Just a warning, I don´t have a beta reader and english is not my first language, so please, any grammar error that you spot, please don´t be afraid to tell me.

Besides that, enjoy the reading!

John Harrison didn´t led an exciting life.

Youngest son of a HR Manager and English teacher, he didn´t had many expectations placed on him when growing up, especially considering that he had two older sisters by 10 and 12 years of difference, who were already walking in the footsteps of becoming lawyer and doctor when he completed his first decade of life. He never really resented that (a strike of jealously here or there when he was a teenager) and with time he became wise enough to let the family´s spotlights with the ones who wanted it and focused on building to himself a regular, quiet life.

Let´s clarify that statement: a regular, quiet and safe life.

Yes, John Harrison didn´t have an exciting life because of bad luck or lack of opportunities. He simply was not a fan of danger, mostly because it usually means something unhealthy for his life. And John likes his mundane life, thank you very much. Judge all you want.

It was like a thing his grandma used to say when he was little: a kind of fruit to each kind mouth. Not only was an excellent excuse to not eat custard apple, but also a beautiful metaphor to justify his complete lack of interest on leading an adrenaline junkie life as his friends or sisters (who were very determined to prove to him that climbing mountains high as the fricking clouds were fun).

He was boring. He knew that since, like, when he was ten and he realize that he would rather play chest with his teacher than going to the roller coaster with his friends.

For God´s sake, his name was John (no offense to the Johns out there). So therefore, by his grandma logic, he had to have a boring life, and that is what he had been successfully doing for the last three decades.

He graduated high school with 18 and Economy University with 23. Decided with 24 that life working in an office wasn´t for him and on his 26th birthday opened a relative successful library in a quiet area of Quantico, with a clientele composed primarily of nice, old people. This year, he would have completed almost a decade of sitting behind a counter doing nothing but reading and selling his books while listening to thousands of stories of Cold War, grandchildren and how different life was 50 years ago (he liked most of the one about technology because, yeah, things are too easy this days. Humanity had a simpler time).

That didn´t happened, of course, because he went crazy and decided to listen to his sisters by making a dangerous decision and ended up having his stomach stabbed and left to bleed to death.

Maybe was a twisted sense of humor hidden inside him all this time or maybe was the severe blood loss talking, but John kind of wonder what his friends would say now about being adventurous. Because in this moment his left hand was dipped into his personal blood pool and the right one numb from all the cuts and burns (which was a relief, actually, since he had all five fingers broken), all thanks to his decision to step out of his safe bubble.

(Okay, to be fair he admitted that this was kind of an abruptly 180º turn from how he had always carried his life, and not even remotely close to what people proposed him to do)

(However, his point remained)

Sleepiness was sweeping in his body, making his eyelids heavy, converting every blink into a slow, deliberated movement. The pain was no more the howling thing from before, taking all his senses into a messy confusion where he couldn´t hear nor see nor feel, but it was still there, making itself know like a ghost in all his members. However, because the shock was fading, his mind was drifting to a disconnected awareness of his body. The agony itself felt numbed.

The world was darkness and John couldn´t remember if it was because he was blind or because he closed his eyes at some point. The first would really sucks but the latter would be awesome, since every cells from his being was begging to him sleep.

However, something was telling him that failing asleep was a bad idea.

Screaming, actually. Directly above his ear.

Hands were pressing painfully around the knife embedded on his stomach, while the owner shouted above him with orders like don´t fall asleep, don´t close your eyes, please, please, stay with me, don´t do that, don´t- don´t close your eyes, please–… Which John would have found annoying if wasn´t for the trembling voice, making his heart hurt as much as his abdomen.

He wished he could move to hold those shaking hands. Wished he could just press his lips to those rambling ones, to make the begging stop.

I am trying, but I can´t is the answer locked by heavy numbness.

Even though he tried very bravely to stay away, he knows what this is. Knows what follows. And he wants to cry with the unfairness of everything because is so soon. Thirty-five years of maybe a hundred. He still owns sixty-five years to live, years that he started to make plans for not even two weeks ago when he felt excited about the future for the first time on his life.

Why this mess had to happen right now? Why fucking now? Why not five months ago? Four, maybe three, three months before and he wouldn´t be feel so miserable for dying.

Now? Now he wants to cry and apologize. Because you wouldn´t be here too, if I had decided to be stupid three months earlier, and I´m sorry for doing this to you, I should have listened.

"…-ohn! John, oh god, please, please, please!"

I´m so sorry, Spencer.