bleeding through

By the time they got to Miyuki’s apartment and he’d been forced to clamber up the steps, the pain of his head had been eclipsed by the pain in his lower torso. He’d done what he could to cover it up, but as she unlocked the door and let him in, he’d had to clamp his forearm across his lower stomach to stop the spasming pains.

It didn’t help that the bleeding had started up again as a slow trickle. He could feel it running down the inner seam of his trouser leg. Not nearly as bad as last time, but still pretty rubbish news. How was he supposed to hide this? How was he supposed to keep it secret? He couldn’t let her know, he’d kept it quiet for such a long time, he couldn’t fail now, that was pathetic.

As the door opened, Bodhi edged inside, moving to toe off his shoes before he looked down at his blurry toes and realised... he wasn’t wearing any. Because Flynn had carried him away without any of his belongings. Because Flynn had looked after him. And now Flynn was gone. He’d left.

Any of Bodhi’s reserve from school utterly disappeared, now that he was somewhere familiar and safe. He burst into tears, curling over his stomach and leaning heavily against the wall. His head was swirling away from him, and he was miserable, he felt disgusting, he was in so much pain.

“I’m gro-o-oss,” he said, between gut-wrenching sobs, tears blurring his vision and dripping straight down onto his dirty, socked feet, “I wanna thro-ow u-u-up.” But he couldn’t even do that, because he did it in the showers—

A thought that sparked a whole new wave of horror for him. “Oh gods, I breathed on him with vomit bre-e-eath. Miyukiii,” he reached out a hand to try and clasp his friend’s shoulder. “He’ll never come near me again.” That thought made him wail.

It hurt, it hurt so much. He slumped forwards into his best friend, knees wobbling and shoulders shaking under the force of his distress. “I want Flynn. I want Flynn.” He pressed his face into he shoulder, soaking her collar for the second time. He couldn’t seem to stop. It felt like the world was ending, and it didn’t even matter that this made no sense. All he knew was that he felt like someone had ripped his heart clean out of his chest and was stomping it into the ground.

When the call had come through Miyuki had started to panic, when she arrived at the school gates and saw Flynn McKegean approaching with Bo in his arms, she’d almost lost her mind with worry.

She believed Bo when he said that Flynn hadn’t done this, but that didn’t mean she trusted the situation or the boy who had done so much harm to her friend over the years. Even if he’d chosen to do Bo one good turn, that didn’t make up for the years of bullying and harassment.

But then… there was the way Bo had clung to him, and Flynn’s reluctance to put him down. This… They’d been down this road once before and it had not ended well. Miyuki had spent years chastising herself for thinking, even for a moment, that Bo and Flynn might be Soulmates; she'd even encouraged Bo, when he was still in elementary, to tell the other boy how he felt. In a roundabout way Flynn’s whole freakout was her fault.

Bo could barely walk, and he was missing his shoes. Miyuki had to keep him supported the whole way home, and, even though Bo wasn’t particularly tall, Miyuki was also not particularly strong and her shoulder was aching when they finally reached the apartment building.

He was hurting, and Miyuki was almost completely certain now that there was more to this than a concussion.

The moment they were through the doors into the flat, her friend burst into tears, clutching at his stomach.

“I’m gro-o-oss,” he sobbed, while Miyuki tried to ply him away from the wall and direct him towards the sofa. Her hand caught the back of his thigh and… blood. She looked down, there was blood all over his socks. How hadn’t she noticed on the train? “I wanna thro-ow u-u-up.”

A hand grasped at her shoulder.

“Oh gods, I breathed on him with vomit bre-e-eath. Miyukiii. He’ll never come near me again.”

A death rattling wail followed this revolation, that would almost certainly have the neighbours knocking on the door in a moment.

He slumped into her, and Miyuki only managed to save herself from falling backwards by grabbing the kitchen counter.

“I want Flynn. I want Flynn.”

Oh, this was bad. Bad in more ways than one.

