PR15M: Salvation (Ice)

 PR15M: Salvation

By Ice

It took me three days to find Ink alone and unattended by his retinue of bodyguards so that I felt safe to approach him. Three days of following him and watching him from the shadows. Three days of agony. I'd found him. I'd finally, after all these years of loss and pain, rediscovered my brother and I was vibrating with impatience and anxiety. But old habits die hard and I wasn't ready to let my guard down easily, even for Ink. I'd learned the price of trust and it had come at the cost of Taehyun's life and I wasn't about to walk out into the unknown without some measure of confidence in my ability to safely retreat if need be. It was three days but what was three days after it had already been ten years?

Still, it burned me to have to wait those necessary three days. It was an all-consuming fire that made it impossible to eat or to sleep and I stumbled through fevered days and nights waiting for an opportunity and meanwhile rehearsing all the possible first words through my mind. How was he going to react? How would he feel? How was I going to go about explaining Taehyun's absence? What about our parents? Tae's parents? My mind refused to rest and I became increasingly anxious the more impossible it seemed to be to orchestrate meeting Ink on my own.

At least he'd recognized me, the expression on his face at that moment our eyes had met an undeniable awareness of the truth. I had no doubt he'd always known, in the same manner I'd always known, that we'd eventually be returned to one another and I imagine that, if he'd not actively been searching for me, he'd have known I would be searching, or waiting, for him. There was an unmistakable connection between us, a mutual awareness, an empathetic link by which we were aware of each other's presence even in our absence and Ink had known instantly who I was. The doubt I myself was suddenly left with was how exactly he might feel about this.

I'd been looking for him, waiting for him, planning to return to him with Taehyun in tow for so long. Now that I was here, with Ink so close I could almost touch him, I was overwhelmed with doubt. He looked so well, so fit, so handsome and well-cared for. He had staff with him who clearly had his welfare and best interests at heart. Had our family always been this well off? I couldn't remember. I certainly had no memory of being poor but still, bodyguards? If we'd had bodyguards back then, back when Tae and I had been taken, would I be standing here now, with scars on my body and even greater scars in my heart? I had to assume not or I might be forced to turn and walk away at the bitterness that threatened to drop me to my knees. No, there had been no bodyguards back then. And I had to believe the look of desperation on Ink's face indicated he wanted to reunite with me equally as much as I wanted to reunite with him. I had to push away my doubts and believe he would not refuse me. I had to believe I was wanted back or I might as well quit and die and put all my efforts to waste.

On the evening of the third day, I finally found him alone on the rooftop of the hotel at which he was staying.

It had cost me dearly to reach him and I was sincerely cursing multi-floor buildings in general and this Moroccan multi-floor hotel specifically by the time I scrambled over the lip of the guard wall from the climb I'd made up a feature wall from several floors further down. At least I'd had that advantage. I'd furtively traversed several neighboring buildings and accessed the wall from the roof of an apartment block before having to scramble up the final two floors completely vertically. I was already exhausted, dehydrated, and malnourished before I began and I pretty much rolled over the guard wall bounding the rooftop and lay staring up at the sky wondering if I even had the remaining energy to get back up.

"It is you, isn't it? Tell me I'm not dreaming. Please, Ice. Tell me it's really you."

I may have blinked, the voice I hadn't used in longer than I recall failing me now, in this moment I'd literally spent the greater part of my life waiting for. A tear fell on my face, coursing its way through the dust of many months of journeying lost in the wilderness. It wasn't mine.

"Tae?" Ink whispered, kneeling beside me and taking hold of one of my hands. "Where's Tae? Is he hurt somewhere? Is he waiting for you?"

The shadow in my eyes must have said it all, the tears forming to spill down my cheeks as my heart broke anew. I had miraculously found salvation. I was going home at last. But Tae was dead and lost, never to see his family or his homeland again. 

Guilt washed over me in a raw, acidic wave, burning away the all-too-brief exhilaration I'd felt on gazing up at Ink's face, and I closed my eyes.

Ink said nothing. What words could he possibly say? Gathering me up into his arms, he stood.

"Casper? I'm on the rooftop, I have Ice, and I need help. Now. He's sick. Really, really sick."

He wasn't talking to me and I knew for damn sure I hadn't seen anyone on the roof with him. And who was Casper? My brain refused to co-operate with me but, somewhere in its fuzzy depths, I concluded he must have been wearing an earpiece. That was why he'd felt safe to be on the rooftop alone; he hadn't really been alone at all. 

Ink's arms felt strong and warm and infinitely familiar wrapped around me. Tae. It was Taehyun's arms wrapped around me. No, it was Ink. It was comfort. It was rescue. It was home. I cried silent tears and drifted into darkness.

There was no way of knowing for how long I slept. When you suddenly find yourself in a real bed, between real sheets, and with a real pillow beneath your head after too many months of sleeping wherever you are when night falls, who counts time? Besides, I had nothing to gauge it with. I'd never owned a watch and wherever I was when I awoke, no natural light intruded to indicate to me the time of day. I forced open gritty eyes and did my best to blink away the numbness in my brain. I was immediately aware of two things. One,  I was in a hospital room attached to all sorts of gadgets and IV's and two, Ink was sitting in a chair beside my bed, leaned forward and fast asleep and my hand in both of his. I wondered how long he'd been there, how long we'd both been there. Had he slept there the whole time?

"He hasn't left you," a voice said from somewhere out of my direct line of sight. "Not surprising given how long it's taken to find you."

"How long?" I managed to croak, trying to pinpoint the exact location of the voice's owner.

"I'll take that question to be related to how long you've been asleep," the voice continued. "Forty-eight hours, give or take. You had a substantial fever and you're currently on antibiotics, fever-reducers, and a cocktail of several other medications for things I know nothing about. Let's just say you were damn lucky you came to us when you did. You were very close to not making it at all."

Ink shifted and groaned and his grip tightened around my hand. An unexpected rush passed through me. 

"Casper? Is Ice all right? Will he make it?" Ink asked, his voice shaky.

"Ask him yourself. He's awake."

I turned my head, my neck stiff and heat rushing into my cheeks.

Our eyes locked and any and all of my doubts were washed away and for the second time in only forty-eight hours, I began to cry.