Beep. Beep. Beep.

That was the first thing Lars heard. Hearing seemed to be his only sense right now. His eyes seemed to be open, but everything in front of him was a blur of greys and whites.

Beep.

He could hear beeping, but had no idea where it was coming from. Confused, his thoughts were muddled. They didn't quite make sense. Where was he? How did he get here?  He tried to move his arm, but nothing seemed to be obeying him. He cursed his body, betraying him like this.  Beep-beep. It was still there. What the fuck is that? He tried to move his head, and succeeded in wiggling it ever so slightly from side to side. It felt like one of those times when he slept well into the afternoon, except times a million. His body was stuck in hot glue, burning a little, aching? Why did he hurt? Blinking his eyes, the tiger saw the world starting to come into focus, which meant he instantly was forced to squeeze his eyes shut. He was looking up into a bright light. With his eyes on semi-permanent lockdown, he realised how much he hurt. His head was pounding, massive hammers crashing around. He could feel some kind of invisible goblin resting behind his eyes, stabbing him relentlessly. His chest was on fire, hot liquid seemed to be swirling around maliciously inside. He was nauseous, and his throat was killing him. Beep-beep.  He tried to say something, but instead just groaned quietly. Why wasn't any of this working? He could wiggle his toes a bit, his legs only ached, but they were also in the strange hot glue contraption. Something was holding him down. Someone was holding him down? No. Not a person. A thing, a…a blanket. He realised what it was, feeling like an idiot. Some large cotton thing that you might find in a hospital.

Oh.

The thought hit him like the bolts of lightning exploding inside his brain. Of course he was in a hospital. That would explain the beeping. The mild-cold too. But how did he get to a hospital? Why was he in a hospital? Where was Riley? He needed to check on Riley because that guy had... Wait who hurt Riley? They'd hurt him too. Lars groaned again, getting confused.

The religious fanatics? But didn't they leave…no…

Just like before, the thought hit him like the explosions inside his mind. He remembered all of it, Isaac running up…tricking them…the assault…the four large furs. He felt tears well up in his eyes, helpless as they poured out the side and onto his pillow. Trying to blink them away, he realised his eyes were working again. Still blinking from the brightness, he looked straight up. It was watery and blurry because of his tears, but the roof was there. It was a horrible hospital-white colour, tinted ever-so-slightly green by the fluoro lighting. His eyes screamed at him, furious that he dare try to operate them. He ignored his bodies pleading, trying to turn his head a little, then his eyes first to the left…then the right. Relief flooded through him. Sitting next to his bed was Riley.  The fox was slumped in a chair, hoodie on of course, asleep. His left arm was in a sling, bandaged up, but he looked relatively okay. His head rested on the other arm, and Lars could now hear him snoring lightly. He tried to say his name, but all that came out was a horrible raspy noise. He tried to coat the inside of his mouth with saliva, wetting the horrible dryness with something. Swallowing painfully, he was able to push out a word.

“Rugh…Riley." He heard his own voice, it sounded like he had a terrible cough or virus, but it worked. The fox started blinking, sat up and looked over. Panic and concern was in his eyes, and at first he didn't do anything.  They just stared at each other.

“Lars?" Riley whispered. The tiger nodded. The fox smiled, rubbing his eyes and moving to the bedside chair.  Lars let his head loll back, feeling safer now. He felt Riley grab his paw softly, and his pain died back a little.

“How are you?" He asked, still whispering. Lars nodded ever so slightly, trying to talk. He only managed to make a kind of hissing noise, his mouth and throat were so dry. Riley seemed to realise this. “You must be thirsty. The nurse gave me this…here." Lars felt a straw pressed to his lips, and gratefully opened his maw. He didn't have the energy or inclination to try and suck, so Riley squeezed the bottle, splashing a little liquid into his mouth. Water had never been so good. It instantly coated his tongue, washing away what felt like a mountain of dust. Swallowing was a breeze, the cool drink soothing most of the burning agony. Savouring that for a moment, he was then able to speak.

“Riley." He said, also talking very softly, weakly. It didn't hurt as much as before though. “Are you…okay?" The fox nodded.

“Mostly." He held up his damaged arm.

“How did we…how did we get here?" He asked next.

“I called my Dad. It was lucky because he'd just gotten home, was about to jump in the shower…but I caught him and he drove over. From there he called an ambulance and tried to help us."

“Oh." He thought for a moment. “How uh…how long have I…?" Riley seemed to think about the question for a second, counting the days.

“You've been sleeping for about four or five days. You woke up here and there apparently, barely conscious…according to the nurse." Lars shook his head.

“Definitely…not. Don't remember that." They sat there for a moment. Riley holding Lars' paw gently, sweetly rubbing the side of his face.

Lars needed that.

“Your family is here, by the way." The fox finally said.

“Oh?"

“Yeah, they're napping in the waiting room with my Dad. They were all in here earlier, but you weren't awake." Lars thought back to before, when Riley was asleep.

