Wise Men Run

Michael pushed a few unsuspecting people out of his way as he made a mad dash away from Bagwell. It was close to pitch black at this time of night as he turned a corner of a building sharply in his sprint and vanished from Theodore’s sight.

Shoving several people out of his way as well, Theodore made to turn the bend after Michael. Before approaching the edge of the building however, screeching tires pierced his eardrums and a thump reverberated together with a shrill yell in the street. Rushing around the corner he spotted Michael’s crumpled form.

A couple faces stopped to stare and Theodore quickly rushed over to the fallen Michael. He grasped at Michael arms and legs, running a hand down his sides quickly to look for any irreparable damage. A long bleeding gash ran down Michael’s left leg and Michael clutched his shin in pain. His hands convulsed over the wound and he trembled as his damp grey eyes connected with Theodore’s own.

The driver hurried from her car, curly copper hair whisking about her panicked face. “Oh, God,” she screeched. She hunched down next to them and spoke worriedly, “I’m so sorry. You just jumped out of nowhere. Oh, God.” She gaped at Michael’s blood soaked pant leg. “I’m so, so sorry. Do you need me to call an ambulance?” She looked nervously at Michael hoping for a positive reaction that would settle her fears of getting into trouble.

Theodore seized Michael’s right arm and threw it over his shoulder drawing one hand underneath Michael’s back and the other beneath the back of his knees in a disarrayed mode. “We’ll be fine miss,” he answered hastily. He struggled to stand with Michael in his arms although Pretty was lighter than he looked and Theodore had always been underestimated like the times when opponents were quick to judge him because of his shorter stature.

The copper-haired woman looked on distrustfully as she clutched her phone to her breast. “Are you sure? I have a cell phone,” she retorted warily, frantically tugging the blowing hair from her face.

“No miss, I’ll take ‘im to the hospital.” Scrutinizing her apprehensive look he added, “We’re friends. My car’s just a block away.” He jutted out his chin to point at a random direction and started to walk in that direction with Michael. The woman stood there, but unwound her tight shoulders and calmly got back into her car, if a bit perplexed.

Michael’s face was buried in his chest and Theodore’s shirt felt wet. There didn’t seem to be any broken bones and there wasn’t anymore blood except for the drenched pant leg. Theodore’s arms shuddered with the task of holding Michael’s body weight and he stumbled now and then in the alleyway. Some citizens of the town stared, but kept to their own business.

They finally arrived at the reception area and the stout man from before looked alarmed as Theodore placed Michael in one of the worn grey chairs. Theodore strolled up to the counter with a tear stained and bloodied shirt, slapping down a hundred dollar bill and grabbing the room key left on the counter from earlier.

Theodore backed away from the man slowly, looking fiercely with his dark brown eyes into the man’s own wide dreary ones. He lifted Michael back up into his arms and broke eye contact with the man as he looked for their room.

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Wheezing with exertion he grappled with the key and clasped the knob with one hand while fighting to keep a hold of Michael with his prosthetic one. The peach colored door flung open and Theodore, exhausted and dripping with sweat, dumped Michael onto the floral patterned bed.

“Yuh idiot,” he shouted at Michael. He tangled his fingers in his hair and paced the cramped room in an agitated state, motioning with his artificial hand. “What the hell were yuh thinkin’, Scofield?” He twisted his tongue in his mouth and let it slip between his lips, biting it lightly in an old habit.

Michael gave an angry look at Theodore as he held onto his injured shin. The look wasn’t quite as affective as Michael thought though, with his face wet with tears and his puffy red eyes. “I was thinking that I was about to get away from you,” Michael cried. He rubbed at his eyes with his whitely colored shirt sleeve. “I’m not a child, or a pet. You can’t keep me! I will not be some kind of whore for you,” he carried on. Michael moaned and squeezed his injury tightly. “Fuck, it hurts!”

Theodore sighed and wiped at his forehead with the bottom of his shirt. He composed himself and sat at the edge of the bed scooting closer to Michael. The younger man flinched back and Theodore glowered at him. “Come on. Let me check out that leg.”

Michael clung to his shin rebelliously, then thought better of it and let Theodore take his bleeding leg. Theodore laid Michael’s foot on his lap and rolled the blood drenched pant leg up until it reached Michael’s knee. Theodore gaped at the wound, “Shit that looks nasty.”

Michael cringed and lay back on the bed submitting his leg to Theodore. “I need to go to a hospital,” Michael groaned. “It’s going to require stitches.”

Theodore leaned over to inspect the gash closer. “Don’t be stupid, Pretty. We’re still wanted men,” he warned. “Sides, takin’ you t’the hospital would mean you’d have a chance t’get away from me, and I can’t have that.” He pushed and prodded at the gash and Michael grunted in pain snatching at the sheets.

As supplies that would be needed for the gash ran through Theodore’s head, red and blue lights flickered at the corner of his vision mockingly. He shot up from the bed immediately and looked out the window. A police car was parked outside of the motel and two officers lurched from the car to make their way inside. Theodore growled, “Damn it! That receptionist must’ve called the cops.” He kicked the dresser near the window in rage and nearly ran his bloody hands over his face.

He looked around the room irritated, grabbing a handful of items as a second thought, and then hurried back to the window. He opened it and spotted the old sedan a few feet away.

Theodore realized their room had been located on the first floor, so the drop from the window would only be three or four feet. Sauntering back to the bed and swinging Michael’s right arm over his shoulder, they stood together, Michael mostly on his right leg, but still standing. He set Michael down outside the window first and then crouching over the sill himself, jumped down after him.

