Sad. Very sad. Main character death.
The title is a line from Andrew Mcmahon's "Cecilia and the Satellite".
Nerves communicate a great many things, they move muscles, they store memory, they control reflexes, they save lives, they make lives, so when they burn away, they take life with them.
"Four alarm fire. Combined police and fire, it burned hot and we have casualties."
The night hadn't been all together calm but it hadn't been wild either. Despite these incoming though, it stayed relatively quiet, two major injuries and a bunch of patch ups. Almost the best they could hope for from a fire. Almost.
Before Topher read a chart or made an order, he noticed burned flesh and his stomach rolled. Burn victims, even after years, he can't get used to get treating little kids or burn victims. Damn burn victims.
"Hey Topher."
Damn burn victims he knew.
"Hey."
And their relatively calm night turned into hell.
"What were you doing running into burning buildings?"
"The building fell on me; I was standing outside."
Topher didn't answer, and kept moving bandages and watching Rick's face not react to that. He kept hitting bone. Bone. Bone. Bone. Burns and bones— doctor's worst nightmare, one that every single one of them hoped never crossed their table, because burns and bones, the only treatment: painkillers; no one had figured out how to come back from that. So burns and bones, no one really recovered.
Ending his investigation and grabbing the chart, Topher told Rick to wait a moment and he stepped out. Heart beating through ribs, those same ribs almost cracking under the pressure of examining them. That horrible white bone and stark black flesh. Angry red burns covering his whole back and both his shoulders, his neck, sparing his face.
Staring at the OR board, Topher briefly considered telling Drew first, but decided against it. His patient, his responsibility and he was not going to make his good friend tell his husband he's dying.
Topher stalled, he will admit it and Rick could tell, but he wrapped the skin back in place, set both Rick's hands on the bed and plopped down in front of him, who had already figured it out.
People's eyes grew when they got hurt or maybe the vulnerability in them did, but every last time Topher had this conversation, all he could remember was their eyes, staring at him, huge and scared or huge and brave or huge and slick with tears, but huge every time.
Topher sat there and outlined all the extreme measures they could take. Rick nodded. Topher continued to say that he would be medically fragile his whole life, he'd lose his other leg, he wouldn't be a cop anymore, he probably wouldn't be anything anymore. Again with these huge eyes. Then Topher said, normally in these situations they don't pull all the stops and they keep people comfortable. Comfortable. As if it was anything than heart breaking. Rick nodded. They stared at each other and Topher asked if he had any questions. Rick laid still.
"Could I talk to Drew for a second?"
Topher nodded, planning on grabbing Drew as soon as this conversation wrapped up.
"Want someone to stay here?"
"I just need to talk to Drew." A waver captured his voice on the last word and Topher remembered the man who sat in the hospital the last time, the brave face he wore in front of his men, the softening of that around Drew, the eventual lack of it around most of the night shift. A stoic soldier, a worried husband, a confidence friend. Holding that proud, strong, destroyed gaze another second, Topher regretted it leaving, regretted the person behind it being gone and didn't bother to suppress the helplessness that ripped across his chest. He nodded, didn't wipe away the tears that had started to fall down his face and backed out.
Outside he yanked the curtain, asked Krista to replace Drew in surgery and found a private room. Absolute, literal hell, their night had become.
Drew left the surgery at Krista's urging and walked down to ER, confused and not worried yet.
Topher met Drew at the nurse's station and ushered him into the break room. Closing the door, Topher sat Drew down, put the chart in between them and started talking.
"That fire, one of the cops is Rick. Drew, I… I'm really sorry but he's covered in burns, cops don't wear fire gear…"
Family members, especially close ones, especially ones who could read between the lines, their eyes magnified too.
"Toph, just tell me."
Topher paused, stared, met the challenge in Drew's huge eyes.
"His chest is burned down to his ribs. Something fell on him so his hip joint is in a bunch of pieces, second degree mostly down his back and his arms."
"Stop." Drew murmured, seeing the injuries in his heads and not needing more of them to make his conclusion. If the words didn't paint the picture clearly enough, Topher's expression did; he wouldn't look like that if there was anything to be done.
Sitting there for another second, Topher watched that expressive face crumble, try to rebuild itself and finally Drew put his hands over his face and forced the facade back into place.
"He's gonna die."
"Yes."
"Tonight, right now."
Topher hesitated. "Yes."
Even the toughest of people can't contain everything, there's always something, and in Drew that something has always been his voice and his eyes.
"Damn it, Toph." And Drew pulled again from him when he started to touch him, stood up, again forced himself to pull it back together.
"Where'd you put him?"
"Hey."
Rick pried his eyes open and there was relief there, the type of relief Drew saw in people's eyes when the mask could come down, when they felt safe, and didn't need to hide their pain anymore. And Drew see the relief. And he could see the pain.
"Topher said you were looking for me." Drew tried and Rick grinned. That almost broke his resolve right off the bat because seriously he smiled. Someone so strong, it didn't make sense regular, human things could break them.
"Why else would I be here?" Rick asked, trying the tone for himself.
Pulling up a chair and chucking the chart, Drew sat.
"Topher told me." He got a nod in confirmation.
"And he said he told you?" A pause, a deep breath and a nod.
"What do you think I should do?" It still stuck Drew how much Rick trusted him, would follow him to the ends of the earth.
