He was the fire, restless and wild, and you were like a moth to that flame.

The Boys of the Gallery.
If you are easily disturbed/upset, don't read this.
If you haven't caught it from the beginning, it starts here.

Chapter Nine: Skylark

“Holy shit!”

Dash had his hand on the doorknob when he heard Sang scream.

He looked from the door to the hall, then dropped his bag on the landing and ran upstairs to the bathroom. Sang was leaning over the tub, shirtless, pulling Murray out of the water. Dash helped him heave the limp body onto the floor.

At first, Dash couldn't see the cuts. Murray's wrists were clean. But then he looked up to the crooks of his arms and saw the thin, red lines, still seeping blood.

Sang checked his pulse.

“He's alive,” he said, tying wet towels around Murray's arms and legs. “Go call an ambulance and make four ice packs.”

Dash nodded and sprinted to the kitchen, plucking the phone from the hook and dialing. Down the hall, Ganymede came out of the bedroom and looked into the bathroom.

Sang was leaning over Murray. He was shaking.

“Don't...” he sobbed, “Marcel, don't you fucking dare...stupid fucking...goddamn it...”

He collapsed onto the boy's chest, his breath ragged.

Ganymede's eyes went from them to the water.

It was red.

Streaks of faded pink ran over the lip of the tub where Sang had pulled Murray out, and deep red rivulets ran down the side further up, pooling, congealed, on the tile.

He looked back to the men on the floor.

Sang was praying wordlessly.

Murray still didn't move.

Dash came back with the ice. They slipped it under the towels onto Murray's wounds, and Sang carried him downstairs to wait. Sitting on the steps, he almost looked like he was holding a baby wrapped up in his white bathrobe.

Several tense seconds later, they heard the siren approaching. The ambulance rounded the corner, slowed and stopped. The EMTs took Murray. Sang rode with him.

Dash and Ganymede walked the few blocks to the hospital.

“Is he gonna die?” Ganymede asked.

Dash clicked his tongue, searching for the right thing to say.

“I hope not.”

---

Marcel was sitting cross-legged on the floor while Sang sprawled on his belly over the couch. Marcel hadn't put on his makeup yet or fixed his hair. His roots were starting to show, a nondescript dark ash brown, the same color as his eyebrows and the fine hair on his legs and forearms. He had abandoned, for the moment, his usual wardrobe for one of Sang's old, grey t-shirts and a pair of blue basketball shorts. He looked a lot like he used to.

“So who was that boy?” Sang asked casually, running his nails lightly over the hardwood floor. Then, realizing how vague his question had been, he added, “The one you got kicked out over? Is he your boyfriend?”

“No,” said Marcel. “He was just a donor.”

Sang took a sip from the bottle of vodka on the coffee table, screwed the cap back on, and went into the kitchen, lighting a cigarette on the old gas stove, narrowly avoiding lighting his hair on fire, and shoving the bottle on top of the refrigerator between the phone book and the corn flakes.

“You hungry?” he called to Marcel, rooting around the pantry for food.

“No,” said Marcel, “But...” He hesitated, not sure how to ask.

“What?”

Marcel leaned against the door to the pantry.

“May I have a cigarette?”

Sang chuckled. “It'll kill you,” he said, pulling one out of the pack anyway.

“I just want to try it. I never have before.”

“In that case,” said Sang, turning the stove back on, “I'll light it for you.”

---

NO SMOKING

Dash stared at the sign with utter contempt. If he had ever needed a cigarette in his life, it was now. He fumbled with the pack in his pocket, stolen from Sang's kitchen the day before. He could always go outside, but he didn't want to leave Ganymede alone, and he didn't want to be gone if anything happened.

“Hey, Sanam.”

Sang had just come around the corner from the emergency room. The whites of his eyes almost matched the irises, and he was shaking.

Dash stood up. “What's going on?”

“He's in surgery now, and they're running blood tests. He's gonna need a transfusion, and they don't know if...” Sang sighed. “His chances aren't good.”

They sat down and waited for another hour before a nurse came out and asked Sang to go with her.

Dash watched Ganymede play idly with the plastic train set on the table.

It was 4:00 am.

Around five, Ganymede asked Dash to change the channel on the television. They watched re-runs of the Brady Bunch until six.

At six-thirty, Ganymede fell asleep across three of the plastic chairs, and Dash read through a home-improvement magazine.

At 7:14, Dash woke with a start, having fallen asleep and dropped the magazine. He picked it up and put it back on the table.

A few minutes later, a nurse came around from the desk.

“There's a waiting room upstairs near surgery,” she said, “There are some couches you can sleep on. I'll take you up if you like.”

Dash nodded and picked the boy up, carrying him after the nurse to the waiting room.

At 8:45, Dash finally fell asleep on the long couch while Ganymede slept curled up in a huge recliner.

A nurse shook him awake three and a half hours later.

