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“Nate.” Benny ducks his head, forcing Nathan to meet his gaze. “You’re drunk off your ass, rambling about Harry Potter, confessing love, and bleeding all over the place.”
“I’m not-” Nathan’s words stop when he sees that Benny is telling the truth. His hands are covered in blood, the skin of his knuckles bruising and split. He just stares down at them in wonder. “Oh.”
Benny tries to take the bottle of whiskey again. Nathan lets him this time.
“Can I trust you to keep your mouth shut until we get to my bedroom?” Nathan nods, deciding he should start now for some practice. “Okay. Let’s go, then. I’ll send a slave in to clean.”
He lets Benny guide him out of the gym and into the main area. People keep looking at him, just as they did before. He holds his head high and glares at them to keep them in their place. They all quickly skitter away.
“Alright, bud.” Benny opens his bedroom door and forces Nathan inside, not even allowing him to glance over his shoulder at his own door down the hall. He sits Nathan down on the edge of the bed before disappearing into the bathroom for a while, coming back with a bottle of Tylenol, a wet cloth, and his med-kit.
Nathan groans. “Nooo.”
“Shut up.” He tosses the bottle at Nathan before grabbing some water from his mini fridge and placing it on the mattress beside him. “Take the damn pills.”
“You’re very bossy…”
“You’re very pouty.”
Nathan frowns, his bottom lip curving out. When he realizes he is, in fact, pouting, he quickly straightens his expression and focuses on the pills instead. He hisses when Benny pours antiseptic over his cuts, shooting a glare at his unsympathetic friend. “Careful, asshole.”
“Shut up.” He dabs Nathan’s hand with a piece of gauze. “I can’t believe you did this. So reckless, you fucking idiot.”
“I know.” Nathan swallows hard, hearing the echo of Carter in his mind. “He had a nightmare.”
Benny looks up at him, his hand pausing its work. “And?”
“He eventually calmed down without waking up, but he – he said some things, while having it.”
“What things?”
“Confusing things.” Nathan winces when Benny returns to working on his hand, but he doesn’t complain this time. He deserves the pain. “He was crying, saying he didn’t know what to do, apologizing over and over. He was talking to someone named Casey, it sounded like. And he – well, it sounded like he was apologizing for picking me over him.”
His friend frowns as he wipes off the extra blood on Nathan’s hand and wrist. “Picking you over Casey?”
“Yeah.”
“You don’t know who Casey is?”
“No.”
“Do you know what he was picking one of you for?”
Nathan sighs. “No.”
“But you must have an idea if it fucked you up this bad.”
“Yeah. I – fuck, Benny.” Nathan laughs humorlessly, feeling sliced open and raw. “I think he chose to stay with me. It sounded like this Casey wanted Carter to leave me, and Carter picked to stay with me instead.”
Benny nods slowly without saying anything. He carefully wraps Nathan’s hand before moving on to the other one. When he still hasn’t said anything, Nathan asks, “Why would he ever pick me, Ben?”
His friend sighs heavily before rocking back to rest on his heels and looking up at him. “I don’t know. Maybe he sees the real you. Maybe you’re not as good at hiding yourself from him as you’d like to believe.”
Nathan closes his eyes, picturing Carter.
How could he ever pick him?
How could Carter ever fucking pick Nathan after Nathan…“I took his virginity.”