She drew her hand up and confirmed that it was streaked red with the blood that had seeped through Bo’s trousers.

“Bo.” Miyuki tried to right him, just enough so that she could look him in the eye, her heart hammering in her chest. “Bo, have you been raped?”

Priorities. Whatever Bo thought, Flynn McKeagan could wait.

Through the floods of tears and the drunken wobbling, he saw her lifting her hand up and looking at it. The palm was red, where she’d touched him. He’d failed. Oh, gods. He’d ruined everything.

He tried to reach out and hide her own hand from her, but his own hand was dark with dried and flaking blood, and his cast was awkward.

“Bo.”

She pushed him back, and Bodhi went, swaying back into the counter, horror eating through the crushing sense of loss. Even though his eyes were blurred and his head was currently trying to melt like a wax candle, he could see the moment the realisation struck. She’d gone so pale.

“Bo, have you been raped?”

That word. He recoiled, pulling his arms back to wrap around himself. His wails cut off to stifling sobs and whimpers. He was such an awful friend. He was making her relive all of this, and he hadn’t needed to. Bodhi should have stayed in the Infirmary and let his parents find out. That would have been better. That would have been the kinder thing.

His face crumpled. “I’m sorry,” he said, “I-I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have called. It was thoughtless.” He raised his hand to his face, doing nothing to disguise the mess of tears, or the grimace of pain. “I’m sorry.”

"I-I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have called. It was thoughtless."

"Bo, no. No, please don't say that." She didn't hold him too hard. It was different, but she still remembered the pain when things had been particularly violent, and for Bo, this had definitely been violent. She pressed a kiss to his temple, shifting her arm underneath him again, grateful for the first time that her apartment was small and they only had a few steps to reach the bathroom.

Who? Who had done it? Those were her first questions, but it wasn't her place to ask those questions. If Bo felt ready to tell her later then he would, for now she just needed to take care of him.

Pulling open the sliding door to the tiny bathroom, Miyuki settled him against the wall. Stretching out one hand to keep him stable while reaching across to turn the hot and cold taps on the bath.

"We need to get those clothes off. Do you know how much blood you've lost?"

What if he needed stitches? Or there'd been some internal damage. Bo hated the doctors, you practically had to drag him there kicking and screaming for anything, but so help her, she would do it if she had to.

Opal, who had been lying across the rug in the sitting room tried to bound in to check on them, but Miyuki urged him back. There wasn't enough space in here for the three of them.

"Bo, I'm going to undress you. Is that okay?"

"Bo, no. No, please don't say that."

He’d been scolded for apologising again. Flynn didn’t like when Bodhi apologised either. He felt so mixed up and awful, was just the absolute worst. All through the hug and the kiss to his temple, Bodhi shook and wept, and even though this was Miyuki, his best friend and family of choice, he still flinched when her hands dipped lower to help guide him.

They made it to the bathroom, and as she settled his back against the white tile, he grabbed for a handhold on the towel rail.

"We need to get those clothes off. Do you know how much blood you've lost?"

He started the useless, ineffectual process of trying to undo the buttons. “A cup, m-maybe a cup and a half,” he said, thinking of the blood on the shower floor, and the excess that had run down his legs. Thinking in practical terms helped curb the awful emotional pangs, and he looked around. “Baths are bad. Should be a shower. I won’t be able to get up if I lie down, and i-if I pass out my head’ll go under.”

As the thought about it, his breathing began to steady, and his crying eased off. “Also, I can’t g-get my cast wet, and it won’t clot. It’ll just reopen.”

A fluffy white head poked around the door. Opal, checking in with big grey eyes. Oh. Oh no. Bodhi’s eyes filled up with another round of crying. He wondered, would Esvin’s eyes be mostly grey still? He found himself terrified of either possibility, and called for her subconsciously. He wanted his Familiar close, even if she just perched on the window ledge outside. Tears rolled down his busted, split cheek and swollen jaw to his chin.

