Hospital Beds
Creeno
This was written as a giftfic for my best friend. She said it was shareable and here it is! C: There are hints of Firefly within. Enjoy.
The last thing Max remembers is the sonic boom of an explosion and sharp pains of stars hitting his side and head. He doesn't remember being in a white hospital bed, with a Limey brushing his hair back, singing some tune he doesn't know.
He opens his eyes, throat's dry like sandpaper. The face swimming before him has light stubble and shaggy black hair down to his neck as he checks Max's vitals. He smells faintly of pot, makes Max crave some right then and there. But what comes out of his mouth is:
"What the hell are you singing?"
The Limey's head jerks up and whatever music coming from his ceases. It's a shame. "Yer awake!" His face breaks out into a smile and an odd look of relief. "Been waitin' on yeh to."
"Th' hell am I?" Max croaks out as the Limey digs around in his sterile white uniform. He's wearing white scrubs with funny little animal prints on them, a brown leather piece of string on his wrist.
"Yer in St. Joseph's," the Limey shines a light in Max's eyes
nearly blinding him in the battlefield. holy god, it's so bright. the sarge tells him to keep moving, keep moving carrigan! and he goes deeper. the planet reeks, like one of his mother's burnt, half cooked dinners. he doesn't know how reynolds can stand it, how any of them can stand it. he shivers and blinks
and the Limey lowers the light, hand moving away from his chin. "Me name's Jude, Jude Feeney. I'm the one makin' sure y'get the right medications."
Max's lips quirk up in a wry smile. "So, in other words, you're my hot nurse?"
Jude snorted good naturedly. "On'y if you want me t'be."
They scream.
Everyone moans, groans, but most of all, they scream.
Max has never been a heavy sleeper, and after being drafted, it got worse. He hardly sleeps now, just lies there in his bed, counting screams like some count thunder and lightning.
One two three---
Powell.
---four---
Gellert.
---five, six---
McCartney.
Max closes his eyes
to the shrill screams of the families. he rocks, holds his gun close to him, inhales dirty atmosphere and rank death. he's surrounded by bodies and bodies and more bodies. he should've stayed, should've fucking stayed. stayed safe, stayed stupidly caged in the walls of princeton.
carrigan?
he looks up and there's reynolds, tired and stained with blue and green rivers of former life.
sir. his voice trembles, his fingers quake. sir, i can't.
i know, reynolds crouches down, and for once his face is not jovial, not the usual play when they call him the scholar. he places his hand on max's dirty bed of blonde hair. it's then that max weeps
heavily, unable to quiet his sobs. He never screams, just cries. It's useless to scream, fucking useless. Screams just made them shoot more, more, more---"I know," comes a scratchy, thick voice, and Max is suddenly aware of a calloused hand brushing his much too long hair away from his face. He jumps a little bit and the hand draws away a little bit before Max sees the Limey Nurse(Jude) from before. He's got a sad expression that looks much too at home on his face.
They look at each other before, like clockwork, Sherlton screams and Stevens groans. Then Max's tears advance and Jude brushes his hair away from his face, takes his hand.
Max cries and Jude holds his hand and starts to hum lowly over a broken tune Max doesn't know. They stay like that until black creeps over Max's eyes and he succumbs to dreams of
his sister's warm smile and pink cheeks.
how long you going to be gone, maxxie?
she looks healthier than she's been in a long time. her cheeks are actually more filled out now, eyes brighter and not because of the endless stream of chemicals.
two, three months, at the least! he's young, stupid, but it's enough for her as he grins broadly. the sad thing is, he believes what he says. (what a doomed little boy.) they won't be able to handle me!
the great max carrigan is too much for the alliance! she laughs as he stands in his chair. with his bravado, he'll outshine the greatest diggers and layers to ever work the planets!
damn right! he laughs proudly. that's when his knees decide to buckle
to the hospital floor. Pain shoots up his back and ohgodohgod, why does it hurt, why does it hurt?!
There's this animal sound in his ears, wailing and shrill sound of bulletandhuman. His hands are screeching at the floor and more join him, Collins and then Sherlton, and it takes him onetwothreefourfive seconds to realize he's the source, the first source of the bulletandhuman.