"Not my decision. You have to decide." Drew said softly, sitting and meeting Rick's eyes.
"I know." Rick swallowed. "Second opinion."
Drew had read the chart in the elevator, through the tears running down his face.
"Burns are…" Drew was conscious of Rick watching his every move. "Devastating." he finished, barely. "I… agree with Topher…. You would not like the results."
Rick nodded, his face pinching, tears gathering in his eyes, that relief breaking, the pain spreading, the expression collapsing. Drew leaned forward and Rick buried his face in Drew's arms and shook. Drew winced, both because shaking look like it hurt Rick and because knives sliced ribbons in his heart.
After long seconds of muffled breaths, Drew could make out words. One word actually. His name. Shreds. His heart, not ribbons, shreds.
"Drew, Drew, Drew, Drew, Drew, Drew, Drew." Over and over, whispered in a tiny, fast voice, asking what, he didn't know.
"Yea, I'm right here. What is it?" he whispered back, answering the tiny voice, matching the magnitude.
"I'm sorry." the tiny voice faded under the weight of the emotion and stalled out. Drew curled his head around Rick's and they rested on his arms.
"I can't die." Rick wavered, almost fell on that word. One word, immeasurable strength required to say it.
Drew felt tears run down his face, silently, dripping on his arms.
"You…. you're still here. What are you going to do? I can't die.." Sobs could obscure words, but tearful will power, bullet proof concern, pain soaked determination, they could carry words.
Drew desperately wanted to wrap his arms around Rick and run from the hospital, run from the city, run from the world. His ears didn't hear the words, his body felt them as pain.
Time passed but Drew's body didn't uncoil. The words sat in his mouth, their time there making them more important to say, they needed out.
"Rick" Drew eventually ground out. "This is not your fault."
Their skulls touched and Rick forced them together, the rest of his body useless in expressing himself, his voice held captive, so they fit their heads together until they couldn't be closer and the pressure hurt. Drew reached out, but can't see for the tears, can't see for Rick's unburned face hiding his burned body so he didn't grab on and the movement renewed the shredding. Debris, not shreds, not ribbons, debris.
"I don't want to die. I don't want to leave you here." Dust, not debris, not shreds, not ribbons, dust.
"There were things I promised and now I can't…" Drew can't take it anymore and turned until the bend of his nose met Rick's and he hovered over the white bandage in place of a hand. Fingertips ghosted the palm of his hand, and his hand shook not clamping down on them.
"I'm not mad at you. You did a good thing. I'm not…" Drew faded out, curling his arm around Rick and sobbing.
"I'm sorry." For leaving, not being able to help, for being hurt, for being in pain, for needing you, for loving you, I'm sorry. I can't stay, I can't leave, but I can despise it and I can watch you go. If you steal a piece of me when you leave, keep it, it's yours.
"Does it hurt?" Their faces did, his head did but Drew wanted to know the physical.
"It…. weird, disconnected." Rick mumbled. "But not painful." Empty, it felt empty, dying felt empty and that hurt but the only drug for that is the end and he wasn't ready yet.
"Keep talking." Rick requested, shaking, wanting some balm over his aching wounds and listening to Drew did it.
Drew didn't talk, he choked. There were things he wouldn't do for anyone, nothing in the world could convince him, but one person held permission to ask though things of him. He gave it because his husband never asked, not once, asked him to do things he couldn't physically do. Now he asked for something Drew thought he couldn't make himself give. But he could.
"What do you want to talk about?"
"I don't want to talk about anything, I want to listen to your voice."
He could. He could. He could. He could. One thing.
"Remember when we…" the first sentence took a minute to force out, the second thirty seconds, the third, shorter until Drew caught up to normal speed.
Emotions lived in the people who felt them, not the words spoken about them later. But the people who lived them, they could feel them again with a swipe of a memory, with the strength of remembrance. So Drew recreated their life, in happiness, in sadness, in good times, in bad times, in sickness and in health, in fights, in laughter, in public, in private, their life. Until death do them apart.
"Drew" the tiny voice broke the stream of memories, splashed pain down in the middle of the clear river he had painted. "I can't breathe."
Drew smoothed his hand down the side of Rick's face. "It's okay. You're okay. I got you. You'll be fine." The stained river, the muddy river, the black river, Drew could see it invading. The roaring falls of that clear river gave way to flat black bends.
"Drew." The black river threatened to drown him and when the gasping breathing disappeared, a wind scattered the ribbons, the shreds, the debris, the dust.
Then the echo vanished and Drew pulled his trembling arms away from the still face and piled them under his head. He froze; the dust settled on the black river and that froze too.
"You are by far the best thing that ever happened to me. Just keep that in mind." Drew whispered, his head still buried in his arms, inches from Rick but thousands of miles away.
Spider cracks ruined the structural integrity of the river, the dust trapped in ice blocks that never thawed.
Finally the chill made him shiver and Drew retreated, but reluctant, didn't go far. The chair clattered loudly, startling him and he slid down the wall opposite the bed.
And hell had frozen over.
Topher was the one to walk into the room and carefully come to rest next to Drew.
Those huge eyes were hidden as Drew had curled in a tight ball, wedged in the right angle between the wall and the floor. The world didn't build room for that type of pain.
"Call it." That cold wind ripped across the barren landscape, relentlessly.
"3:08 am."
But that pain forced its way in anyway.