"Bo, I'm going to undress you. Is that okay?"

At this, he nodded his head. He’d undone maybe a button or two, but his hand was so unsteady now that he was absolutely incapable of anything more than the bare essentials.

Without thinking about it, just knowing he had to say it out loud so it was real, so it hadn’t been a heartbreaking dream, he began to talk. “H-he found me afterwards. He carried m-me to the Infirmary a-and helped me stop the bleeding and change.” Bodhi knotted his fingers into the sleeve of the blazer. “He w-was so gentle, Miyuki. He was so gentle.”

“A cup, m-maybe a cup and a half.”

Okay… Okay, they could work with that. Provided they could keep the bleeding under control they could keep Bo out of the hospital.

"Baths are bad. Should be a shower. I won’t be able to get up if I lie down, and i-if I pass out my head’ll go under.”

"I don't have a shower." Miyuki looked around blindly for inspiration, and then, thinking on her feet she made sure Bo was steady before reaching into the bath and removing the plug and turning off the water. "You can sit or stand in the bath," she suggested. "I can soak up the big sponge in the sink and we can use that."

He agreed to her undressing him, and Miyuki began working with the buttons of his shirt first, unable to control the gasp of shock that escaped her when she saw the extended bruising and the cuts that littered his torso. This attack had been brutal, there hadn't even been an attempt to hide what it was or justify it in any way. No one could do this to a person and then claim that their intentions had been anything other than true evil.

"H-he found me afterwards. He carried m-me to the Infirmary a-and helped me stop the bleeding and change."

So Flynn hadn't left Bo to bleed out and had covered the bases of simple human decency, Miyuki wasn't ready to forgive him yet.

"He w-was so gentle, Miyuki. He was so gentle."

Assuming that the blazer that Bo was swamped in belonged to Flynn, Miyuki thought it best that she ask Bo to remove it, rather than doing it herself.

"Can you shift the blazer and your shirt off, I'll clean them in the sink when we're done."

Not waiting for an answer, she left Bo to do that himself while she worked on the trousers. No underwear she noticed, and as she gently eased the material down, trying not to tear skin where dried blood had stuck to the material, she saw some of the damage first hand.

"Oh, Bo."

Shifting the trousers down, she held out her arms for him to take as he stepped out of them.

She couldn't think of a good way of removing the socks, so they would just have to stay until Bo felt comfortable enough to sit.

"I don't have a shower. You can sit or stand in the bath. I can soak up the big sponge in the sink and we can use that."

He wasn’t able to input anything more useful. Bodhi desperately would have liked a long, hot soak under any other circumstances, but right now all he wanted was to wash and redress as quickly as possible, so that he could lie down.

Her gasp of shock as she undressed him almost filtered past him. He was reaching a point where it was difficult to process much external information, and his thoughts had slowed to a veritable crawl. His head was beginning to droop, and the tears were dripping all the way to the end of his nose.

All he could think about was leaning into Flynn’s chest, with warm hands on his ribs and a heartbeat steady against his cheek. The buzz of their bond. It was the first moment Bodhi could recall feeling that calm, like all the bad things faded into insignificance.

"Can you shift the blazer and your shirt off, I'll clean them in the sink when we're done."

His fingers tightened in the sleeve for a moment, a jolt of panic at the thought of that barrier being removed, but— he knew it was illogical, and she’d said she would clean them. Then, when it was clean, he could return it as soon as he saw him—

He would give it back—

Bodhi would sort it out when he wasn’t concussed. For now, he slipped his arms out of the material as carefully as he could, and felt it falling away from his shoulders to slide down his back towards the floor.

"Oh, Bo."

In the time it had taken him to muddle through his soupy thoughts, Miyuki had pulled his trousers down his legs, exposing him to the room. Bodhi peered down at himself with a distant sort of disgust, like he was looking over his own shoulder at some odd abstract painting, rather than his blood-caked thighs.