It just makes him louder, louder, and then arms are hauling him up, max, max, i've got yeh, max!
"WHY CAN'T I FEEL THEM?! WHY CAN'T I FEEL THEM?!"
His fingernails meet softpliable face, dig into it like jungle dirt and grass. It makes
rivers of red, everywhere.
carrigan?
his throat moves.
his eye moves, roam over the corpses.
carrigan?
his shoulder twitches, hand twitches.
carrigan?
there's the loud whistle of a shot. after, just burning
light. Max swallows and it feels as if cotton has take up residence in his throat.
"Hey," Jude smiles down at him, moves the light away. Guilt pools in Max's stomach; the cuts and scratches in Jude's face are jagged and deep, blood seeping through the bandages. "Y'pu' up quite the fight there. M'sorry abou' that. Should've warned you abou' it."
"Probably," Max grins a little bit, trying to sit up. Jude watches him carefully, hovering almost. Max ignores him in favor of taking in his new room. It's isolated from the rest of the men. It sends of pang of loneliness in his chest. He liked talking to McCartney about his brothers and sisters and to Anderson about his daughter. "Why'd I get moved?"
"We 'ad some new ones come in," Jude looks mildly uncomfortable, and his hand squeezes the bars of Max's bed, knuckles almost white. "Worse than usual."
There's an uncomfortable silence that drifts down. Both look away: Max to the meager belongings of his and Jude to Max's twisted legs beneath the coverlet.
"So, Mr. Moneybags," Jude smiles in his familiar way he bends Max over, hands kneading his back, "why'd you leave Princeton?"
"It sucked," Max complains, elbows on his knees. He likes these little sessions between them. He knows he won't able to run headlong with Lucy among the waves again, but he wants to be able, at least, to hobble along, not permanently confined to moving wheels. He insisted on Jude -- the Limey was the only one who still treated him like a human and not a doll. He was actually interested in Max, not his injury. It was nice. "It was like being in giant, stuffy cage all damn day. If it wasn't my parents expectations, it was someone elses."
"Y'couldn' handle the Great American Space Dream?" Jude takes a hit from the cigarette he's smuggled into the hospital, frowning at the scarring on Max's back. It's like a twisted, old tree, the scar, irritated and red. Carefully, he presses against it, waiting for some sign Max feels it.
"Not when my sister's lying in bed, dying of something my parents damn well could've prevented, no," Max jerks involuntarily as Jude's fingers press down on the scarring, a little further down. It accentuates his bitterness perfectly.
Smoke curls up in the room as Max's fingers clutch the covers, eyes darkening in anger.
What he doesn't see is Jude's saddened, down trodden expression in the mirror.
"Y'know, Jude," Max rolls his head over, grinning at Jude in the cold night sky, "I think you should wear the traditional nurse outfit."
"...Wot?" The brunet blinks at Max in confusion and incredulity. "I'd do a lot of things for yeh, Max, bu' 'm'not dressin' in a skirt for you."
"That's what you think!" Max grins self-assuredly, healthier that he's ever been here at St. Joseph's. "One day, you're gonna fall asleep and me an' Lennon'll make you into the prettiest nurse this side of the 'verse!"
"You forget one, vital, thing, Mr. Carrigan," Jude pulls on the best(worst) Posh accent he can, "I regulate what goes into the IV's."
"...Touché." Max chuckles and lies back down. He closes his eyes.
There is silence, just the silent language of them passing a cigarette back and forth, touch of fingers and mere comfort.
And then Jude turns his head into Max's.
He looks as if he wants to say something, but Max steals it away with his lips.
Jude's glad he does and feeds him more wordsbreathesemotions.
* maybe that's good then,
i'm dying. that's what her letter said, he says it hollowly to the corpse of the saergent. there is nothing left here. mccartney is breathing shallowly, says he can't feel his guts anymore. max blinks up at the sky, it's full of smoke and burnt dreams. she says it won't be long now.
a pencil on paper.
His eyes open, move to the left.
