make you laugh.”

“All the time. But that isn’t the point. The point is I just found you, you selfish bastard, and you can’t die on me now.” He tried to blink away nascent tears, then gave up and just ran the back of his hand across his eyes.

A weight seemed to settle in his stomach, unrelated to the food, and it seemed to want to clog his throat. Roan didn’t let it. “I promise you, Dylan, I’m not gonna die. Not without a fight.  You know how I love to fight. That hasn’t changed.”

“It better not.”

Roan sat there, wondering how far ahead Paris had planned. He discovered only after he met Dylan that Paris had actively singled Dylan out and all but groomed him to take his place; he selected Roan’s next boyfriend for him, which was exactly like Par, so much so that he didn’t know why it shocked him that he had. Like he’d let him find someone that Par didn’t judge worthy? As if. But was this part of the reason why? Paris knew he’d be eager to join him in the nothingness of death, sweet oblivion, so he made sure there was something that would pull him back, make him want to stay alive even if only by sheer guilt. Was that the entire intent?

How weird was it that most of the important men in his life were dead, and yet he could still feel them in his life?

Wow. His existence was so much weirder than he thought.

****

It was like stepping out into a new world. Well, no, the same old fucked up one, with a few minor changes.

The “Sex Tape Scandal!” headlines seemed to suggest that the Newberry sex video had been found and released to the world, and Roan knew instantly that Holden was responsible. He found it, and he leaked it. Why? Because that was him. Hide something from him, and he would share it just to be an ass. Not that he would do anything different, but Holden was a bit more flamboyantly nasty.

The surprising thing was Jessie Newberry apparently committed suicide. Reports had it happening shortly after the video was leaked on the web, and while he left no note (suspicious), it was assumed the video was enough to send him over the edge. He was a troubled person, it seemed. Speaking of which, Kyle Newberry had supposedly checked into rehab ahead of the P.R. shitstorm. Was there an incest rehab? Well, why not? There seemed to be a rehab for everything else.

Grant was in legal custody, and many people were rather angry about the whole thing. It was understandable, but he didn’t kill anyone on purpose. No matter, many people still wanted his head. He wondered if Randi hated him now.

On a similar note, remains had been discovered in a wooded area, and they were assumed to be Tiffany Jones, although identification was still pending. Roan hoped it wasn’t, for Grant’s sake.

Gordo was out of the hospital, but he was still on leave from the cop shop and rather unhappy about it. He was a man who defined himself by his job, so without it, he felt lost. Roan could understand, he was the same way sort of, but usually he had so much shit going on that he could only muster a half definition at best. There was also the fact that macho cops like them hated being labeled as fragile.

At least Dylan waited until they got home before they started arguing. Dylan thought the diagnosis was very serious and Roan wasn’t treating it as such. That seemed unfair, as he agreed it was serious, it just wasn’t something he could get worked up about. Why he didn’t know. It didn’t really help his side in the fight.

Roan left Dylan to stew and fume at him in private, and went down to the basement, where he sat on the stairs and looked at the cage – his cage. The door was still ajar from last time he used it, and Dylan didn’t touch the thing. It wasn’t so much that he was scared of it … okay, yeah, that was part of it. Most of it.

Why didn’t the prospect of dying in it bother him? Roan knew it should, but it didn’t. It bothered Paris, that’s why he committed suicide ahead of his final transformation. He wanted to die a Human, not a half-tiger monstrosity. He understood that totally.

But the idea of it didn’t really bother him. Maybe because the lion had as much claim to him as his Human form. He didn’t know what it was like to be just Human; he had always been something else, something caught between what he seemed to be and what he actually was. Human, lion, virus. A freak amongst freaks. He deserved to die as he lived, neither here nor there, torn between Human and other.

Dim sunlight was bleeding through the tiny rectangular window at the very top of the basement, casting a shaft of light inside the cage itself, a vivid line on the poured concrete floor. He could still catch a whiff of tiger deep down beneath the more dominant scent of lion, or at least he thought he did. It could have been psychosomatic, something he wanted to believe.

Just like he wanted to believe his death would be as simple as transforming and causing a blood vessel to burst in his brain. In a bizarre way, he thought it might be nice.

But he had a feeling it wasn’t going to be that easy. Nothing ever was.

****

(To Be Continued ..?)