Rivals 🌈 ✔

77 - Bear the Burden Together

Juice pushed aside all thoughts of angry ex-friends. Raine woke up. His life was no longer in danger. Juice was not going to let the joy that had flooded over him until a few minutes ago be overshadowed by those assholes.

When he re-entered the room, Raine had fallen asleep again. Juice heaved a frustrated sigh. The fear that he would slip back into a coma was vicious and refused to leave his mind. He went back to his familiar spot at the hospital bed and let his fingers slip around Raine's arm.

And again he waited.

Yet, this time it was very different. The ventilator had been taken away. Raine moved more, muttering. There was still a bruised sheen over his face, but it was not as bad as the night they brought him here.

"You will be all right, baby," he whispered to his sleeping boyfriend. "We will be all right."

Although Juice thought his friend had slept enough for the next few weeks, he was awake only briefly. Every action seemed to take immense effort. There was not much left of the vital young man he had fallen in love with.

But that will come back. Of course it will come back. 

They had short conversations in between—but only small talk. About how his family was doing. About the weather they glimpsed through the window, about the noise in the hallway or the hospital food. Juice promised he would cook him an elaborate dinner when he was allowed to go home.

The lack of any depth in their conversations caused a hollow feeling in his chest, but he understood that Raine lacked the energy for more. Maybe he would never be able to talk about what the Sons had done to him.

After three days, Raine was allowed to go outside. Given that Juice's former brothers thought he was dead, it was a considerable risk, but he hoped no one would recognize them and inform the Sons. After all, he could not deny his boyfriend the sun. The dry air-conditioning air had to drive him crazy.

Juice helped Raine into the wheelchair. His right leg was in a cast, the lower leg of his left was wrapped with bandages in several places. Nevertheless, even there he saw proof of how skinny the man looked.

A lump settled in his throat, which only got worse when he saw the empty look in Raine's eyes. Tears burned in his own.

According to the tests, everything was fine. Raine had not suffered any mental damage, he just needed to rehabilitate and recover slowly. But he had been tortured—and Juice knew how far Happy liked to go. To the extreme. It was a horrible trauma and Juice had no idea how to help him. 

Although it was not cold outside, he still put a thin blanket over Raine's legs so that he didn't have to look at his battered body the whole time.

An unpleasant silence hung between them as Juice wheeled his friend outside. At the back of the hospital was a small park with a few benches. At first, he walked around, eventually putting the wheelchair next to one of the benches and sitting down. He tried to catch Raine's gaze, but he stared at his knees.

Should he ask something? He wanted to give him all the space he needed. In the past, he had been able to sense his friend's needs, but now? He took Raine's hand and caressed his fingers. The back and palm of his hand still had band-aids on them. Happy must have pierced it with something.

A chill went down his spine.

"It's nice, isn't it? To be out in the open air again."

Raine did not reply. He stared at their hands.