“Why is everyone sleeping?" He finally asked. Riley smiled, gesturing to the wall clock that Lars had failed to notice. According to that it was one AM. “Oh." He finally said.

“I'll go wake them up in a minute, and get a nurse, I just want a little time with you first. Are you…alright?" He asked. Lars nodded.

“I'm alive." Riley smiled, placing an incredibly gentle kiss onto the top of his head, before slowly climbing up and leaving. Watching him go, Lars could see he was still sore too.

After a moment of sitting in silence, trying not to fall asleep again, the door opened and an owl poked his head in.

“Hello?" He called gently. Lars made a kind of waving motion with his paw, and the owl stepped in. This must be the nurse riley had mentioned.

“Hey." Rasped the tiger.

“Hello." Said the nurse again. “My name's Henry, I'm on call tonight. Night owl and all that." He gave a nervous chuckle and Lars smiled. “Now then, uh…how are you feeling? Okay?" Lars nodded.

“Mostly. Sore." The owl smiled.

“Yes, okay. I'll bring you some painkillers in a minute, they'll help you sleep. If they don't…Well, there's a button there." He pointed to a remote next to Lars' paw. “If you need me at all, just press it, okay?" Lars nodded again.

“Thanks." He forced out. The owl smiled and left. After another minute or two, the door was pushed open yet again, with a much more familiar face poking it's head in.

“Hey buddy." His father called gently. Lars again waved. Henrik entered, his wife behind. They both came to the side of the bed.

“Hello honey, how are you?" His mum asked.

“I'm okay." If he wasn't so tired he would have scoffed at the face his father made, who was clearly disagreeing.

“It's just us here, at the moment." His father said. “Esther and Marcus stayed home, but they're really worried about you." Lars smiled. Behind them he saw Riley slip back into the room, coming around and sitting on the other side of the bed.

“Riley…he's been an angel." Said Clara. “He uh…explained what happened to you two." Lars could see tears forming in her eyes, but she quickly blinked them away.

“I don't know what…" His father began, shaking a little. “No. We can talk about that later. The important thing is that you're awake." Lars nodded, his eyes heavier than before. He saw the nurse pop back in, injecting some liquid into his drip.

“This'll take about fifteen minutes to work okay mate? But it will make you drowsy, so don't worry if you start to fall asleep." Lars and his family nodded, and the nurse quickly left. Riley stood up.

“You guys should probably get going, it's late and he's gonna be asleep in a minute." Clara nodded, squeezing Lars' paw again.

“Riley's father offered us their spare room, so that's where we'll be. I'll see you in the morning okay?" She turned to his boyfriend. “You'll be okay here Riley?"

“Yeah I'm fine. I can't leave him alone though." She nodded.

“I understand….thank you." Everyone hugged as Lars watched, then his parents both kissed his head and left. Riley sat down again. Sighed heavily.

“Fucking hell man." Lars nodded.

“I know…" He was starting to feel sleepier.

“Listen though…I…I haven't told them any names. They know what happened, but I didn't mention the Reverend…or Isaac." Lars turned his head, surprised.

“Why? Why not?" He asked.

“I…waned to talk to you first. If you want to tell them, you can. I'll be okay with that. I just…don't think anything can come of it. We can't prove any of them were there. The other fucks will protect them with alibi's for certain."

“I guess but…I dunno." Lars said, mostly just mumbling now.

“But this way…I don't know. I can deal with it." He squeezed Lars' paw. Lars squeezed back.

“Don't do anything…rash…yet…okay?" He let his eyes fall shut.

“I won't. Don't worry." Finished Riley. “I love you." That was the last thing Lars heard before slipping back into sleep.

Riley was awoken by the burning his face. Blinking back tears, he looked out the hospital window to see the bright and sunny morning that was rising. Checking his phone, which was on 26% battery, he saw it was just after seven in the morning. His boyfriend was still asleep, and quite deeply by the look of things. Shifting his sore muscles and bruised body, the fox slowly climbed up off the couch. He stretched quietly, which was made awkward by the horrible, blue-canvas sling his injured arm was in. It wasn't broken, according to the doctor, but it was severely battered. Riley had been advised to keep it in the sling and wrapped up for about two weeks. He had a lot of damage on his chest too, and especially deep breaths or yawns causing singes of pain to stretch out from his lungs…but nothing compared to what Lars had endured. For some reason, the Reverend's attack team had really focused in on the innocent tiger who'd had so little to do with everything that happened. They'd broken two of the boy's ribs though, and caused a severe amount of surface damage. The doctors had at first worried about internal bleeding, but he seemed to have gotten off relatively lucky on that front. Just thinking about it caused Riley to literally shake with rage. How dare they. Lars didn't come close to deserving that.

All he wanted to do now was hurt them.

