Freddie felt weird, not the sort after he had consumed copious amounts of alcohol, or even during a particularly bad trip, this was certainly out of the ordinary. Where am I? He turned around and around like a ct chasing its tail, he felt loose and insubstantial, definitely not normal. A man was crumpled on the floor, a bloody heap, and there was Cook. "Cook!" he moved closer to him, shouting again, louder this time, "Cook! Cook!" he waved his long arms frantically in the air, almost hitting his face, then he sucked in a breath.
Cook was shaking, his fingers trembling as he attempted to light his cigarette, unable to do it, his face, characterised usually by his easy-going smile and lewd, shining, happy-go-lucky eyes, seemed to crumple in on itself. He slid to the floor, crouching protectively over something. Something long and unrecognisable, but the cogs in his dazed brain started whirring. He felt completely out of it, he blinked, disorientated; he didn't want to alarm Cook. Evidently the scene looked like some altercation had taken place between Cook and a currently dead man. If the circumstances were different, Freddie would have yelled at him until his voice was hoarse, he was definitely going back to prison, you can't just kill someone and get away with it. Life doesn't work like that.
Panic seized him. He wants to hurt her, he recalled scratching those offensive words in his crappy revision notebook, unused aside from documenting his musings, always about her. It is possible to love someone too much? Love them so hard that it hurts you? He wants to hurt her, the line echoed through his brain eerily and he looked down at the larger man, fully grown, stubble that said he idolised Brad Pitt, glassy, lifeless blue eyes. A creep, a scary, psychotic, very dead creep. A bloodied baseball bat rolled around thoughtlessly on the floor beside him, a memory of it coming down flashed and I instantly shut my eyes in protection. His mind screamed too late, but he chose to ignore it.
What the fuck? Reddish stains had spread on the "good" doctor's button down shirt, a pool of dark red blood gathered around his blonde head. Cook was full on crying against the wall, his shoulders shaking with the sobs, short nails clawing at his face. "Cook!" he screamed wanting him to snap out of it, he had to get out of here pronto. He couldn't go back to prison again, what about Leon? Freddie stormed over to him, fully prepared to wrench him and give him a good shake. Stop being a pussy, he was about to scream when his hands passed straight through him.
A lead weight dropped in his stomach, brown eyes so wide they might pop out any second. No, no, this is not fucking happening. "Cook!" he yelled desperately, so loud his own ears were vibrating like that one and only time he went to see a heavy metal band because Cook insisted all the fit birds went there. They didn't. "Tell me you can hear me?" he asked quietly this time, lips quivering. He shuffled over, or he would have done if his feet touched the floor. He still wore his ratty Converses, the exact same as the ones . . . Oh God! Identical, the grass stains and the muddy laces, there was no doubt that they were his, Cook moved abruptly.
"Can't look anymore . . . can't look anymore," he mumbled repetitively, holding himself together as he turned away, Freddie saw his wet cheeks, the red marks where his nails had scraped. The years seemed to fade from him; he recalled the first time they had become friends, sitting next to each other in nursery. Cook had been mercilessly flinging pencils at Donny, a snivelling kid with an unfortunately posh accent; with a contraption he had built involving a few strategically placed elastic bands. Just a little kid having his own fun, didn't want to go home, two five year olds hanging about at night making up a secret handshake. Freddie's mom had been furious. Freddie felt a twinge, his best friend was losing it, all Cook's instincts of self-preservation had departed, he curled up in the corner, oblivious to Freddie, shuddering and spent. He would pass out soon from exhaustion, Cook didn't sleep much anyway, but now he barely looked able to function.
His gaze skittered away from Cook; he can't hear me, so . . . So what? He wasn't dead; adamantly shaking his floppy head he refuted the claim. Even so, he could see the sprawling, browner body, less blood this time, except for the face. Red smudges drying beneath that familiar nose, thankfully the eyes were closed; he would never be ready to witness the same blank, lifeless stare from his own eyes that he perceived in Dr. John Foster. "Not dead, not dead," he whispered over and over again like a mantra.
He just wanted to protect her, keep her safe, always and forever. He leaned against the wall, cursing colourfully when he slipped partially through. Once he had begun he couldn't stop, he said every swear word he could conjure, most learnt by Cook who correlated high IQ with vast knowledge of creative swear words. I am dead. I am dead. I am dead. He thought the words in his mind and tried to say them, wanting desperately to just skip past the whole denial phase, but he couldn't, his mouth refused to shape the words, refused to give up. There was still hope, it could just be an out of body experience, Cook could just be messing with his head, JJ was a much better illusionist than originally thought.
He breathed, a tiny, doubting, sane part of his brain questioning whether he even needed to. You don't breathe when you're dead, he could imagine Naomi snarling, a mocking taunt to her smirking lips. So obviously he was fine, breathing felt good, soothing. He tried the relaxation technique that that Michael Jackson obsessed prick of a school counsellor had taught him. Breathe in, breathe out, you're alive, and repeat.
The most important thing was, as he looked down at the body of the doctor, that she was safe. And that was all he wanted, wasn't it?