Khal drove Rene to the hospital. When they got there, he made up a story about a random hate crime where someone had attacked Rene by throwing something from their vehicle at the back of Rene’s head. No one questioned it. Rene suspected that they wouldn’t have been able to. 

He received all the important scans and x-rays, lying awkwardly on his bed in the provided hospital gown in between all of these tests. 

It was confirmed that his skull was fractured and there was mild swelling on his brain. The doctor concluded that judging by how hard he had bitten his tongue, it was possible that he had indeed had a seizure, though the EEG results had been unremarkable. They decided to keep him overnight for observation, and gave him acetaminophen for the headaches. Khal remained by his side throughout everything. Rene wished he could be alone. He wanted time to process by himself, to work through everything that Khal had revealed to him. 

He also didn’t want anything to do with Khal at the moment, but it looked like he didn’t really have a choice. 

“I texted Ari to let her know about the accident.” Khal said. “I’ll go home tonight to clean up before they get back tomorrow.”

Rene merely grunted in response.

“I know you’re upset with me, but I think this will end up being really good for us. Now the truth is laid out, and we can move on.”

Rene rolled his eyes and turned onto his side so that he was facing away from Khal.

“I’m going to take care of everything.” Khal said. “You’ll see.”

“I want to sleep.” Rene snapped. 

“Right, of course.” Khal said. “I can head out now to clean up. I’ll be back in a bit.”

Khal stood and walked to the door, hesitating as his hand hovered over the knob, “Don’t say anything. Don’t tell anyone the truth. When I come back, I’ll find out. I’ll know if you did.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” Rene muttered.

“You know, one day you’ll see that everything I’ve done has been for us. That it was never my intention to hurt you.” Khal said.

Rene didn’t respond, and eventually, Khal opened the door and left. A few minutes after Khal left, once Rene was sure he wasn’t going to suddenly pop back into the room, Rene began to sob. The tears flowed freely, and in no time at all, he had soaked through the pillow as everything came spilling out of him. It was overwhelming, and he buried his face in the pillow to muffle the sobs as he thought about what his life had become. 

He felt like a prisoner. But it wasn’t that simple. Because the truth was, he loved Khal. Or, had loved him at some point. 

At many points. 

Every other dream came flooding back. Knowing that they were real, that they had actually happened, hit him like a wave of panic. These were his lives. His pasts. He had existed before 1989. He had had an effect on the world in multiple ways. He couldn’t even fathom what those lives had meant in the butterfly effect of existence. It all felt pretty hopeless though. The world was such a fucked up place, that no matter who he had been, he hadn’t really been able to make a difference. To make things better. To make the world he thought Emory should get to grow up in.

The door opened and his nurse suddenly popped in. Rene quickly wiped his face, sniffling and sitting up, embarrassed. 

“Oh! I’m so sorry.” The nurse said. “I didn’t mean to…I can come back.”

Rene shook his head, “I’m fine.” He swallowed back against the lump in his throat. He could hear the crack in his voice. 

The nurse came over and checked his vitals. She looked at him with a sympathetic smile. 

“Some people are just too cruel for this world. What was done to you, it’s beyond sadistic. I’m so sorry you went through that.”

Rene half scoffed. 

“My brother is gay.” The nurse blurted. Rene looked at her curiously. “He was bullied all the time throughout school. Almost took his own life, and not for lack of trying. But it got better for him. He found a job he loved, a man he couldn’t live without. Things haven’t been easy, of course. There will always be the assholes. But we can’t let them win. The bigots, the ignorant gremlins. They don’t get to dictate our lives just because they’re scared of someone who’s different.”

Rene nodded. He couldn’t help but think about what Khal had said about Colleen when he was controlling her. The cruel thoughts she’d had regarding him and Misha. The way she had rejoiced in Misha’s death, despite what her own husband had been doing to their son. 

“What-” Rene’s voice broke, and he coughed a bit, clearing his throat, “What would you do if you could change them?”

“Change them?” His nurse asked, raising her eyebrows. 

“Change horrible people, for the better.” Rene said. 

