Part 27: From Bad to Worse...

Ben's POV

"I want to touch the light, the heat I see in your eyes..."

I glanced over at Darren for a moment, Daniel tapping me on the shoulder.

"So, do you know that one?"

I shrugged.

"It would sound better if Damen would do keyboards on it. Don't know if you can arse him into it, though. He's locked himself in his room again..."

It had been three weeks since the concert, since Darren and Daniel had started to lose their minds, and since Damen decided that the 'school body' could kiss his arse if they thought they could put the entire security of the campus on his shoulders. He'd gotten into the practice of locking himself in his room to get his frustrations out at anything he could get his hands on.

School wasn't being much better on him since they had started back into normal classes, and all I could do was sit back and watch as he ripped himself apart. Sure, he still pumped out assignments like he had nothing else to do, but I could see the sinking in his eyes.

I knocked on his door, hoping he could hear me over whatever he was doing. After a minute or so of not hearing anything, I decided that I had to get in, no matter what it would take to do so. Amazingly, I actually tried the doorknob before trying to break in, and found out that it hadn't been locked.

Poking my head in, I expected him to be doing something with his headphones on, but instead found him lying on the ground, shirt gone and arms out stretched. He didn't move as I walked in, didn't flinch as I tapped him with the toe of my boot, and I went into panic.

"Damen? Damen! Come on..."

I fell to my knees at his side, resting a hand to his throat, feeling only a light pulse as his heart struggled to keep beating. Clasped in his hand was a small pill bottle, and I almost lost what calmness I had left.

"Darren! Daniel! Call Wood, he's tried to overdose!"

I could hear Daniel dialing the campus security as Darren came running in to help me. I suppose that we should have known it was coming, though Damen put on the happy face he knew we needed to see, life declined drastically in the time after they had made him go back to life as usual. He had been waiting for a moment when we weren't trying to pay attention to him, when we weren't watching close enough.

As we were rushing him to the hospital, the memories of the passed weeks came back, shedding the light that wasn't needed. We already knew what was going on, what had pushed him to laying on some rollaway ready to be pumped out and cleaned up again. That ass of a music teacher had done his part of turning the situation from bad to worse for sure. I had heard from Darren that he'd given him another preaching in front of the class, this time letting him know that he was most likely not to continue his schooling after the current semester. Everything that he had worked for was being taken and stripped from him.

He probably didn't think much more of me, the way I was constantly hanging around him, just wanting to be close to him. I wanted to see him smile, not have him pull away from everything and everyone. It hadn't worked, he pulled even harder, and suddenly he was broken.

Having to explain it to people wasn't any easier, no one could ever realize or understand what he was going through, but they all wanted to hear about it any way. By no easy means, I vowed to myself that we would make it back the way it used to be, Darren, Daniel and I, or as close to it as possible. The first thought that crossed my mind was to ask Damen when they woke him back up as to what he wanted done, because obviously things weren't all right in his mind either.

John Wood didn't seem all that phased with what he was seeing happening, and that unnerved me to no end. After we finally arrived, I sat in the waiting room with him, watching him fold and unfold his arms time and again, not daring to meet my gaze.

"Why aren't you even looking bothered by all of this?"

He looked at me slightly startled, as if he hadn't noticed me sitting there before.

"Because I've seen it happen...He's not the first that I've had to drive to the hospital on a suicide attempt. Most of them hadn't even been through half of what he has. I'm surprised he didn't try to do it right after he was shot. You're lucky you aren't the center of the rumor mill around here, you'd probably be doing the same thing too."

"Don't say that!"

"Why, Benjamin? What are you hiding from everyone Mr. Carey?"

"I'm not hiding anything, and if you were such a great friend, you wouldn't be talking about him like this."

"If you were such a great friend, he wouldn't be back in here again, would he?"

I felt my eyes burning, stinging as tears started to well up.

"I did what I thought was right, it's all any of us can do, isn't it? I am a friend, I'd take his place if I could, but you wouldn't understand that, would you? I'm just another stupid kid to you, some stupid rich kid whose dad gets him anything he wants so life can be just fine and dandy and wonderful all of the time. It feels so damn sugar coated to me, it gives me cavities."

"So what is your hook-up? One would think that Gene would cramp your style, wouldn't he?"

I thought about it for a moment, tossing it over in my mind. In any other case, he probably would have been just another write off, another client that hung out at the club, but he wasn't that kind of person. He was different, and I cared deeply for him.

"I love him..."

It came out as almost a whisper, something that I had never voiced but to myself as more recently I lay in bed alone at night, thinking of him.

"What was that?"

"I said I love him, damn it. I'd tell the whole damn world if I could, but I'd be in the same place he is."

"Aren't you already?"

"What do you mean?"

He took a breath, folding his arms again over his chest.

"You're hiding what you are, just like he does. It's what everyone else thinks that's getting him into trouble, and you're running for the same reasons. Everyone starts assuming, and jump to conclusions. What is hard is when they jump to the right conclusions about something that someone doesn't want known. There probably wouldn't be a problem if so many people were just more open."

"It just isn't fair..."

"Then do something about it, Ben."

"Like what? I can't people that he isn't, not when he's doing what he is..."