Resuming their earlier position they hobbled swiftly to the sedan. Theodore unloaded Michael into the passenger seat and ran to the driver’s side all but tripping. He shifted the clutch into drive and booked it out of the Super 8 Motel parking lot.

Michael’s leg had stopped bleeding, but the wound was still open, could do with some stitches and remained painful. They hadn’t eaten since that morning and now they had nowhere to sleep.

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At 1:53 a.m. Theodore waited impatiently for a distracted cashier to ring up a sewing kit, a lighter, gauze, a bottle of pure alcohol, Advil, water, and two beef jerky sticks. He sneered at the juvenile boy as he talked away on the drugstore’s phone. Theodore tapped his fingers against the counter intolerantly. The items were bagged and Theodore snatched at the plastic bags, annoyed.

He stormed out of the drugstore and straight to Michael whom was curled in the passenger’s seat and trembling noticeably around his leg. He looked in the region of the car, searching for some sort of answer, there was only one, “We’ll have t’do this in the car,” Theodore murmured at last.

“Fine. Do it quickly,” Michael moaned. He thrust his leg toward Theodore whom gripped the leg and sat down in the car closing the driver’s door behind him.

He handed Michael the container of Advil and the bottle of water, and with a sigh said, “Seein’ as we had no choice, this is the best pain killer I could find.”

Michael greedily swallowed two pills and quickly took a gulp of water. Theodore uncapped the alcohol and turned the leg so it was in a better pose. He let the alcohol flow over the cut and Michael hissed through his teeth.

Theodore used the lighter to sterilize one of the needles then set it down on some downy gauze placed untidily on the dashboard. Additionally, he poured alcohol over his hand to disinfect it. Winding a piece of thread through the needle’s head, Theodore pushed the gash together so the wound closed. “Yuh better bite down on somethin’, Pretty,” Theodore advised.

The needle bored into Michael’s flesh and he screamed, sinking his teeth into his wrist instantly. New tears fell from his eyes, collecting together to drip onto his sleeve and soak through his shirt. Michael jerked and whined each time the needle pierced his skin until ultimately Theodore had laced the final stitch and tied it off.

Michael surveyed his stitched leg. It hurt like a bitch. Considering the materials and his one-handed doctor the job was a fine one. Theodore wrapped his leg tightly in gauze and lay back groaning in relief that it was over. He used the back of his hand to wipe the perspiration from his forehead.

Michael settled his other leg on Theodore’s lap and lay back against the passenger door. Theodore was asleep instantaneously. Michael couldn’t help but study the deep lines around the older man’s eyes, his pale gaunt face, and the feathery dark brunette hair that when the characteristics were grouped together made up Bagwell. Michael closed his eyes softly, positioning himself more comfortably then drifted off to sleep with the image of Theodore holding his legs gently in his lap.

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Theodore woke with a start at the angry tapping on his car windshield, 5:02 a.m. It looked to be the manager of the drugstore from last night. Theodore frowned fiercely at him and the man backed away from the car appearing spooked, but not spooked nearly enough as he hesitantly verbalized, “You can’t sleep here it’s against the law!”

Michael jolted awake at the shout and watched groggily as Theodore gnashed his teeth together and squared his jaw. He recognized that evil glint shinning in the other man’s eyes and leant forward to some extent trying to grab Theodore’s attention, but only succeeded in drawing the manager’s awareness to their amorously embraced position.

The manager shook his head in aversion and strode back into the drugstore, murmuring, “Fucking freaks,” underneath his breath.

Theodore watched the man oddly as he disappear into the drugstore. “Ow, T-Bag, you’re hurting my leg,” Michael complained. Theodore loosened his grip and moved Michael’s legs from his lap.

“Go back to sleep, Pretty,” Theodore said absentmindedly. He opened his door and wriggled out of the drab sedan.

Michael pulled his legs back onto his side of the car. He looked uncertainly up at Theodore. “What are you going to do?”

He didn’t answer and Michael watched restlessly as Theodore strolled up to the drugstore and departed into the store.

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Theodore licked at his bottom lip as he entered the drugstore. He examined the room carefully watching for other bodies, other eyes. The manager was stacking boxes on a shelf in the back alone. Theodore loomed toward him.

“Excuse me sir,” Theodore said politely, giving one of his most charming smiles.

The man turned around curiously then upon seeing whom it was, went back to restocking the shelves.

Theodore glared, “I said, excuse me sir.”

“Take a hint, man. I don’t want to talk to a fag,” the man said busily moving on to a different section of the store.

Theodore followed after him, getting more irate with each second. “I jus’ want yuh t’apologize.”

“I’m not going to apologize you freak,” the young man spat. Theodore noticed a pair of scissors resting innocently on the counter.

Theodore stretched his neck, running a hand through his hair. “There’s that word again.” He played with the scissors twirling them around on his fingers while the manager ignored him. “I don’t like that word.” He stopped spinning the scissors and gave a heated look at the man. “Reminds me of them /good/ ole times down in ‘bama, all those whispers and stares in the halls at school.”

The man set his work down angrily, turned and gritted his teeth at Bagwell. “I told you to leave. Take your pansy ass boyfriend and get the hell out of here.”

Theodore clutched at the scissors hard. “I gave yuh a chance.” He advanced on the man quickly and sheathed the scissors in the man’s chest.

The manager gawked at the makeshift weapon sticking from his torso and took hold of it. Theodore ripped it from his hands and stabbed him again.

The man fell to the floor gurgling and bled out abruptly, staring vacantly at him. Theodore’s hands were covered in blood, again…but this time for an entirely enjoyable reason. He grinned at the body.

The bell on the door sounded, signaling a visitor and Theodore jerked his head toward it. “God,” a voice feebly cried.