The steam and mist rises in slow curling clouds off the warm ground. A light summer rain just stopped. Jack was looking at his reflection in a puddle and trying to decide how he would explain the bruise on his face. If it had to be explained at all, that is. Sometimes she just didn't notice, or care. Then she would forget, which was the worst part. Maybe he'd just outright tell her that the man he'd sold his body to hit him when he hadn't sucked hard enough?
A small laugh escaped his lips before he could squelch it.
"Mr. Skal?"
Jack whipped around at the mention of his father's name. A doctor stood by an expensive-looking car, meekly holding a small black bag. He was fresh out of school, too, which is how Jack got to him so easily. A young thing not even with his own office yet. That would change. "Yes, I'm sorry, I forgot you were coming by." Jack held out his hand and smiled.
The doctor hesitated before shaking it, taking noticeable time to inspect his appearance, especially the fresh fistmark. He let go, but his eyes never left Jack's cheek. "You're bleeding, Sir, do you want me to take a look at that, too?"
A warm wet trail slid over the crest of the bone and into the corner of his mouth. Jack spun around cursing and looked into the puddle again. "Shit, the fucker was wearing a ring! Son of a bitch only gave me half, too. I'll have to take care of him later." Shaking his head, Jack swiped the back of his hand across the trail to erase it, instead smearing it more.
"More work for me."
Jack laughed shortly and bitterly. "Good to see a doctor with a sense of humor. I have things to take care of myself, just make sure you don't mention it to her." His face became grave and serious as he took a few steps to bring himself up to the doctor and show off his height and strength advantage. Even at 15 his height was impressive compared to most in the medical field. Why were all doctors and politicians short? "But before you take a look at her, we should discuss the method of payment so there are no surprises." Jack gently rubbed the sore spot on his face.
Immediately becoming unsettled, the doctor backed away a little and looked at the ground where the steam still rose. "I'm sure whatever you have will be fine."
"Just so we're clear on that, then." Taking long, slightly hindered strides, Jack walked to the door and opened it as quietly as he could. He stepped aside and gestured, "Please, come in and make yourself at home. Somebody should."
=======
"What do you mean you don't know what it is?! 'The fuck kind of doctor are you?!" Jack had never remembered being more angry. If one more God damned med. student told him they had no idea what it was or how to treat it, well... The result would be messy.
"One who's studied straight out of the textbooks and memorized every sickness I can fucking treat, and this is not one of them!" The doctor yelled back, his young temper flaring. "One with a fucking name other than 'doctor'."
"Arin then, are you sure there's nothing? Give her a 'script of something, anything, it can't get any worse." Jack sighed, sitting down on his bed and resting his head in his hands.
Arin sat down beside him with his elbows on his knees and a look of far off concentration in his eyes. "Fine, I can try something, but this isn't legal. I could lose my license for helping you like this, Jack."
Jack smiled and reached over to grab Arin's coat and pull him on top of him. "Neither is the way I'm paying you..." His hands found their way down to his belt and unclasped the buckle slowly.
He was dying, very slowly, it was evident in his mind. The young man over him, pushing his body to further into Jack. Each man's ribcage rubbed against the other's and Jack felt the air forced out of his lungs in wheezing puffs, never having a chance to inhale. Below his waist had lost feeling completely and his only concern was the oxygen he was being denied. With his hands, he frantically tried to push Dr. Arin off of him but he could not get the boy's attention. Jack closed his eyes and resigned himself to his fate.
It stopped. Jack felt his hips fall down onto the bed and barely recoil from it. He could not see, but had no desire to. The gray satin mattress where the sheets had been carelessly discarded to the side and the delicately ornamented pillow his head rested on, the darkness of the room and the silence of heavy, thick air, the bowed head of the mourner and the relics owned by the dead found arranged in a pattern of remembrance. This was his funeral, and the bed his coffin. The doctor paid his respects and when Jack's eyes were tired of being shut, he opened them. That action hurt the most because it verified that he was still breathing, still alive.
The young doctor pleased himself with Jack's image and his hand. The soft organ he held was returning to life, reviving just as his payment had. Blood pooling around Jack's back began to cool and he started to shiver. The small quakes up and down his skin were like the scales colored on his back. Dr. Arin let his fingers uncurl as he felt the saguin creep down to his knees and stain the tensed flesh.
"I thought you were asleep." His words slithered out like his body did over Jack's prone one.
"I thought I was dead." Jack's voice was deadpan, but if any emotion had to label it, rage perhaps lay beneath the calm surface.
"In heaven, eh?" Dr. Arin picked up Jack's hips again.
A tiny drop of rain broke the surface and the ripples turned to waves. Furious, Jack kicked the boy off of him, raising the corpse as if on strong strings. "Get out."
He stumbled, grabbing for a sheet off of the floor to cover himself. "What?"
