My first fic in a while hope you like it
By the way I don't own the movie "Unbroken" just in case you thought I did.
He had only been back a week when he got the call. Phil had been found, He was located in a hospital in bad condition. After Louis had been transferred he had continued to be "Interrogated" by the guards. He had been tortured within an inch of his sanity and he was asking for Louis.
He wondered what he had told them ad what they had wanted to know. Louis shuddered at the thought. His family were upset that he had to leave so soon but they understood. It didn't matter anyway Phil wanted to see him and after what he had been through he could have whatever the hell he wanted. He was worried though, sure he was a mess but he could not imagine what his friend had been subjected to. What condition would he be in?
He boarded the next plane to Washington disembarked and took a cab straight from the airport to the hospital where he was staying. He swallowed anxiously and he walked through the doors head still held high but confidence and swagger long stripped away.
He asked the nurse what room he was in his voice slightly broke on his name and she gave him a knowing look "Louis Zamperini?" He gave a short nod. She started walking down one of the halls gesturing for him to follow. The hall was long and quiet and when she stopped he was stood in front of an equally sombre doorway. It was slightly ajar. He took a deep breath trying to steady himself but when he reached up to push the door open his hand was shaking visibly. His mind wandered to the last time he had seen him in that hellhole battered and broken and an irrational surge of guilt filled his chest. What if he blamed him? He tried to ignore these traitorous thoughts, steeled himself and gave the door a firm shove.
The room was plain white and simple with one bed in the centre and there lying under the thin white sheet was Phil. His hands were lying atop the covers and his head fallen slightly to the side his mouth slightly parted as he breathed. His arms were laced with lashes and his face was still badly cut and bruised but he was here and he was alive.
He stumbled over to his friend's bedside and collapsed heavily into the chair at the side of the bed his eyes blurred by tears he would not let fall. He reached out a trembling hand to brush back the hair that had fallen into his friends face and let is hand rest there for a moment making sure he was real and relatively okay.
The soft breathing stuttered and his eyes fluttered open briefly before he violently flinched away from the touch cowering into the bed. "Phil, PHIL it's alright, it's me Louis, your fine it's me" he assured him quickly panicked by his response and cursing himself for being so stupid of course he wouldn't respond well to touch after what he had been through.
Phil quickly recovered studying him for a second through wary eyes before a watery smile broke out across his face "Louis, You're okay" In a sudden movement he leaned forward and enveloped him in a fierce embrace. Louis hugged him back just as ferociously finally letting the tears fall. He could feel him shaking as he held him and after a moment Phil stiffened and carefully eased himself back down onto the bed.
"Sorry, Still smarts a little" He joked gesturing to his battered body.
"Ya I'll bet you look like you've been put through a meat grinder" He laughed grateful at the change of tone.
"You should see the other guy"
He grinned at his friends attempt lighten the atmosphere. Phil's face turned serious after a second "what happened to you after we got separated?"
So he told him everything about his transfer about how he nearly fainted when he saw "The Bird", the mines and how he was injured and thinking he was going to die when they had to bathe in the river and the relief and shock when the whole ordeal was over. He spoke and spoke and it felt so liberating to talk to someone who could understand, who knew exactly what he was going through including the survivors guilt and the nightmares. When he was finished he felt exhausted. Phil just sat and listened. He slouched down in his chair. It was dark outside but the nurse hadn't come back so he assumed he could stay along as he wanted.
"You should go, get some rest" Phil said after a moment watching him shift uncomfortably in the plastic chair.
"I'm fine here"
"I'm sure you have enough problems, without a bad back from sitting in a hospital chair all night" He told him raising an eyebrow sceptically. "You look exhausted"
"Well I haven't exactly been sleeping like a log and besides I don't exactly have anywhere to go, I came straight here. You're not going to kick me out into the street are you? After all the times I saved your ass"
"Remind me again whose idea it was to eat the albatross"
"Fair enough" He laughed. "I'm not letting you sleep there though" He told him shifting with a pained grunt to the other side of the bed to make room. "C'mon it'll be just like old times but more comfortable and with less water"
Louis laughed again and eased himself down onto the bed shoulder to shoulder with his comrade. It made him feel better he was so unused to the emptiness and the quietness of his room after the cramped conditions that he had found it almost impossible to sleep since his return. But with the sound of steady breathing and the firm presence of Phil's shoulder against his he drifted off into the soundest sleep he had had in what felt like years.
He was awakened suddenly by a pained yell startlingly close to his ear. He shot up bleary eyed into a sitting position to find his friend twitching and muttering. Panicked, he grabbed his shoulders to shake him awake. "Phil it's just a nightmare your fine, It's just a nightmare, PHIL! You're okay... you're okay." With a shuddering gasped his eyes shot open terrified and confused. Shuddering as he tried to control his tremulous breaths. Concerned he placed a firm steadying hand on his friends back. He calmed after a moment and laid back down on the soft cotton pillow the silence enveloping them in the darkness like a thick blanket. Louis lay there staring into the darkness before speaking.
"Phil…?" he said softly after a moment "…what…what was it like?"
There was a short pause before his quiet voice drifted up into the darkness "It was … I don't really know how to describe it … It was worse because I didn't have the answers they wanted. I think they knew that after a while." he said thoughtfully "I thinks it was just for their entertainment mostly."
"It was kinda like being in that god damn room again, in the forest ya know? They didn't talk in English ever. I was just stuck there alone. I thought I was going to lose my mind"
He paused and took a deep breath before continuing. Louis swallowed thickly, feeling a familiar burn in the back of his throat as he listened. No matter how hard it was to hear he knew it was a thousand times harder to say.
"I begged them to kill me after a while but they weren't gonna do me any favours, guess it's a good thing they didn't". He said giving a humourless laugh. There was silence for a minuet Louis didn't know what to say to that but he could certainly relate there had been moments in the camp when he had felt like giving up but that was nothing compared to what Phil had gone through he could hardly blame him for wanting it all to stop.
"I think I might have told them if I knew" he said even more quietly after a moment. "I think would have done anything to make them stop" He admitted.
"Anyone would have "He told him firmly" and anyone else wouldn't have gotten out of their alive never mind with their mind intact… well mostly" he grinned as he received a half-hearted shove in the darkness.
There was another long silence before "I dream about it ya know? being all tied down again while they stand over me and I wake up and they're gone and sometimes I wonder if it's too good to be true and what if I did lose my mind? What if I'm still there and the god damn war is still happening. What if I'm completely insane? "He turned his head to the right and angled it upward to look at him with sad troubled eyes.
Louis looked down at him before very deliberately gripping his chin and pressing his thumb firmly into a bruise there. He filched away at the unexpected contact and looked at him in confusion.
"That was real right? Real pain? "He asked softly "Your here alright? and your fine and I ain't gonna have you doubting that so you're just going to have to believe me " He told him firmly before releasing his grip on his chin and moving more gently to tuck him into inside.
"Plus, if this" He said gesturing vaguely around him "is the best your brain can come up with then you're in serious trouble, I mean c'mon there aren't even any broads" he said grinning.
Phil smiled a little before relaxing and letting his eyes shut.
"I don't know" he told him "I think it's pretty alright"
Thanks for reading, reviews and constructive criticism very welcomed.