The Dark Angels: Tied Together (2 page)

“No, I think it is crystal clear. You would definitely need more than your fake
brother
on a desert island. I believe it was a blonde, red head, and brunette,” Robin’s own peacock colored hair floated around his face like a lion’s mane.

“Robby...” Josh didn’t know what to say. They weren’t related and Josh was eternally grateful because the things he wanted from Robin were far from brotherly! However, Robin always fixated on their brotherly bond as if that was what held them together.

The idea of not having that tie freaked Robin out.

Josh understood the origin of Robin’s feelings, even though he didn’t like it. When Robin lost his mom, his whole world imploded. Robin craved a family connection because he worried that without that bond, Josh would desert him. Abandon him the same way his real father had and the way his stepfather had cast them out. Robin’s fear of abandonment created a need for Josh to be tied to him by a familial bond, fearing that anything else was transitory and unstable.

Robin refused to acknowledge the very real part of their relationship. The one that erupted into passionate episodes of explosive sex followed by a quiet re-establishment of the roles Robin wanted them in. They would go back to ‘normal’ until their chemistry would build up again to the point of combustion.

It was hard for Josh not to resent the distance that came in the aftermath of one of their out of control moments. It hurt. He wanted so much more but he couldn’t make Robin acknowledge what they could have together. So he settled, knowing at some point a dramatic change would have to take place. The end result could be devastating, or liberating.

Robin was in his pretty blue Corvette pulling out of the parking lot before Josh could stop him. He just stood there watching him slip away. Standing there he started to feel like devastation was more likely.

Two hours later...

Josh was going a little crazy. He tried to write some music but he couldn’t settle and relax enough to concentrate. Robin hadn’t come home yet. Hearing the door buzzer caused him to jump.

Maybe Robby had forgotten his keys. Josh buzzed him in without talking through the intercom.

Didn’t matter as long as Robin was back. He would make them dinner and they would watch their shows. Maybe he would get lucky and Robin would fall asleep curled up on his lap. But it was Dusty who opened the door.

Teasingly, Josh asked, “To what do I owe this honor?” Seeing the look on Dustin’s face did nothing to ease the worry Josh felt creeping over him. The Dark Angel’s drummer was always cracking jokes and making fun of everything and everyone. So seeing Dusty’s somber face, Josh knew something was off. Really off. “What is it?”

Dusty opened his mouth but closed it only to shake his head.

“Your Uncle Leo called. Robin was in an accident. He’s alive but it’s pretty bad.”

Josh just stood there frozen in place. He couldn’t think. He couldn’t function.
His Robby. Hurt? No!

“Don’t have the details yet, but come on. I’ll drive you to the hospital. Angel and Dare will meet us there.”

The next three hours went by in a blur. The doctors told him Robin’s injuries were very serious, that he had lost a lot of blood and he needed surgery. He was unconscious and in critical condition. They didn’t sugar coat the fact that he could lose his Robin.

Darius, Dusty, and Angel were there trying to be supportive but he was barely there. He had retreated into his own private hell. Knowing he could lose the very reason he existed twisted him up with pain from every angle.

Robin was his other half. Brother or not, Robin was more than just family to him. He was everything. Without him...
Fuck
can’t even go there! There was no him without Robby!
Co-dependent and demented as that would sound out loud, that was the freaking reality.

Josh realized he must have been crying when Dusty handed him some tissues. He heard quiet words spoken to calm him but he couldn’t make them out. Maybe that was Dare? Then a strong hand squeezed his shoulder, probably Angel. Josh didn’t know and honestly didn’t care.

A doctor came in. Josh jumped up and stood in front of him.

“Mr. Strider? You are his brother?” The doctor asked.

“Yeah. How is he?” Josh’s voice sounded very far away to him.

The doctor frowned. “He’s stable but still unconscious.”

“Can I see him?” Tears continued to fall down Josh’s cheeks, which he roughly dashed away.

“Yes, but not for long. Now that he’s stable he needs to go into surgery.”

“Surgery?”

