Originally authored on livejournal as Bingelybeep
Rating:M, not too detailed smut and one bad word.
Spoilers: Just that Gallant exists. Written before he no longer did.
Disclaimer: I do not own ER or any the characters or recognisable situations. Nor do I own the poems 'I Wake and Feel The Fell Of Dark, Not Day' or 'Lullaby'. This story is written and published for personal enjoyment and the love of the characters. No profit is being made.
Summary: In times of need, sometimes it's just about getting through the day. (AU version of Gallant's death, Reela)
Author's notes: I'm not too happy with this fic as I was trying to write it in a style I hadn't quite mastered and it's a little too melodramatic for my tastes now. It was written when I was ill, my father had just had a stroke and a good friend had just been sent to a mental institution because his schizophrenia had become unmanageable, so I wasn't on top form and the writing was a little raw. It's still waiting for a third and maybe a fourth chapter and one of these days it's going to get a thorough hack 'n' slash edit to make it into something I can read without cringing. I'm just putting it up to keep all my fics together, read at your own risk.
I Wake and Feel the Fell of Dark, Not Day – Gerard Manley Hopkins
I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day.
What hours, O what black hours we have spent
This night! what sights you, heart, saw; ways you went!
And more must, in yet longer light's delay.
With witness I speak this. But where I say
Hours I mean years, mean life. And my lament
Is cries countless, cries like dead letters sent
To dearest him that lives alas! away.
I am gall, I am heartburn. God's most deep decree
Bitter would have me taste: my taste was me;
Bones built in me, flesh filled, blood brimmed the curse.
Selfyeast of spirit a dull dough sours. I see
The lost are like this, and their scourge to be
As I am mine, their sweating selves, but worse.
from Lullaby – WH Auden
Lay your sleeping head, my love,
Human on my faithless arm;
Time and fevers burn away
Individual beauty from
Thoughtful children, and the grave
Proves the child ephemeral:
But in my arms till break of day
Let the living creature lie,
Mortal, guilty, but to me
The entirely beautiful.
To Those In The Dark
Part 1: Skitter
Neela woke up and felt sick. The previous night came back to her in a sickening swirl of noise and colour and she had to control the dry heave that ripped through her. With a physical effort she looked down at the arm curled possessively around her. It rested heavily on her chest, bending upwards so his thumb rested on her neck and his fingers tangled in her hair. What had she done? Last night's mantra started ticking over in her head again and she found herself unable to control it, 'Michael's dead, Michael's dead, Michael's dead'. Every time the phrase ran through her mind a fresh image of how he could have died came with it. She saw him mangled, bleeding, crushed, suffocating, shredded, burned. Closing her eyes and trying to force the images out as she felt her breathing speed up, the arm on her chest crushing her, suffocating her as a panic attack started to set in.
She had to get away, fighting to get out of he bed so she could breathe. Her legs caught in the duvet, making her stumble and his fingers pulled at her hair, making her inhale sharply at the slight pain. She stared down at the rumpled bed, not believing how much she had lost in one night. Inspite of it all she picked up one of his t-shirts from the floor, the smell of another human being comforting her, pulling it over her head as another wave of nausea hit her.
She stumbled into the bathroom and vomited until all she could do was heave. Crouching into the corner, squeezed between the toilet and the wall she huddled, gasping and shivering from the exertion. Then she started to sob.
Ray had been awake for hours, watching the light appear between the blinds, grey at first then turning a harsh white. The skin around his eyes felt heavy and bruised with lack of sleep and his neck was cramping from being turned so oddly but he still just lay there. His flesh burned everywhere it touched Neela's. He felt his arm rise and fall with the rhythm of her breath and even though he felt like he was invading her privacy somehow he consciously began to breathe in time with her, trying to rediscover the intimacy of last night.
He knew the instant she woke up, felt something twist inside him when he sensed her looking at his arm, slung across her and felt her breath hitch. Wanted to cry when he felt the panic attack begin and heard her fall over in her rush to get away from him. He carried on feigning sleep as she ran into the bathroom, listening to her heaving and sobbing, unable to do anything because he knew he wasn't the one she wanted to be there.
He fingered the few strands of hair still wrapped around his fingers, ripped out during her escape. Rolling onto his back he lined up the strands, knotted them together and placed them on his nightstand, a memento of just how much he'd fucked up this time.
Neela sat on the bathroom floor and felt her heart speed up when she heard Ray move in his bedroom. Mortified that it was partly fear but also partly lust at the memory of the previous night.
She remembered it, waking up sweaty and confused to the sound of the phone ringing. A heat wave had hit Chicago suddenly and the apartment was muggy and stifling, the air feeling watery and swimming as she shuffled to answer the phone. Feeling faintly uneasy as the remnants of a strange dream faded and she wondered who could be calling at three in the morning.
"Hello?" her voice had croaked, expecting one of Ray's bandmates.
"Neela?" the voice was unexpected. It was Pratt, but he sounded strange, weaker than usual and tired.