Stepping out of them one foot at a time, he kept speaking - it was the only way he thought that he was going to get through this experience without blacking out or fainting. “He said he remembers us singing together - me and you I mean - in elementary.” That memory seemed so loud in his head. “You know he didn’t get weird at all when we were in the cubicle. I asked him for a hug.” He hiccuped and blinked heavily. “Had to show him how, then we just stood there.” A sniffle. “I think he almost cried a couple times.” ANd finally, “He said he was going to take up knitting. I think it was a joke.”

He stepped out of his trousers, allowing Miyuki to guide him towards the bathtub. Wincing as she asked him to raise his legs one at a time, she did what she could to relieve the weight as he stepped into the tub, still wearing his socks.

“Careful you don’t slip.”

“He said he remembers us singing together - me and you I mean - in elementary. You know he didn’t get weird at all when we were in the cubicle. I asked him for a hug. Had to show him how, then we just stood there. I think he almost cried a couple times. He said he was going to take up knitting. I think it was a joke.”

Half of this sounded concerning and half of this sounded like a concussion-induced delusion.

“Hold onto the sink.” She instructed as it was the only place at the right level that Bo could cling to for support while she dug around under the appliance in the cupboard, returning with the large oversized sponge she used to wash Aoi.

Running the taps for the sink, she got the water to a cool lukewarm state and then shifted off her clothes, down to her underwear and climbed in after her friend.

“Anywhere you don’t want me to touch, let me know. We’ll get these wounds on your chest and thighs clean and I’ll put some antiseptic on once we’re out, okay. Brace your hands on my shoulders.” She began in the places she knew Bo didn’t mind, moving as gently as she could, while still trying to be thorough. She left anywhere around his buttocks and legs until she had received permission. It was possible that Bo would want to do that himself, but at this point she really wasn’t sure if he’d be able to.

Carefully, she reached around to clean the sponge, running more water so that she could start afresh.

“Careful you don’t slip.”

He tried to pay attention and focus on where he was putting his feet. It was difficult. Waterlogged socks weren’t the easiest thing to walk in.

“Hold onto the sink.”

As best as he could, he complied. But as soon as he stopped actively speaking, he started drifting. And really, he wasn’t sad about speaking about Flynn. It was a relief, to voice it.

“I asked why he hates gays. Did you know he’s part of this c-creepy religion that says gay sex is evil because it makes you tear and bleed?” He hiccoughed a laugh. “He got confused I think, when I said it wasn’t a-always like this. That it could be nice.”

She was doing things with the sink and then taking her clothes off. Bodhi had the funny thought that he should get her updated skincare routine from her, because her skin was just so unfairly clear.

“You know, he only ever kissed a girl once, because that’s against his religion too. I said that was tragic. It is, isn’t it? Not being with anyone but your Soulmate. A-and then because of me he won’t ever get to be with anyone else ever. That’s so unfair. He should have a girlfriend like Charity.”

“Anywhere you don’t want me to touch, let me know. We’ll get these wounds on your chest and thighs clean and I’ll put some antiseptic on once we’re out, okay. Brace your hands on my shoulders.”

Doing as he was told, he leaned forwards to settle his forehead on his forearm and blink hazily down as she wiped him over. Dark red trails washed down his midsection and thighs as the water sluiced off. It should probably hurt, he thought, but at this point his head was so turned inside out that he couldn’t process much of anything.

“I told him he’d been awful and I didn’t want to fight anymore. You know, he apologised? When I asked if we could be friends he agreed. But he’s going to get the pictures back first. Then we can maybe be proper friends, right? You think he’ll want to be my friend for real? Once the photos are gone.” A vague feeling of discomfort bubbled up through the soup. “I don’t like that he’ll have to see them. He’ll probably think I wanted it. You think I should tell him not to bother?”

“I asked why he hates gays. Did you know he’s part of this c-creepy religion that says gay sex is evil because it makes you tear and bleed? He got confused I think, when I said it wasn’t a-always like this. That it could be nice.”