“He has internal bleeding due to the broken ribs.” The doctor reached out to steady Josh. “We are doing everything we can.”

“Where is he?”

“Follow me.”

As Josh entered the room, he was struck by how small Robin looked lying in the hospital bed. Even though they were basically the same height and build, Josh always thought of Robin as more delicate and fragile than him.

Josh had always felt a need to take care of ‘his’ Robby, to protect him and make him happy. Robin’s mom, their mother, had always emphasized that
brothers
protect each other. In truth, he never felt the obligation to care for Robin out of brotherly duty. It was a need deeply ingrained but he knew it had nothing to do with family ties.

He grasped Robin’s hand. It was a connection that he used to tether Robin’s life force to him. Josh’s voice broke as he spoke to him.

“Robby. Please come back to me. You have to get back to me. Just like our new song, ‘Even with wings, I am flightless without you’. I can’t be here without you. Please, Rob… Robin.”

He drank in the sight of the man that meant everything to him.

Josh stopped himself from rocking back and forth. “You are my everything. You are the only thing I have ever needed. Please. I love you. Don’t leave me.”

A nurse bustled in. “Sweetie, I have to take him into surgery now.” She moved the IV bag to a pole attached to his bed and fussed with the wires and tubes connected to Robin.

Josh gently kissed Robin. A soft sweet kiss on his lips as he whispered his final plea. “Please love me enough to come back to me, Robby.” He brushed one last kiss across his lips then as Robin was wheeled away, he collapsed back into a corner chair.

He prayed to all that was holy that this would not be their last kiss. The first time he had ever kissed Robin flashed through his mind. It was his very first kiss. He remembered vividly the entire experience, and what happened after it as if it were yesterday.

Three Years Ago…

“It’s not a question, Robby. I’m going to do
it
tomorrow,”

Josh told Robin straight up. He took a deep breath of the wet ocean air and looked out onto the Santa Cruz horizon. He saw the seaside amusement park to his left, a hotel on the right and a fishing pier over their heads providing cool shade.

Tears welled up in Robin’s green blue eyes. The eighteen-yearold’s voice was so sad as he spoke. “You are going to have sex?

For money? Tomorrow?” He turned around to face the ocean.

Josh watched as the breeze blew through Robin’s long dark hair picking up pieces and rearranging it into a messy style. “How can you do that?” Robin’s voice was choked with the tears he was trying to hide.

How could he not?
Josh didn’t want to upset his Robby but reality wouldn’t allow him to continue to hide the truth from him. They had been living across street from the pier in Santa Cruz in the skateboard park for the last month or so. And they were almost out of cash.

Life was pretty much a rollercoaster. Josh remembered the huge fight before his mother left. He tried not to remember his father’s verbal abuse.

When he was five, his father married Robin’s mother and he thought it would all be okay. Robin’s mom stopped his father from hitting him and even yelling at him. She was the sweetest woman and she treated him as though she adored him like her own. Plus he got Robby, so life was great. When she died a few years later their life became a living hell.

Josh’s father seemed to consider his sons little more than punching bags. It was almost a relief when they were kicked out.

The drunken rages were getting dangerous.

The fact that they were mere months away from graduation and that Robin wouldn’t be legal for another month had made no difference to the bastard.

Josh had always been grateful that Robin’s mother had allowed him to start school a year later. He had begged her to let him so they could stay together. But now it seemed to bite him in the ass. If he had graduated last year he could have gotten a job and apartment so they could have left on their own terms. Would of, should of, could of, the fact was he didn’t and they were fucked.

It had all come to a head six weeks ago, his father or ‘the abusive sperm donator’, as Josh liked to think of him as, had found the novel Robin was reading. It was a very graphic, very erotic, and very gay novel, which was clearly well read. The cover alone was enough to infuriate the bastard to violence. But when he opened it to read a couple sentences he threw Robin out of the house. When Josh tried to stop his father, he was thrown out too.

