Page 31 of The Wolf and the Monarch

Benji tried to wake himself up from it. But he just couldn’t break it. His body was frozen. The figure continued to loom in on him and he felt nothing but despair and dread looking at it. He was unable to look away until he forced himself to open his eyes…

The first sight he saw was an unexpected one. Sawyer was holding onto that little guy, Clay, by his shirt and pinned against a support beam, with his fist clenched tightly, ready to strike him. Benji thought his eyes were betraying him because what the fuck was going on? He brought his hand up to his forehead and he felt how incredibly sweaty he was. His body felt like it weighed ten thousand pounds. He was so hot and yet a chill still wracked through him.

“You have some nerve coming down here,” Sawyer seethed.

“And you have some nerve leaving the door unlocked,” Clay countered.

Sawyer’s eyes twitched before he narrowed them. “People are sleeping. You,” he emphasized the word by slamming his back against the beam, “Should be sleeping.”

“But you left him unattended and unbound. It’s a good thing I came down. He could have escaped.”

“Look at him!” Sawyer shouted. “He’s sick as a fucking dog from your bullshit. Do you think he’s going anywhere?”

“Actually, I didn’t do much.” Unfortunately, Clay wasn’t wrong. He was mostly just observing. Except with the waterboarding. He was involved with that. “I just wanted to see how he was doing.”

“You weren’t just seeing how he was doing, you goddamn creep.”

Clay grinned and that feeling of dread shocked Benji’s system again. He really fucking hated that guy. “Well, that was how the plan started–”

Before he could finish his sentence, Sawyer sent his fist flying directly into the guy’s face and he tossed him aside by his shirt. “Touch him again like that and I’ll kill you, Clay, you hear me?”

That familiar cackle filled the room again. “Testy, testy, Sawyer.” The man wiped a trickle of blood from his lip and moved towards the stairs. “Milo surely won’t like to hear about this arrangement. It could have been our little secret too if you just butted out…”

“I’ll tell him myself,” Sawyer spat, “And I’ll tell him about all the shit you’ve done over the years to people just like him,” he pointed at Benji. “You think he’s going to want to keep you as his little stooge when he hears about it?”

Clay’s face fell. “Y-You wouldn’t. That’s suicide.”

“Try me, Clay.” Benji’s gaze stayed steadily upon Sawyer. There wasn’t a hint of deception in his voice or in his eyes. He was willing to put himself in harms way to fuck over Clay? “Keep this,” he motioned at the situation, “To yourself and you’ll keep your job for another day.”

He watched as the man looked back and forth between the two of them before he ran up the stairs. Sawyer followed after him and he heard the lock of the door again. A few moments later, he was back down the stairs and picking up all the supplies he had brought down off the floor and knelt down before Benji. Sawyer’s face had a soft shade of a pink to it, probably from his sheer frustration, and it made his freckles really stand out. How cute. “Are you okay?”

“What happened?”

Sawyer shook his head. “It doesn’t matter.”

“I think it does.” He had no idea what happened besides the fact that it was bad enough to get Sawyer so up and arms. It seemed pretty worthy of him knowing. “What were you talking about? What has he done?”

Sawyer brought his hand up and gently placed the back of it against his forehead. His cold hand felt so nice against his hot and clammy skin. “You’re still burning up,” he sighed and grabbed a medicine bottle. “This should work for infections of some sort. I think. I don’t know, but it’s better than nothing.” Sawyer grabbed the bottle of water that was still hanging around and popped open the other bottle to drop a capsule into his hand. Benji could barely move to assist him with drinking the water but they both managed. He dropped his head back down onto the mattress once he swallowed the medicine down and closed his eyes. He was still exhausted. Benji imagined he would be for a while.

He didn’t move again until the cold air in the basement suddenly hit his skin. Benji noted his shirt was pushed up and for the first time in a couple days, he looked at the wound on his side that was causing all the issues. It looked horrendous. It was completely inflamed. Pus was oozing out of it. It was caked with some fresh and dry blood. Benji couldn’t help but groan at the sight. “Fuck me,” he groaned.

“Not like this,” Sawyer deadpanned and their eyes met. And for the first time in days, Benji laughed. It fucking hurt to do it but it still felt so nice. It was such a foreign sound to him at that point, but it was so unexpected. Sawyer tried to hide the smirk that was gracing his lips but it wasn’t working out very well. “Joking, of course,” he added.

“Of course…”

With a shake of his head, he poured some of the water onto the wound and as gently as he could, began to clean it with some gauze he had brought down. Benji hissed softly. “Sorry,” Sawyer muttered.

“It’s fine,” he said through his gritted teeth. “You can tell me about what just happened to make up for it.”

Sawyer huffed. “You’re not going to like it.”

“I haven’t liked much of anything since I’ve been here,” Benji offered. He did like Sawyer. It was just hard to like him that much considering the situation. If they had met another way, things would have been much different… “You were rather upset.”

Sawyer didn’t react much. He just continued to patch up the wound while he spoke. “I came down here and he was laying next to you. Practically on you. Touching you. And he does that shit all the time to other people in your situation. And I should have done something about it sooner, with the others. But I just…saw it with you and I couldn’t stand it. No one deserves that.”

“Oh,” Benji said softly. He didn’t really know how the psyche worked and he didn’t have much time to find out, but if that was true, then it made sense why his dream had shifted in such a way. It had started so soft and honestly sweet. His mind was so upset with what Clay was doing, it shifted everything. Benji was a heavy sleeper, there was no doubt about that, but he was pretty sure he’d notice someone touching him normally. But he was so damn exhausted and sick… He just couldn’t force himself awake.

“Yeah,” Sawyer sighed, “I’m sorry. I should have locked the door but I just…didn’t think about it. Didn’t think anyone would come down here. I should have known better. That’s my fault.”