“He's out of surgery,” she smiled cheerily, “He's in the ICU now, so we're gonna move you up to a waiting room near there.”

She looked around nervously before very quietly adding, “Normally, it's hospital policy to only allow family in the ICU rooms, but as long as you tell the staff that you're his family, they won't check up on it.”

She showed them to the waiting room and pointed out the doors to the ICU before disappearing around a corner.

“Do you want to go see him?” Dash asked. “You don't have to. You can stay here and I'll come right back. He's probably gonna look pretty rough.”

Ganymede thought about it, then said, “I'll wait here.”

Dash left him alone in the waiting room with a 1000-piece puzzle and some change for a soda. A receptionist stopped him at the door and asked who he was going to see.

“Marcel Murray,” he said.

“And what's your relationship to the patient?”

He almost hesitated, then said, “He's my brother.”

She checked the room and then lead Dash back.

Sang had fallen asleep on the floor beside the bed, his face resting on the bed near Murray's hand, their fingers limply tangled.

Dash cleared his throat, and Sang's eyes fluttered open. He stood up and threw his arms around Dash's neck.

“He should be okay,” he half-sobbed. “He'll start waking up soon, but he'll be really drowsy. They're keeping him on the pain medication until at least tomorrow to make sure he doesn't go into shock. If everything's normal, they'll move him in the morning.”

Dash looked over Murray's face. Even without his makeup, he was powder-white and his eyes were ringed in black.

“He looks awful.”

“Yeah, well, considering he just had a shit-load of blood drained out and pumped back in...”

Sang scratched his left arm, and Dash noticed a bandage on it.

“What happened to you?” he asked.

Sang laughed softly. “They didn't have enough of his blood type. If I didn't match, they were gonna test you, but they just got lucky the first time.” With a chuckle, he added, “I -- uh...also don't have AIDS, which is lucky I guess.”

They sat with Murray, and Sang filled Dash in on everything that had happened. Around 12:45, a nurse shooed them out for a shift change.

“You go on back and check on Ganymede,” Dash said. “I'm gonna see if I can find a decent cup of coffee in this place.”

It took him about ten minutes to find a working courtesy phone far enough from the waiting room. He took a breath and dialed.

“Hello?” the voice on the other end answered after two rings.

“Listen, we've got a little bit of a set-back.”

“Dash?”

“Yeah, look, Hyacinth's in the hospital. He should be fine, but we're gonna have to push our flight back at least to next week. Can you hang out 'till then?”

Steve sighed. “Yeah, yeah, baby, I can do that. Just don't be too long. I'll be waiting for you at the Gallery, alright? Call me if you need anything.”

“Alright...Steve?”

“Yeah, baby?”

“I love you.”

Steve chuckled. “I love you too, baby.”

“Bye.”

Click.

The second he hung up the phone, he was pulled bodily across the hall into a dark waiting room.

The door slammed.

“What the fuck do you think you're doing, Sanam?!” Sang growled, switching on the light. He looked dangerous, looming up over Dash, blocking the locked doorway.

“There's no other way, Sang,” Dash said, sinking down to into an arm-chair. “I'm in too much trouble. If the police catch up with me, either I'll be in trouble, or he'll be.”

Sang laughed maliciously. “So?”

“So,” said Dash, standing up and suddenly remembering that he was about three inches taller than Sang, “just in case you forgot, he was the only reason we had a home for most of our lives.”

Shaking his head, Sang said, “We would have been better off.”

“Oh yeah? How?”

“Look at us!” Sang exploded, throwing his hands up in the air. “I fuck for a living! Out of -- what? Habit? Look at Marcel! Look at that kid! What kind of fucking home was he providing anyway?”

“So don't go with him. He was never anything but good to me.”

“Because he was making you his little fucking protegé! And he did a pretty damn good job! What do you do with your life anyway? You don't work! You're still living off that money he gave you--”

“Shut up! You just shut your goddamn mouth! I'm--”

“You sound just like him.” Sang sat opposite Dash and crossed his arms and legs. “Remember when he used to throw his tantrums? You'd come hide out in my room 'till he got over it. Remember how mad he got when I asked you to move out with me?”

Dash sighed. “He didn't want to be alone. After all he did...”

“What are you gonna do about Ganymede?”

“I dunno,” sighed Dash, shaking his head. “I don't wanna just leave him. But I don't know what else I can do. Can't take him with me.”

“That'd go over well,” smirked Sang.

Even Dash had to laugh at the dark humor.

“But what can I do?”

“Not go.”

Dash cradled his face in his hands, his elbows bent and rested on his knees. “Fine,” he said. “But if they catch up with me, you have to take care of Ganymede. Hide him if you have to, but don't let him go to the state.”

“Deal,” said Sang, a wicked smile spreading across his face. “But if you run, Sanam...I'll make sure he goes to the shittiest foster home in the system.”

Dash shook his head. “Don't worry. I'll just tell Steve to go without me.”