"I am fucked at least three times everyday, by any wanger with a dick and some pocket change, you think I'd cherish our little moments? Write the fucking 'script and leave! You've gotten your damned payment now leave me to rest in peace with the rest of the dead!" Physically picking the man up, Jack held him off the ground with one hand, and gathered the doctor's clothing with the other.
Suddenly collecting himself, Arin kicked Jack's knee, sending himself to the floor with the taller boy. "I wasn't done yet." But Jack still had him by the neck and wasn't letting go. He met an icy gaze as he looked up into the black abyss. "I still hold the pen. You'll give me what I want before she's gone. Put me down, Jack."
Reluctantly obeying, he set the doctor down and turned his back to him, arms crossing over his chest. Jack did not speak, did not breathe, and concentrated all of his emotion at the closed and locked door. A frail cry was soaked into the wood and as he made a move to go see his mother, Jack realized it was from his own mouth. Shame dripped over his cheeks and hands wove around his waist to pull him back to the bed.
"Don't cry, baby. I'll give you just what you need." A soothing purr slipped into his ear.
Jack swiped angrily at his face with the backs of his hands as he let his body be directed to a new position. "I wouldn't cry for someone like you." But it was a lie, and only Jack knew that. He gripped the pillow with both of his arms and folded them to rest his head on the bag of chocobo feathers.
Thankfully, the doctor did not answer, and merely finished his work, laying his body over Jack's back so his head rested over the taller man's shoulder. He opened the way with two scissoring fingers and entered.
Muffling his sob into the back of his hands, Jack bit his knuckle as the fresh wounds tore open again. He let his eyes unfocus, blurring the window where the sunlight barely found its way around the heavy curtains. It wasn't about his pain, it was about hers. It was all about her pain, because every moment of relief he could give to her ruined body was worth all moments he ruined his own. This was a completely different act than it had been before now that Jack knew he was doing everything he could for another, the stabbing aches went far away. There was only the dull push and release, moving in him like a tide, timelessly repeating, but always moving towards the end.
It was always very sudden, the end. Like a seizuring victim finally arching up into their last use of muscle, before falling uselessly to the gurney. There was blood; there was semen in him, splattered everywhere on his insides in a poorly done fresco. There was relief, and the withdrawl, all of which Jack tried to distance himself from. He sat up and hugged the pillow to his chest, not caring that his mattress would be in worse shape after he got up. At least his tears had stopped, he consoeled himself, but the dry tracks hurt his face when he rubbed his eyes.
"You okay, kid?" An obsurd statement, Jack must have been forced into more life experiences than those twice his age. And of course he wasn't, the uncaring hand running over his lavender braid, skirting down across his shoulders, and finally dropping from his arm certainly didn't make him feel any better. He felt like he'd been raped, even though he'd for asked it. His father used to tell him that as he took his pleasure from him 'You were asking for it, you whore! You were begging me with your eyes, you're still doing it, you love it.' Funny how manners of speaking sometimes turned out to be true. Now this molestation was just another way of dragging him through the dirt and making fun of his misfortunes.
"...Ple..ase..." Jack's voice broke in the middle of the word. He couldn't take it, he wanted his mother to be okay again. It was his fault that she was sick, if he had just let it continue, if he hadn't defied his father, she might've never gotten sick. But she pushed herself too far to save him, and now it was his duty to do the same for her.
From the corner of his eye he noticed that Arin had gotten up and found his clothes, he was pulling it on, purposely not looking at Jack. He was never really going to write the perscription, he knew it would get him in trouble, but now he needed to in order to assuage his guilt. He found his pen and notepad, wrote up a formal piece and held it out to Jack, right under his nose so he could smell the fresh ink. "Maybe..." He let it drop into Jack's lap when he didn't respond. "Maybe... You should just let her go. I don't think she's going to make it and forcing her to be here is more cruel."
Jack grabbed the perscription paper and was up in a heartbeat in the doctor's face. How dare he mock him after he'd gotten all that he wanted? "I'm forcing who?! And what would you know about cruelty? I know cruelty like no one else, I've slept in it's bed for years, and I've sold everything I could, only to so you can tell me to let go?! I suggest if you want experience with suffering you look at how you treat other human beings!" He picked up the doctor's shirt and threw it violently at him, striding to the door and unlocking it as an invitation to leave. "Now get out before I forget what it is that keeps me from killing you..."
He watched him leave, everything still in hand as he raced for his life and his car. Arin threw his things in the passenger's seat and geared his car into reverse. Jack watched from the porch, noting with a small smile of satisfaction that the emergency break was still up and that it would be useless by the time the man realized it. He walked back into the house and set the perscription on the table so he could pick it up later. Sighing with relief, but not daring to stretch and see what popped, Jack walked back to his father's old laboratory and sat naked on the table. He'd had so many horrible experiences in this place, it was funny to see the sunlight come in through the cracks.
(End.)