When seeing Tom lying on the floor in the bathroom stall, there was a mix of emotions that came over Gary. Most prominently worry about his best friend’s condition, followed by anger at whoever had done this to him, yet there was one feeling he hadn’t expected.

Hunger.

The smell of blood coming from Tom's mouth was strong. While out on the field, Gary hadn’t been hungry at all, but suddenly, being confronted with this tantalizing scent, he felt as if he hadn’t really eaten in days, only to stumble upon a fresh grilled barbecue. Saliva started to escape his mouth.

Fortunately, Gary’s other feelings quickly snapped him out of his daze. He shook his head to regain his clarity and wiped off the drool. The high schooler carefully grabbed Tom by his shoulders and put him into an upright position.

With his face no longer on the floor, Gary started to inspect the other’s condition. From what he could see, one of his front teeth looked to have beaten out, while the one next to it was slightly chipped. There was also the wound on his head, but Gary had no idea whether he had any inner injuries.

Looking in the toilet, the bowl of water had turned red. Although his best friend’s wounds didn’t seem fatal he could tell that Tom had been put through a lot of pain. He didn’t even want to imagine how long he had been tortured like this, since he had been missing the entire Rugby practice.

“Tom, are you okay? Talk to me, please. What should I do?” Gary asked, despite realising how dumb the first question was, given the situation.

Having been lifted from the floor and hearing his name being called out, Tom slowly came to. He hadn’t been knocked out, yet the pain had been too much for him. The experience of getting tortured had been so tiring, that by the time Barry and Gil had left, his body had practically shut down to concentrate on healing.

“G-gary...”Tom weakly whispered, yet the pain was still overwhelming him. After looking who it was, Tom had closed his eyes again, wanting nothing more than to return to sleep.

Seeing his best friend still alive, Gary let out a sigh of relief. He knew that he couldn’t just leave him here, since Tom needed medical help. With no outer wounds, he carefully lifted his friend’s buddy off the ground and placed him on his shoulders while holding him from behind. The high schooler hoped that it wouldn’t worsen his condition, but he started running straight to the nurse's office.

She was naturally surprised to see him for the second time today. The nurse wanted to say something to him about this morning’s situation, especially since she had learned the truth of the earlier situation.

However, Gary didn’t stop. He went right past her and gently placed Tom on one of the beds.

“Help him!” Gary pleaded with tear filled eyes.

Seeing how much blood was there, the nurse was worried it was a serious wound and went to help him straight away. Once again though, there was only so much she could do, but there was good news.

After giving Tom some painkillers, since his teeth were the area that had suffered the most damage, there was nothing else. This wasn’t an urgent case, so there was no need for the ambulance to be called, but she did have to make a report, and strongly suggested for Tom to go to the hospital as soon as possible to get his mouth looked at.

“Are you sure that is how you found him, and it wasn’t….”

“It wasn’t me.” Gary replied aggressively, realizing what she was implying. “I admit that Steven was me, but this time I’m innocent. Mr Root and the other students can testify that I was at Rugby practice the whole time! After that I went to the toilet because I had to and that’s where I found him!”

The nurse still gave him a questionable look, but she had to leave. Not only was school over, but now she had to inform someone of what had happened leaving Gary and Tom alone once again. Nevertheless, she was inclined to believe Gary was telling the truth this time. Not only because he claimed to have witnesses this time who can prove his innocence, but more so because he had genuinely been concerned for Tom, and had even been tearing up when they came through the door.

Gary had decided to stay by Tom’s side until he eventually woke up again. This time due to the painkillers, he wasn’t in as much pain as he was before, allowing him to stay awake for longer.

However, before Tom could even say anything, Gary was there with his own question.

“Who did this to you?” Gary asked. “Why did they do this?”

Tom could see it, that look was in his best friend’s eyes again.

“Gary, please…just…just forget about it.”

“Forget about it? Forget about it?! After they did all of this to you?! Do you realize that it was lucky that I even found you? If you let people like that get away without any consequences then what will happen?”

“Next time, you might not get so lucky. What if they do worse things to you? Whatever they did to you, I’ll make sure they experience the same pain as you did!” Gary claimed, holding onto the side of the bed frame that was made of metal squeezing tightly.

With Tom not answering, Gary soon let go of the handle to pace up and down, hoping to calm down, and looking at the metal handle by the side of his bed he could see that it had bent slightly.

‘I can’t, I can’t tell Gary who did this, otherwise, those guys…’

“Gary, I'm not denying that you have a point, but think about your circumstances. The whole school knows what happened to you after Steven. You’ve been excluded. If you do anything of that sort again, then that means you will be expelled straight away, no matter how small your transgression is.”

“I know your family situation. Have you thought about what happens with Amy and your mother, if that happens? I appreciate the gesture, but do you really want to do this to them?”

Listening to what Tom was saying, it brought the anger out of Gary slightly, as the images of his family appeared in his head. In the first place everything he was doing was for them. He wanted to get revenge for Tom and he wanted to help him out but he did realise that his best friend was protecting him in his own way, by not telling him who these people were… even though he already had a slight suspicion. Aside from Tom, there had only been two other students who hadn’t been there the whole time.

Gary was about to leave it there, but then he remembered that Tom had arrived at the library with a black eye. Putting these two incidents together, this wasn’t the first time he had been hurt.

“Do you think they won’t attack you again?” Gary asked.

Tom gulped, because he wasn’t sure of the answer himself. He had expected to be bullied a bit, because of Gary, but something was clearly wrong with Gil. He seemed to have really enjoyed the power he had had over Tom, rather than doing it for his own teammate’s sake.

It was then that Tom had heard the door to the nurse's office shut, since Gary had already left. However, Gary hadn’t left without anything in his hand. When the nurse had taken a look at Tom, she had taken his bloody shirt off and changed it for a set of clean robes.

Right now Gary had it in his hand.

‘Tom was bleeding a lot, so whoever hurt him, their scent should also be here.’

*****

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