She looked thoughtful as she did a final run-through of his vitals. 

“You know, in this job, I have seen the worst of people. I’ve seen moments that would make your skin crawl. Some people are so beyond helping, it’s not funny. Those are the ones you can’t change. You look in their eyes, and there’s something dead. Something twisted and wrong. They were never human. Either they were born that way, or neglected or beaten into that creature, but they are a lost cause in an actual society. But most of the time, people are just brainwashed. They went too far down the rabbit-hole of idiocy, and they can’t climb out. Or they’ve tried, but it’s too late. I can’t tell you the number of people who begged me to give them the vaccine for Covid right before I put them on the ECMO machine. People who would have done anything at the last moment, when they realized just how serious the virus was. Do you know how many people I watched die every day when the worst of the virus hit because they were so deep into the toxic thinking of masks are evil and social distancing is for the dogs? You can guess how many of them survived.”

She took a deep breath and sighed, “It would be amazing to wave a magic wand and have them all believe the truth. To have people wake up and see the world around them on fire and want to do something about it. To have them look at their fellow humans and see real actual people. I think that would be something. It’s just a shame we don’t have that ability.”

“Yeah.” Rene muttered, suddenly lost in the possibilities. “Yeah, it would be amazing. I’m sorry to hear about what you’ve been through. I can only imagine how hard it must be to have lived through all of that.”

She smiled and shrugged, “Life is short. I choose to spend mine doing better for others. If I’m lucky, I’ll have several decades left to enjoy the world, or what’s left of it with current policies. The hottest global temperature on record this past summer, and it’s only gonna get worse. Thank God for ac, am I right?”

Rene smiled and nodded, then winced at the pain in his head. 

“Do you need more acetaminophen?” She asked. 

“Yes please.” Rene said. “I think I’m going to try to rest.” 

She had given him a lot to think about. 

“I’ve got you.” She said. 

Rene believed that with every fiber of his being. 

*****

After more pain meds and a little time to relax without Khal there, Rene finally drifted off to sleep. Within moments, he heard the screaming of a woman. Two women. 

He could sense them, rather than see them. It was warm. Dark. Suddenly he was rushing toward light, the cries getting louder. The cries of the women, and his cries. 

And someone else. A baby. Another baby. 

He was being born. Being pulled out into the world from inside his mother. There was light, and though it was candlelight, it still felt blinding compared to where he had just been. A woman looked him over. She removed the mucus from his face, and set him down on a towel to sever the umbilical cord. 

Rene had never remembered being born before. 

“Asim.” His mother whispered. “My sweet Asim.”

His name was Asim. His mother held him close as the other baby screamed. The other mother had gone quiet. There was crying and whimpering from the tending women. Asim’s mother reached out, and they handed her the other baby. 

Rene understood that the other mother had died. 

“Sweet Khalid.” Asim’s mother said, holding both of them to her chest. Their little hands reached out and found one another, and baby Khalid and baby Asim truly met for the first time. Asim’s mother held them as the babies found comfort in one another, swept into the world at that moment in 1481, in the outskirts of Aswan Egypt.

Rene caught glimpses of their lives. Moments. They had been inseparable from birth. Born as slaves, they had trained together, played together, worked together. The desert they lived in was unforgiving, but they strove every day to make their parents and masters proud.

It didn’t seem to matter though. No matter how hard Khalid slaved away to build and fight for his father, the man seemed to loathe him. On numerous occasions, Asim witnessed the rage of Khalid’s father in the form of severe and brutal beatings. The words he lashed his child with were just as harsh as the whips, as he repeatedly blamed Khalid for the death of his mother in childbirth.

Asim once stumbled upon his friend crying, away from prying eyes. Khalid’s back was covered in bloody ribbons of torn flesh, as tears streaked his face. At first, Asim had the urge to walk away, and give his dearest friend privacy in this dark moment, but instead he knelt on the ground beside his friend, taking Khalid’s hand in his, and squeezing it. 

“It won’t always be like this.” Asim promised. “Perhaps, one day he will see all the good that you try to do. He will understand how special his son is.”