"Then get him out of the situation. He's getting attention because he's in a role of authority. Would he have been shot if he weren't an officer? Wasn't stopping them from having their way all of the time? Probably not, but it's the situation he's been placed in because of money problems, a problem you don't have trouble with."

"Won't that give him a reason to stop what he's doing?"

"Stop being harassed by teachers, by students, by the homophobic ignorance that has taken over this world? Stop him from having to fight to stay here? Stop him from trying to kill himself to get out of the pain? What do you think?"

He walked out of the room, leaving me with my thoughts once more. I settled it in my mind then, though I was sure someone was going to argue with me at some point, including Damen, but I wasn't going to be bothered with that.

I found Darren and Daniel together outside by the front desk, filling out the numerous papers that filled a clipboard. They both looked up at me when I stepped closer.

"How are you holding up?"

"I need to know everything he needs paid off, and I mean everything."

"What are you talking about?"

"John said I should take him out of his situation with something that I don't have troubles with, and the one thing I don't have trouble with is money. I can pay up what he owes, and get him out of having to work and answer to that damned music teacher...I can't even remember his name."

"Professor Crawford."

Darren didn't look up from the paperwork, continuing to fill in the blank spaces.

"Okay, I don't care what his name is...I'm going to pay off the loan, pick up the rest of his tuition, and then anything else that needs to be done."

"And what if he wants a job?"

"Then I'll help him find something better. I'm Benjamin Carey, I can find him something better."

"Something better than a sex slave at your club?"

"Shut up, Danny. I'm trying to be noble here. It isn't all about our cocks and what we do with them. Aren't there some nights where you just want to lay there and hold Darren, and not do anything but feel him breath and his heart beating?"

"Well sure, but..."

"But nothing. I'm going to do it...Life is going to change for all of us."

"Right, so...you're planning on ridding the world of homophobes too?"

"Give me one thing at a time, I'm not a miracle worker..."

We all shared a little bit of a laugh before one of the doctors' came out from where Damen was being kept.

"He has requested that the three of you are to be let in to see him. We will talk about what has to be done once you're done."

I don't think I'd ever seen anyone look so sick before, but I could imagine what they had just put him through. I sat down beside him as Darren and Daniel stood by, sighing deeply.

"I didn't mean to cause these problems."

"You haven't caused anything, Damen. What is wrong with you?"

"You already know, all of you already know...If I lose here, I have no where else to go, and all the faith in the world couldn't help me then."

He talked for a while longer, just about what had been raging through his mind for so long, and I was glad that he was finally able to let it out. After the nurses ushered us out of his room a little while later, we were taken into another office to find out what treatment was needed.

"As I am sure all of you are aware, Mr. Gene is suffering through a very dramatic period in his life, and though I have not been able to hear it out from him, I assume that you three are part of the situation. Is he being pushed into a situation that would grant him this from your perspective?"

We all looked at each other, trying to come up with a decent answer. Darren took a breath, leaning in slightly.

"It isn't us that cause the problem, it is the rest of the world that can't seem to live with the lifestyle that we have chosen. Isn't it true that people are downcast in this society if they do not stay within the boundaries of normality? They stabbed him because of assumptions made without the facts. So what if he's gay? Does that give the staff, faculty, and students the right to discriminate against him? He hasn't done a thing except for try to make his life work, and obviously he's going to start thinking you are against him as well..."

"Why would he think that?"

"Because you want to send him to a Psyc to see what's wrong with him when you already know. You do that with everyone that comes in because of a suicide attempt, and don't you dare tell me that you don't. He hit the breaking point, and instead of putting it off on the rest of us, he tried to solve everything the best way he knew how. Now you tell me, do you think that he's going to risk the treatment he's already gotten by having to be poked and prodded by someone who doesn't, who could never understand because they haven't walked in his shoes?"

"Mr. Hayes, I would suggest putting your heated emotions on the back burner. We are going to keep him for two days on observation basis. We will make the decision then whether or not we will give him the help I already know he needs."

"And what about his bills?"

The doctor turned to me, falling quiet.

"You know they are about to throw him out on the street because he's just barely paying the monthly on his loan. What happens after this? His hospital bills are going to be three times as much as his school loan, and there is no way for him to work it off. Tell me, you don't have to worry about money, do you?"

"No, but I'm saving people's lives on a daily basis."

"And what does he do? As I remember, he was shot trying to do his duty as an officer. Do you *risk* your life on a daily basis? Do people try to kill you while you are saving them? Is it fair that you get paid in the millions when he can't even afford food most of the time?"

He leaned back in his chair, rubbing his temples.

"He would have died if I hadn't come to work this morning."

"He would have, and he would be in a better place, not having to deal with people like you."

"So these are his problems then? What pushed him to this?"

I nodded, folding my arms.

"Fine, we'll keep him over night, and if nothing shows up and things go well, he's free to go in the morning. I'd like to be able to check in on him on occasion, just to assure myself that we have made the right decision. Apart from that, I would hope that you, as his friends, would find some way of helping him if it is possible. Alleviate the stress, open him up if you can. I don't want to see a repeat of this any time soon."

As the others went back to Damen's room, I hung behind in the hall, fishing out my cell.

"Hey dad, I think I need a favor..."