It was never quite that simple though of course. Pushing those vindictive thoughts aside, Riley picked up his backpack and quietly slipped out of the room. For the last few days he'd been keeping a close eye on Lars, just in case. But he hadn't just been sitting there. As soon as the doctors allowed him to get up and walk around, he'd gone across the road to a supermarket and purchased a pre-paid 4G Wi-Fi dongle, with 64 gigabytes of data. It had been expensive but he didn't want to leave Lars alone long enough to use internet from somewhere else. This device was used this in conjunction with his laptop and various security measures to do some research on what exactly had happened to them both.

Shuffling around fairly slowly, still stiff of course, Riley found himself a quiet corner in the waiting room. He had a good view of Lars's door too, which was a must. Setting up the Wi-Fi and laptop, he opened up the emails he'd downloaded. It was primarily from Reverend Marks's personal computer, but some had been copied from his two sons machines too. He'd learnt a great deal. After the Reverend had received Riley's false email claiming his eldest was gay, the son was brought home. The fox imagined there'd been some screaming, arguing and explaining, but at some point Jason sent his younger brother an email filling him in. He'd summarised that he had 'messed with that computer geek fag', and that the email had been an over-reactive attack on the fox's part. To give the lion credit, he'd managed to put together that Riley was the one to send the email. Although in Riley's mind, destroying an expensive laptop was a little more than just 'messing with someone'. Scrolling through the emails, he skim-read the information for the third or fourth time. A bit of back and forth between Jason and Isaac, then the father had come in too. Jason was organised to take a year or so break, assisting with the church (since they'd all agreed by this point Jason was in fact, not gay) then return to his studies. In the meantime, Isaac had been assigned the duty of discovering the truth of the fox's involvement.

Riley had been sceptical at first, he gave the younger lion, who Lars had quite liked the benefit of the doubt. He thought just maybe Isaac had no choice, that the Reverend and his eldest son had bullied and badgered him into it…But considering the zealousness Isaac had responded with and the eagerness to hurt the couple in his emails, he now knew that was not the case. Isaac was a mite smarter than his older brother, and he knew that fag hating was rather looked down upon in most circles. According to the emails, Lars admitted to Isaac that he and Riley had something to do with Jason's…as they so eloquently put it: 'cyber-slander'. From what the fox could put together from there, the anti-pride pride hadn't exactly had a targeted plan of attack…but they knew they wanted to hurt Lars and himself. When Isaac saw the couple hiding at the talk, he leapt at the chance, clued in his father, who in turn roped in some goons. It made Riley furious. He clenched his eyes shut, tears welling up. He kept going over everything in his head, what to do…the best plan. He could tell the police, like Lars would likely want to. The only thing was, the only bit of proof he held that the Reverend had organised this, or that Isaac was involved had been obtained illegally. Riley had very little faith in the system as it was and would rather deal with the issue himself. But he wasn't some kind of hit-man, which meant that killing all of them (A plan his mind was frequently entertaining) was probably out of the question too. Going after the lackeys was possibly almost a waste of time…but who knew? He still had no idea who the panthers and wolves had been. Sighing, he rolled his head around, letting his neck crack, when his train of thought was interrupted by a light 'boop' noise. Looking at his screen, he'd apparently received a new message. Opening it, it was his father.

'How u doing over there Riles? Pretty early to be online?' Riley pondered the question for a moment before replying.

'I'm ok, Lars is asleep. Couch was fucking awful, could barely sleep but it's fine. How is everyone there?' He said, referring to Lars's parents.

'Fine, his parents are a little bit neurotic but nice. Currently eating breakfast. We'll probably head over soon, relieve you for the day maybe?' His father, ever the pragmatist.

'It might be nice to go home and sleep in my own bed for a bit.' He admitted. And it would, he was exhausted.

'Cool. That'll be good for you. Can give his folks some time alone with him too. ' His dad said.

'I'll wait until you get here, don't want to leave him alone.' Riley replied.

'Cool.' Was all he got back. He closed the tab, and opened a different kind of messenger application. This was an independent peer-to-peer messaging service, running through an obscure kind of encryption that Riley mostly understood. He typed in the messaging number for his polar bear friend, Gareth. After his last computer was destroyed when Jason 'messed with him', Riley had gotten his recent one from the bear. Gareth was good at getting stuff that was typically unavailable to the public. They hadn't spoken in a while, but that was fairly typical for the relationship, only talking when they needed to. Gareth occasionally paid Riley to investigate people, since the bear was nowhere close to a hacker, but as part of the deal he also sold the fox hardware at near-cost price. Not like Riley had anywhere else to shop in any case, the majority of Gareth's stock was forbidden to own.

When the polar bear finally responded, Riley gave him a list of things he might need. Their conversation was short and utilitarian, the fox only divulging what his friend needed to know. He wanted to hurt them, he was sick of religious fanatics thinking they could say or do whatever they wanted.

He just hoped that Lars felt the same way.