Correction, he chased them into their room. Before the hateful man, who was supposed to be a father to them, could break down their bedroom door, Robin had gathered some of their clothing while Josh had nabbed all their special personal items they couldn’t live without. They tossed everything in their backpacks and slipped out the window just as the asshole came crashing into their room. Halfway down the street, Josh could hear the screaming threats his father bellowed after them.

Their ‘father’ tossed them out like yesterday’s trash. The guy had always hated them and saw this as the perfect excuse to get rid of them. He was a real piece of work.

After Robin’s mother had passed away, the jackass used to beat them for things like not pushing in a dining room chair or for laughing too loudly. It was scary when the asshole had found Robin’s fingerless gloves. It wasn’t so much the color that triggered the asshole’s rage as much as the little twinkling diamonettes along the knuckles. Luckily the bastard was drunk so his wild swinging of that the leather strap only hit Josh in the arm missing Robin completely before the drunken bastard passed out cold. Thankfully, he had forgotten the incident when he woke up.

Sometimes, Josh wondered if the verbal abuse might have been even more damaging then the physical. The cuts and bruises healed but he still heard those hateful words echoing in his mind.

He wasn’t a psychologist or anything, but with someone telling you ‘you’re a worthless piece of shit’ every day of your life, you really do start to believe it. He almost agreed with his father on how terrible he was, but Josh despised that Robin was forced to take such a low opinion of himself.

The only reason they survived in that house was they both tried to follow the inconsistent rules of the crazy person. Staying quiet and out of the way seemed to be key. They walked on eggshells but of course occasionally things happened.

Josh always tried to take the brunt of it but the asshole seemed to know if he wanted to punish one of the boys he just needed to hurt the other. The fucker was a real sadistic bastard.

Josh couldn’t wait until they were old enough to get the hell out of that house because it was getting harder and harder to protect Robin from the asshole’s abuse.

In the final incident, Josh tried to claim the book was his but Robin kept saying over and over that the book was his not Josh’s.

But even if the drunken fuck had listened, he knew there was no way Robin was leaving without him. They were two halves of the same whole. Josh had no intention of being without his Robby.

Josh had thought life on the streets together would be better than life in the home that had become their hell. However, the reality of street life was a big kick in the teeth. Their money, grabbed from their secret stash consisting of last year’s birthday money and odd jobs, was almost gone. They had been staying at the skateboard park to save the money for food. They had been using the bathroom at the end of the pier to keep clean. The fishermen didn’t seem to mind if they used the sinks to bathe and to wash their clothing.

The park had a couple of huge skating ramps that kept the rain and some of the wind off them as they took turns sleeping.

It was safer than under the pier after dark. People gathered under there looking for trouble or drugs. Plus, the police routinely patrolled down there. So the skateboard park had been their best choice.

But now Robin had decided he wasn’t hungry so they could make their dollars last longer. Josh couldn’t reason with him at all. He wouldn’t eat and he was losing weight he couldn’t afford to lose. His clothes were hanging off of him.

They needed to make money but no one would hire them without a high school diploma. Even though now they were of age, without their high school diplomas they were screwed. The fact that they were clearly living on the streets didn’t help their employment prospects.

The other throwaways living on the streets of Santa Cruz had informed them early on that the way to the next decent meal or two was a quick cock suck away. They were new, young, and cute.

The usuals would pay. Sick as it was, they were told getting a safe place to sleep for a night would be as easy as bending over for a stranger.

As much as Josh didn’t want to do that, they were down to their last dollars. He would do anything for Robin, even sell his body, without batting an eyelash. Though it made him crazy to think of Robin having to do it too. He was too sweet and sensitive to be used for a stranger’s perverse satisfaction. It would destroy him. He was too fragile for such a life, which is why Josh was trying to convince him that only one of them needed to turn tricks. But Robin wasn’t listening. Josh looked over at him. He was beautiful with his long dark hair blowing in the breeze as he stared out at the ocean.

Robin turned to him with sad eyes. “I don’t want your first time to be with a stranger. Seriously, you’ll always remember your first time. I want your first time to be with someone who loves you.” His voice got very soft and was almost lost on the crashing waves when he said, “I love you.”