Miyuki hummed. She’d heard of weird religions around the island, and the beliefs of this one unfortunately did not sound that uncommon. Same-sex relations for both men and women outside of Soulbonds had only been legalised ten years ago, and even within Soulbonds, same-sex relations between men were still considered highly controversial by some.

Considering the suspicions she had about Flynn, Miyuki did find a small sliver of sympathy for him when she heard this.

“You know, he only ever kissed a girl once, because that’s against his religion too. I said that was tragic. It is, isn’t it? Not being with anyone but your Soulmate. A-and then because of me he won’t ever get to be with anyone else ever. That’s so unfair. He should have a girlfriend like Charity.”

Miyuki closed her eyes.

“I know we talked back in elementary about Flynn being your Soulmate but…” She tried to meet her friend’s disorientated gaze. “Do you really think Flynn is your Soulmate?”

If he was then things took on a much more disturbing angle.

Soulmates should be repulsed by the very concept of causing harm to one another, even if they weren’t aware of their connection. It was the main reason Miyuki had dismissed the possibility of the pair being Soulmates in Middle School, but if they truly were and Flynn had been carrying on that way for years, then the bond itself had been deeply corrupted by something.

“I told him he’d been awful and I didn’t want to fight anymore. You know, he apologised? When I asked if we could be friends he agreed. But he’s going to get the pictures back first. Then we can maybe be proper friends, right? You think he’ll want to be my friend for real? Once the photos are gone. I don’t like that he’ll have to see them. He’ll probably think I wanted it. You think I should tell him not to bother?”

Miyuki’s stomach turned.

She remembered the flash of a camera, the red ticking light of a video recorder.

Breathe, breathe through it, Bo needed her right now.

“These people have pictures of you?” She wanted to know who they were. Miyuki would march into the school with a pair of scissors and cut their balls and dicks off.

Bo needed to be cleaned.

“Is it okay if I touch your thighs with the sponge? I’ll be as fast as I can, and afterwards we’ll get you on the sofa, find you an icepack and we’ll put on one of Aoi’s stupid movies.”

“I know we talked back in elementary about Flynn being your Soulmate but…” Lovely cool eyes met Bodhi's. He blinked blearily back at her. “Do you really think Flynn is your Soulmate?”

It was too hard to hold her gaze, knowing how he'd kept this secret from her - along with so many others surrounding Flynn - to keep to himself over the years. He dropped his held slowly forwards and let the movement whisk him away for a moment or two. Once his vision settled, he very quietly said, "Esvin's eyes started flickering at the end of Elementary." He swallowed. "For a while it was so bad Papa found out..."

He let that hang in the air, knowing that Miyuki would understand at least a little of the strain that had put on them.

"That's why I stopped letting her follow me. Remember?" A sad smile turned up te corners of his mouth. "But then... it happened less and less. Maybe once every couple weeks. Then after..." After the first time Bodhi was ever assaulted. He forced himself to breathe. "After second year, it hardly ever happened anymore."

The blood beginning to grow soft on his thighs was running like pink tears.

"I know that's not normal. I know none of it's normal. I was going to leave it, I swear. I gave up." His heart hurt. All of him hurt. His face screwed up, but he was all out of tears, at least for the moment. "But I can't. I can't. It was... it was everything, Miyuki. It felt like for the first time ever I could breathe."

The conversation moved on. He had no idea how, but it did. There was a tiny warning flare in his head telling him to stop blithering on, that he was going to give too much away or hurt Miyuki--

But he couldn't work out wat was right to say and what was wrong. His filter felt like it had entirely disintegrated.

“These people have pictures of you?”

Knowing that he shouldn't say more, just in case, he hummed in agreement. A lot of photos.

“Is it okay if I touch your thighs with the sponge? I’ll be as fast as I can, and afterwards we’ll get you on the sofa, find you an icepack and we’ll put on one of Aoi’s stupid movies.”

