A/N: Written because I made a post on Tumblr saying that no Erik ill/injured fic is complete unless he stops breathing at some point, andhopsjollyhigh told me to consider agonal breathing. This is an AU of Kay whereby Christine did not return to Erik in time and it is Nadir with him as he dies. Rated for a detailed description of death.
Title taken from 'Prayer for Holy Rest', a prayer often read at Catholic Masses and funerals, though of course Nadir would not know it. It felt appropriate to name the fic for that one.
(I don't know if it's read for other Christian denominations or not)
You may need the tissues. Be warned.
He asked you not to leave. He looked you in the eye with his heavy-lidded ones, hazy from the morphine, and softly murmured Do…do not g–go each word a painful effort.
(You are not certain that he was not seeing somebody else.)
And you squeezed his hand, the hand that for so long, so very long (and how you repent all that wasted time now) you were reluctant to even touch, and you whispered, I will not go anywhere. I promise.
He nodded, his eyes slipping closed, and you were relieved that he could not see the tears trickling down your cheeks.
That is hours ago, now. Hours that feel as if they could hold a lifetime, a lifetime of you sitting here, just holding his hand.
He has not woken. You did not expect him to.
The rattle came into his breath, shortly after he dozed off that last time. The harsh, hoarse rattle deep in his lungs that makes it sound as if he is breathing through water. And the moment you heard it, the moment you heard it you knew.
It crosses your mind that you should go for her, go for that sweet girl who promised to come to him before her wedding day with an invitation. But you promised not to leave him, and you are not in the habit of breaking your promises.
(If you did go, you are not certain that he would still be breathing when you returned.)
…it would be quite permissible to kiss the bride…
His words, so long ago. He would not be able to kiss the bride, now. Would not know it even if she kissed him.
(The thought chills your blood, and you shudder although the room is warm.)
He swallows, throat working convulsively, and you listen as he draws in a breath. The rattle is gone from his lungs, softened away, and you feel a check at your heart at the realisation.
The loss of the rattle. And the gap between breaths. The pause that grows and grows.
You listen, count the seconds until he draws another breath, the very effort of it shifting his head on the pillow. That head with its terrible face that has cursed him his whole life, and looking at it now, looking at him now, his skin stretched tight with illness so that he looks more like a skull than ever, the hollows of his cheeks and under his eyes darkly shadowed, grey pallor tinged yellow, you think his face is not so terrible, and it occurs to you that you have come to like his face, to like it in spite of everything, in spite of decades of the curling nausea in your gut at the thought of it and its gap for a nose.
(Why has it taken you so long to realise?)
Thirty seconds, and then he gasps again, the muscles of his neck straining to help him draw breath.
Before, thirty years ago now, you feared the coming of these gasps. You sat beside him, watched him in his unconsciousness, mind still replaying the horrible choking noise as he brought up blood, and you feared that he would gasp, feared that the spaces between his breaths would grow too long. The thought of it made you feel ill, and even then you could not bear to grasp his hand, could only sit there and murmur the prayers for the sick, and hope.
You are too numb for hope, now. Too numb for such a futile thing when you have seen this end coming for weeks, ever since he sent her away. It was in his eyes that night though you refused to believe it, refused to acknowledge the awful possibility of it. How could it be true? He did not seem so frail.
(When you found him, a few days later, curled on his side on the floor gasping breaths through gritted teeth and tears trickling from the corners of his eyes, then you believed it.)
Forty seconds, this time, and then he gasps again.
Though your throat is tight, the prayer for the dying comes easily to your tongue, and you bow your head and press your lips to the back of his hand, curl his fingers and hold them to your mouth as you whisper.
The flickers of candlelight playing over his face seem almost a blessing.
(Candlelight was the only light that felt appropriate.)
As you pray part of you whispers for him to keep breathing, and part of you whispers for him to know peace, and a small traitorous part wishes that he would stop now, would just stop struggling and go.
You switch from counting seconds in spaces to counting breaths, the ticks of his watch lying on the bedside locker punctuating your thoughts. One breath, and a too-long space. A second breath, and a longer space. A third, a fourth, a fifth. Twelve breaths in ten minutes, each one looking so painful.
(With all of the morphine in his blood he surely cannot feel it. The last dose was so large you thought it would overwhelm his heart, stop its beating then and there.)
Your fingers shift, ever so slightly, press themselves deep into his thin wrist so that you feel the faint fluttering of his pulse.
"Rest, Erik," you whisper, your voice thick, "just rest now."
At your words he draws another breath as if to spite you. Ever defiant, even at the last.
(Your lips twitch at the thought but you cannot smile now, cannot smile when he— when he is—)
You lean in, almost without thinking, and gently, ever so gently, kiss his forehead. And for what feels like long minutes (the length of three of his breaths) you stay like that, your cheek pressed to his forehead, skin to skin contact. And there is nothing you can say, nothing you can think, can only try to keep your own breathing even so that, if he somehow knows, it does not upset him.
The length of three of his breaths with their long pauses, and then the flickering of his pulse fades beneath your fingertips. You press your fingers deeper into his wrist, seek it out, but it fades, and fades, and he draws another gasping breath, head shifting beneath you, and in the pause his pulse fades until you can feel it no more.
You set his hand down, and lay your own hand on his chest, over his heart, his skin so clammy, and he shifts as if to take another breath, his body twitching, but you do not feel the flutter of his heart and it feels as if the world has fallen away, has fallen away beneath you so that there is only you and him and you sway, all strength drained from you as he tries to draw one more breath, and lies still.
Completely, utterly still.
The tears blur your vision, blur it so that you cannot see your hand resting on his chest, and you close your eyes, and sigh.
"Be at peace, Erik," you whisper. "Be at peace."
A/N: Talk about high angst! But don't worry too much. The next thing I post will be fluffy.
As ever, please leave a review!