She just hummed in answer, still groggy.
"Neela," he stopped and took a deep breath, "Neela, he's dead." Voice hitching and breaking wetly on the last word. She could hear the tears in his voice as he clarified, "Michael's dead."
Neela seemed to watch herself from above as she felt her insides freeze. "Thank you," she almost whispered, voice blank. She could hear Pratt calling to her faintly as she pulled the phone from her ear and hung up. She managed to put it back in its cradle before her knees gave way and she fell to the floor. She hugged her knees to her chest and rocked slowly backwards and forwards as the news worked its way around her mind. She felt so cold, detachedly recognising the signs of shock as goose bumps raced around her skin.
After half an hour she reached up, blindly feeling for the phone and calling back the last incoming number.
"Hello?" Pratt's voice still sounded wet and lost, like a little boy not sure what to do.
"How?" Neela's tone still monotonous.
Somehow knowing what she meant, Pratt answered, "A missile, hit the hospital he was in. I don't know-" he trailed off. She knew he meant so much more than just not knowing the cause of death, pictured him hanging his head and rubbing at his eyes in confusion.
"Thank you," knowing she should ask how he was but not able to deal with any more sorrow than her own she hung up once more.
She again watched herself with detachment as she got up and walked towards Ray's room. Seeking warmth and comfort. She opened the door silently, breath hitching as she looked at him. Splayed out on his stomach, moonlight gilding his back and shimmering on the small beads of sweat that had gathered along his spine. He shifted and muttered something when the mattress shifted as she came to sit cross-legged on the end of the bed.
Clutching at his leg she shook him slightly as she whispered his name, trying to wake him. Like everything he did Ray woke suddenly, sitting up as he came awake, the end of an unintelligible cry fading on his lips as he focussed on the woman hunched on his bed.
"Neela?" his voice was still clogged with sleep and he ran a hand through his hair as he squinted at her in the dark.
"He's dead, Ray. Michael's dead," Neela unconsciously echoed Pratt's words in that same monotone that seemed to have become lodged in her voice box.
It took a few seconds for Ray to understand what she was saying, simply staring at her as his mind woke up. And then he moved down the bed, scooping the tiny body into his arms and hugging her. The human contact seeming to shatter the glass that had been separating her from her emotions, Neela found herself sobbing into Ray's chest. Wheezing as she tried to drink in air between the great wracking sobs that shook her whole frame. She twined her arms tightly around Ray's neck and pulled herself onto his lap until he held her like a child, rubbing circles on her back and cradling her to him as he whispered soft nonsense into her hair.
Eventually the sobs subsided, trailing off into tiny hiccups of grief. Neela had the feeling of watching herself from the corner of the room once more as she saw herself move her head slightly, nuzzling against Ray's chest. He breathed in sharply, trying to forget how incredible it felt to have the woman he'd thought about so much recently, crushed against his chest. Trying to remember that they were pressed together on his bed, half clothed because he was comforting her and not for any other reason. Neela knew what she was doing as she pressed her lips hotly against Ray's chest. She'd read the literature about the need after a death, to confirm your own life, about the number of children conceived after funerals. Still, she couldn't stop herself, the need to knit herself as closely to another human body as possible ran through her. She could feel his breathing speed up as her lips began to roam over his chest.
Ray's eyes slipped closed as he took in the feeling of Neela's lips scorching his skin. Aware of her hair tickling the skin of his abdomen and of her hot little hand clutching reflexively at his knee.
"Neela, what are you doing?"
She looked up at him, eyes large and luminous in the dark, "Please, Ray." She pulled his face down to hers and kissed him hungrily, trying to pour out everything she was feeling and couldn't express or understand. He knew that he should stop her but when Ray felt her lips push desperately against his he lost the power to do anything except pull her closer and when her tongue brushed against his lips he seemed to lose all thought completely.
They fell back through the thick air to land on the bed, pawing at each other and frenziedly tearing off clothes. When her scorching hand wrapped around his length he could do nothing but gasp and listen to himself as he babbled nonsense and urgent pleas until he couldn't take any more. Moving over her and kissing greedily at every inch of her body, fingers slipping between her legs until she was begging him. When he finally entered her they both lay still for a moment, foreheads pressed together, realising the enormity of what was happening, before one of them began to move, though neither could have said who moved first. Then it was pure feeling once more. And if when she stiffened and cried out, Neela called out a dead man's name, Ray pretended he didn't hear, moving a few moments more before following her over the edge.
As they lay there, side by side afterwards Ray imagined the burning in his chest was just heartburn, and told himself he didn't know what she was talking about when Neela buried her face in his neck and whispered how sorry she was. And when her body, which he now knew so well, began to shake with silent tears he kissed them away and held her to his chest. He comforted her in silence until she fell asleep, then lay there staring at the ceiling and wondering why he felt so cold and alone in the sweltering room. Wondering how a dead man could make him feel so jealous that he hated him.
TBC