It felt like his throat swelled closed at the idea of being touched there, but this was Miyuki. She was safe. He adored her. Breathing in fast puffs through his nose, he said, "Okay."

Miyuki pursed her lips when Bo told her about Esvin, her eyes, and his parents noticing.

The world was a much cruller place than most people knew, and she paused in her cleaning to brush her finger gently across Bo’s cheek.

“It’s okay Bo. We can talk about it later.” She didn’t want him stressing himself out too much, not while the concussion was so fresh.

As Bo wasn’t more forthcoming about the photos she let the subject drop. And, once she had his consent to clean him, she began to do so very carefully, while still getting through the process as quickly as possible. The bath was stained red, and she’d probably have to run the bathwater at least for a short while to rinse it away and clean their feet. She didn’t want to track it through the house and risk Aoi seeing any of it.

When she was done, she cleaned the sponge again, and handed it to Bo.

“So you can finish up,” she told him, “I’ll support your weight as best I can. Then we’ll get out of here, settle you on the sofa and I’ll go and get Aoi back. Do you mind if I leave you to watch her and the start of the movie without me? There’s a shop just down the street, I can go and grab us something for dinner.”

Bo would need some clothes. She was a little bit taller than him, and her shoulders were a little more slender, but he should still fit. “You can borrow some of my pyjamas for tonight. I’ll get your clothes washed while the film is running, hang them up to dry so they’ll be good for tomorrow.”

She didn’t know why she was babbling so much, perhaps because she knew if she filled the silence then Bo wouldn’t have to.

Fingers brushed across his cheek.

“It’s okay Bo. We can talk about it later.”

He was... sad, he thought, that she didn't want to hear more about Flynn. Even though it hurt to think about, he just had s much he wanted to say, like about how he'd been so, so careful not to touch. Like the little dips of his head against Bodhi's. That tiny, soft chuckle of laughter. The hint of a smile in his voice.

How pale and scared he'd been. How his words had stumbled when he'd been asked to fill a silence or answer a question. He was so entirely... soft. It was unreal. Impossible.

Bodhi was so swept away in the tiny, dreamlike snapshots of the brief time he'd spent with Flynn that he barely noticed Miyuki working on wiping down his thighs at all, despite his previous worries. He drifted in sleepy recollections of an upturned face, angled away, pale brown eyes avoidant and averted. What had he been thinking? Had he been wanting to get away? Had he been revolted by Bodhi's sexuality?

After a while, she finished what she was doing and passed Bodhi the stained sponge. He stared down at it in sleepy bafflement.

“So you can finish up. I’ll support your weight as best I can. Then we’ll get out of here, settle you on the sofa and I’ll go and get Aoi back. Do you mind if I leave you to watch her and the start of the movie without me? There’s a shop just down the street, I can go and grab us something for dinner.”

"Mmkay," he said again, doing as she'd asked and leaning on her as he twisted around and began to wipe down the site of the damage, twitching and wincing as he did so. The pain was horrid, but it helped him focus a little more. "I'll try watching her but I... 'm really soupy."

It seemed only right to warn her. Aoi could be a handful, and Bodhi had no hands to spare. If she got into mischief, then he absolutely would not be able to help. He had a feeling that the second he lay down, he'd be out like a light.

“You can borrow some of my pyjamas for tonight. I’ll get your clothes washed while the film is running, hang them up to dry so they’ll be good for tomorrow.”

"Thank you," he mumbled, as he finished wiping himself down as best he could. "You're too good a friend to me. My best friend. Flynn won't ever beat you. You're my number one."

He leaned woozily towards the sink and managed to drop it in without too much stressing, before turning around and hugging Miyuki in a clumsy, impulsive burst of affection. It was only brief, but it made him feel... maybe not better, but certainly a little more put together.

Once he let go, he pulled back and said, with great sombreness, "He has very nice pecs, you know. I'm sad I didn't see him getting changed." What a waste...