LANCASTER AND MAXWELL ( ✔ )

chapter thirty-three.

Chapter Thirty-Three.

A day later, Sully's busy eating away anxiously at Arthur's tray of food when he hears a voice stir beside him. 

"You don't even fucking like vanilla pudding." 

He freezes. Slowly turning his head, his heart leaps in his throat when he sees blue eyes slowly blink and focus in on the world around him, his head swiveling around to look at Sully with the biggest smile he can muster. "Hey, lovey." 

Sullivan ends up dropping the pudding cup unto the floor and jumps up to cup Arthur's face in his hands, pressing his lips against his gently. Life is breathed back into him when Arthur kisses him back, and he releases a breath he didn't even realize he was holding inside. He doesn't realize he's crying until Arthur pulls away and soothes him down. "Hey, hey, hey," he murmurs, his voice thick and husky from not speaking, and presses his thumbs into the brunette's cheekbones, brushing away the water that stains his porcelain skin. "What's all that crying for, Sully?" 

"Y-You weren't wakin' up, and I thought ..." He sniffles and hiccups, embarrassed but too happy to care about how he looks at the moment. "I thought that I'd have to kill him; I really did think I was gonna have to make a call." 

Despite his bruises and his black eye, Arthur is still the prettiest boy that Sully has ever seen in his life, and the small playful smile that he displays just reassures him of that fact. "And who the hell were you gonna call, Sully?" 

"I was gonna call Granny or somebody!" Sully answers with a laugh, but it quickly dissipates when Arthur tries to sit up in the bed and winces. He pushes him back into the bed, and he frowns at him. "Don't try to sit up; your ribs are busted up real bad, baby." 

"My whole body is busted up real bad," he spits out bitterly, unexpectedly, and Sully can't help but to flinch at the sudden harshness that comes from Arthur's tone. He doesn't take it to heart, though; he knows that there must've been thousands of thoughts knocking and crashing against his head, and none of them could have been pretty to think about. 

Sullivan moves his mouth from side to side, sighing quietly. He wonders if it's the right time to say this, but he wonders when will it be the right time to bring it up if he doesn't. So, he does. "Why didn't you ever tell me about what he was doing to you, Artie?"

He scoffs, his eyes glancing around at everything in the room but the brunette. "And what was I supposed to say to you, Sully? 'Hey baby, my dad has been beating the shit out of me everyday since the sixth grade. Wanna go get lunch?'" 

"I know you remember when I once told you that I wasn't going to let you go through anything on your own, not anymore. You lost that right when you met my ass," Sully jokes, but Arthur's lips don't tilt up with the familiar gleam of a smile. Sighing, Sully continues. "You never had to deal with that alone, and I mean that," he turns towards Artie and cups his face in his hands gently, turning his head so that blue eyes have to look into green ones and sighing with relief when Arthur leans into his touch. 

"Listen to me when I speak. I'm ... so fucking sorry." And he means that, with all of his soul. Sully is sorry for everything he didn't do and should have, and he's sorry for everything he did that he shouldn't have done. He feels at fault even though he knows there's only one person to blame for all of this happening, but having to watch Artie lay in bed, wrapped from head to toe with bandages did something to him. There's now an insatiable fire that swells in the pit of his belly, and he's ready to let it scorch everything to the ground.  

Sullivan drops his hands and leans back in his seat, playing with the hem of his t-shirt. "Zara came to see you yesterday, you know." 

Arthur stiffens at the name and bites down on his bottom lip, looking over at Sullivan. "Did I look bad?" 

Sully's lips tilt up into an amused smile, a brow raising. "Is that what you're worried about, Artie? Yeah, you looked like shit." 

"Well? What did she do while she was here?" 

"She cried, she asked our Heavenly Father why he let this happen to one of his best soldiers, said some other things. Zara is very dramatic, I don't know how you dealt with it." 

"What else did she say?"

"She asked me to make her a promise, and I'm going to keep it for her." It's vague, he knows, but Arthur knows better than anybody what's coming from Sullivan as a result of all of this. Heads are gonna roll, and he's going to make sure they're gonna roll pretty fucking far.

Just as Arthur opens his mouth to speak again, two police officers and a doctor all walk into the room, and it's almost instinct for Sully to straighten his back up at the sight of the officer, even though this time he's on the other side of the law. 

Old habits die hard, right? 

"Mr. Maxwell, Mr. Lancaster, these officers are here to talk to you two."  The doctor nods at the officers and makes her departure, leaving the four of them alone in the room. 

The taller, darker one is the first one to speak. "I'm Officer Blair, and this is my partner Officer Quentin."

Sully takes the opportunity to be protective over Arthur, a role he hardly ever gets to play. "He just woke up, y'all. Isn't it a little too soon to already be hounding him?"

"We're just here to ask him questions about the night of August 11th." 

"What's there to ask?" Sully asks with a snort, tilting his head and narrowing his eyebrows. "Arthur Sr. beat the shit out of us, and he's been hitting Artie for God knows how long! His ass needs to get passed around like a blunt in prison for the rest of his life." 

"It's not that simple, Mr. Maxwell," Officer Quentin comments with a shake of her head. "This case is going to go to trial, and we need the two of you to testify—"

"—I'll do it." From the moment he hears the word testify, Sully already has it made up in his mind that he's going to do it. He knows the ins and outs of a legal courtroom, and if this is his chance to make sure he creates hell on earth for the father, then so be it, but he knows that these are just his feelings. The officers may be asking Arthur to do something that he never thought he'd have to do: go against his father. Arthur had always been as loyal as they come, cut from a different cloth from the rest of the world around him. Could he do it? Could Arthur bring down the devil? "But you aren't going to force Arthur if he doesn't want to." 

Officer Blair questions, "Why? If he's the key to this case, then why wouldn't he want to testify?" 

"That's still his father, asshole, have some respect—" 

"Sully." Arthur looks over at him and nods appreciatively, telling him that it's okay. He then looks at the officers with a stern look and replies, "I'll do it. I'll testify against my father." 

And with that, a smile from ear to ear crawls on Sullivan's face. Sullivan Maxwell knows that look on his lover's face, and when this is all over, there will be nothing left of Arthur Sr. 

After all, demons run when a good man goes to war.