This isn't the first time Max has woken to Jude drawing away. Before, he'd always closed his books, covered his napkins, flipped over his papers. But now, after the rooftop, he lets Max see what he draws, or as much as he lets him see over his shoulders. Jude's father hadn't been so much for his art, made him run with nursing.
But Max's heartbeat quickens when he sees what's on the paper.
Jude's pencil is pouring out Lucy's face on one side and his face on the other and right where their heart is, there's Jude.
His hand moves before he can think.
how did you know her? HOW DID YOU KNOW HER?
i... i took care of her. while you were gone.
for how long?
until... until she...
died.
yeah.
For awhile, he can't look at Jude because he doesn't know if Jude can see Lucy and not Max in him. He wonders over everything they've ever done together, looking for moments where he could've been Lucy, would've done what Lucy would've done.
Jude tries to speak(max, it's not---) but Max stops his ears with post battle silence and dead eyes.
It drags on and on and on.
"Jude?"
The Limey jumps at Max's voice. He hasn't heard Max speak directly to him in two weeks. Just the beats of machinery and tentative touches.
"Y-Yeah, Max?" Jude walks on thin ice as he comes closer.
"Tell me something about Lucy. About when she was here."
Jude takes a deep breath. "She...she go'... thin. Thin as you are. Her smile was too big for 'er face, bu', she kep' smilin'. She knew she was...was goin' t'die. She did. She didn' talk t'yer father, but yer Mum, she talked to 'er. Everyday. I tol' 'er abou' me mum, an' how Persepolis was like, wha' the ocean was like."
Max listens as Jude spills out tales of Lucy that turn into tales of the ocean that turn into tales of childhood spent in ships, dreaming of better.
And by the end of it, it seems Jude is beside him in the bed, and their sharing air between them and then skin.
sarge?
reynolds looks down at max's scared face. max can feel the spike in his back, can't feel his legs at all. they've done all they can.
sarge, i don't think we're going to leave this place, max gasps out, pain in his voice. i think we'll die here, and the land's gonna eat us when it's over. i know that's what they did to lincoln and epstein and starkey.
son, don't--
i know they did! max's voice reaches hysterics now, echoing over the dead and hardly living. i know those planets ate them i know they did! i don't want to be like that, sarge, i don't want to be like that!
sshhs, sshh! reynolds holds max as close as he dares without hurting him. it's okay, soldier, it's okay. i won't let that happen to you. just close your eyes and think--- think of something nice.
max closes his eyes and he knows reynolds is cutting him from the spire. he knows it. he knows it when he slides, moves forward
and he hits something warm and smelling of sterile hospital. He tries to move, but he's heavy, inhaling the sterile scent. There's something beneath, smells of salt and sand. He presses a hand against the chest and then it moves.
"Max?" Jude's voice is as groggy as he feels, and Max feels him try to sit up.
"Y'can't move," he says stubborn, half in his bed, half out. "You're comfortable."
"While the compliment's appreciated," Jude grins down at Max, "I do 'ave other patients t'attend to."
"So?" Max's thin fingers clutch onto Jude's shirt more and he pulls himself as best he can into Jude. "Forget them. They ain't as pretty as me."
"Even if some of them're women?" Jude chuckles, yawning himself. He eyes the IV worriedly, wonders if Max really can't feel...
"Y'know what they say about women in the army," Max's grin is wry and his eyes feel heavy again.
"Do I?" Jude reaches to pull Max's legs up, nodding to Laverne as she passes. She sighs and shakes her head, just as guilty of her favorites.
"Yeah," Max closes his eyes and tries to burrow deeper to the saltandsand beneath the medicandblood. He tries to explain himself, but loses the words to the steady heartbeat of Jude and thrum of machines.
He could stay here, perhaps, here in these hospital beds with the memory of Lucy hanging above him and Jude.
(jude, i know you love me. i know you love max too. you ask as much about him as you do me. and i ... i want you to do me a favor. i want you to look after max. look after him when i'm dead. can you promise me that?)
(yes. yeah, lucy, i can.)
finito.
merry christmas.