“Brother, what have they done to you?”
Four of the five other Threan-types rushed round to Teekay’s side. Teekay was barely conscious, just enough to open his eyes and see vague silhouettes of his friends.
“Clearly they’ve sedated him so he can’t teleport away…” Enkay sighed, gently caressing Teekay’s head. “You poor, poor thing…”
“At least he gets to sleep through all of this!” Veekay spat. “The rest of us are wasting away in these cells, he gets a place to himself where he can dream and not be scared!” Veekay had been particularly grumpy. It wasn’t just because of their imprisonment, but because he was the leader of the K-Class Ksa and he was stuck in the same cells as everyone else. All the other Class leaders had their own cells for some reason. Not only that, but he’d been captured and knocked out in his sleep.
Everyone else ignored Veekay and his wounded pride and instead tried asking Teekay if he knew anything. Teekay though could only reply with a few meaningless groans.
“Wow, he’s really messed up!” Geekay abruptly exclaimed.
“I hope they didn’t use anything too additive…” Itakay muttered as he nudged Enkay out of the way and peered into Teekay’s half-closed eyes. Out of the six of them, Itakay was the only one trained medically. He pressed his fingers to Teekay’s neck, his pulse seemed alright, slow and laboured, but that was to be expected. “He seems fine, sedatives aside.”
“Let’s hope he actually is fine…” Enkay patted his sleepy friend on the shoulder, then turned to the corner of the cell, where the sixth Rethan was standing. Arkay had been keeping away from everyone since they’d been imprisoned. “Arkay, you not going to come over and see Teekay?”
Arkay hesitated, then nodded his head. He would have said yes, but he’d spent the last three days with a mechanical gag over his mouth. They’d tried to remove it, but it just gave them all nasty shocks. But there were other reasons he had been avoiding them.
“Come on, Leaver!” Veekay mocked him as he tiptoed over. “I thought you cared about Elkay?” Veekay’s taunts though were met with a hard thump on the shoulder from Geekay, who, as much as he loved him, had become sick and tired of his attitude over the last week.
Arkay ignored them and stood by Teekay’s side. There were things he wanted to say but he was in no position to say them. Enkay spotted the problem and politely asked the guards hanging around outside if they could take his gag off briefly. Luckily for them, one of the guards complied and remotely deactivated the gag.
“Thank fuck for that…” Arkay cursed, glad to be able to speak again. “We really missed you, Teekay!”
Teekay weakly smiled. But before Arkay could say anything else, Veekay decided he had a bone to pick with him.
“So why have you been sitting in the corner all this time? I thought we were all in this together.”
“Because you keep on alienating me?” Arkay sneered. “Ever since I came back, you’ve been tearing into me. Why? I don’t fucking know.”
“Because you abandoned us, Arkay!” Veekay growled. “You disappeared for 12 years nearly and expected us to let you walk back in.”
“Do we have to do this now?” Geekay interrupted. “I know you two hate each other, always have, but can’t we just spend some time with Teekay before they wheel him back into his cell?”
Arkay shook his head, arms crossed angrily. “No, Veekay wants to talk about this and I’m sick of him. Apparently I’m the bad vok, you know, the Ksa who took a bullet for the Vice General and pretty much spent a decade saving space and time. I’m the evil being for wanting to come back home and see my family again. Not the shitty half-brother who stole my at-the-time partner before I was even declared dead.”
Geekay stared at the floor. He had a point there. Before Arkay disappeared, they’d been lovers. But that was nearly half a lifetime ago. Things had changed.
“Yeah but that’s not Veekay’s fault, that’s my fault…” Geekay admitted. “I got upset, I got angry, Veekay comforted me and I fell in love with him because Veekay is a better, more attractive you. I just wish you both got along, because you’re both so damn stubborn! Yes, you should have known that he couldn’t just waltz back into his old life, but Veekay should have accepted you back when you offered to rejoin at the bottom and work your way back up!” Geekay paused and sighed. “We’re supposed to better than this.”
Too dumbfounded to reply, Arkay remained silent.
“To be fair,” Enkay added, ending an uneasy period of silence, “we’re not even 25 yet, and have been drugged and locked in cages all week, we’re a tad stressed out.”
Veekay looked up at Arkay, and Arkay looked back at him. They both muttered a small, heavy-hearted sorry.
“I’m sorry for thinking it’d all be good again…”
“I’m sorry for being a twunt to you…”
The two half-brothers embraced one another, feeling slightly tearful.
Suddenly, Teekay coughed and spluttered, ruining the moment. Itakay quickly checked up on him.
“Are you alright?”
“D-does anyone else f-f-feel t-tingly?” Teekay whimpered, as everything around them went dark.