Khalid shook his head, “I fear that day will never come. What if I truly am the monster he claims me to be? What if I was the one that killed her, that took everything from him?”

“You were a baby. How could it be your fault?” Asim asked. “No baby is in control of life and death. Only Allah can make that decision.”

“Is it not heresy to blame Allah?” Khalid asked, sounding terrified at the thought. 

“We cannot truly know what his plans are for us, can we? We can only live and work and worship him in our own way.” Asim said. 

Khalid did something strange then. He took Asim’s hand, which was still holding his, and brought it to his mouth and kissed it. Asim tensed, looking around nervously to make sure that they were alone, before he looked back at his dearest friend. 

“What was that?” Asim asked, gently pulling his hand away. 

Khalid, who was such a skinny young man now at 15 years of age, looked deep into Asim’s eyes, studying him. 

“Did you hate it?” Khalid asked. “Are you going to tell on me? I’m certain they would kill me for that.”

Asim looked down at his hand as though he had never truly seen it before. Then his gaze returned to Khalid.

“I won’t say anything. I won’t tell a soul.” Asim insisted. “But why did you do that?”

Khalid shrugged and shook his head, “I don’t know. The urge came over me. This feeling. I’ve felt…for a long time I’ve felt…”

“Felt what?” Asim asked, his heart fluttering as he asked the question. 

The truth was that Asim had felt something too. Some affection for Khalid that he had considered friendship, or brotherhood, but which had grown especially strong as they had reached young adulthood. While others of their age had been flirting with girls and boys of the opposite sex, Asim had found himself having strong physical emotions for his dearest friend. An attraction he did not dare to act upon.

Khalid did not seem bothered by his wounds any more. He was smiling at Asim, sharing a moment with him that neither could have fathomed before then. 

“I care deeply for you.” Khalid said. 

Asim could see Khalid’s heartbeat in his throat. The fear it must he costing him to say all of this. 

“Deeply in a way that I’m sure is meant to be for my future bride. But I don’t have that feeling for them. For the women. When I think about a kiss, or a touch, or being with someone until old age swallows me, I think of you, Asim. I don’t care about having a family, or continuing my legacy. Father has other children with his second bride who can continue the family line. All that I think about, is you.” Khalid blurted.

Asim took several shaky breaths, as he looked around once more to make certain they were alone. 

“Such thoughts are dangerous.” Asim stated.

“But you’ve had them.” Khalid insisted. 

Asim wanted to shake his head no, to tell Khalid that he was out of order, but he knew that wasn’t fair. It certainly wasn’t the truth. 

“I…I’ve thought about you too. About living away from our families, just the two of us. Having a farm, our own little oasis.” Asim admitted. “But I know it isn’t possible.”

“Why not?” Khalid asked. 

“Because Allah would not permit. Not to mention our fathers. Yours would rather see you dead.” Asim said. 

“Then wouldn’t it be best if he didn’t see me at all?” Khalid said. 

“We couldn’t.” Asim shook his head. “I have to look after my sisters. And you have your little brothers. They look up to you.”

“They loathe my very existence. They would drown me in the Nile, given the chance. They sense I’m different, and it scares them.”

Asim gazed into Khalid’s face, into those gorgeous green eyes, and in that moment, he wanted nothing more than to run away with his friend. 

“What would you have me do?” Asim asked.

“Go with me. Tonight. We head North, and we make our own way. We’ll no longer be slaves, and I’ll no longer be my father’s whipping boy.”

Asim licked his lips anxiously, and sat back to look at the whip marks on Khalid’s back. Blood was trickling down his friend’s back, mixing with sand to make a sort of crimson mud.

Asim didn’t want his friend to suffer anymore. He didn’t want to have to worry that he would one day find Khalid’s father had finally managed to beat him to death. All he wanted was for them to be safe and happy. 

“Go with me.” Khalid begged. “Tonight.”

Asim sucked in a deep breath, let it out very slowly, and nodded. 

Chapter 27 https://storiesfrommontana.com/2023/07/30/chapter-27-khalid-and-asim-continued/