Chapter 3: Comfortably Numb
Authors Note: Two things. One- Ridley13 pointed out to me that I had been using Alex as opposed to Alek, I used Alex because my brain saw Alek and read Alex so that's what I used. From now on though I will be using Alek, in keeping with the story. Two- I will be switching perspectives in this chapter, it'll be obvious but I figured I'd tell you guys first. As always enjoy this chapter.
Deryn had decided that syrette's were the best way to get morphine right in to the vein with no hassle. The needles she'd used before might slip and miss the vein, or you might pass out with one in and start to bleed out. Now with her sixth injection in she could feel the familiar numbness casting a shroud over her. Her physical senses were dulled; she could not hear the low rumble of the engines or feel them vibrating the bed. The celling of her room was becoming foggier as the seconds passed. Deryns' emotions started to fade away as well. She could not feel the pain and loneliness of having lost her Da and now Jaspert. The stress of being a midshipmen and hiding her secret began to melt away. Even her love for Alek seemed to be as distant as the far side of the world was to her.
She lazily rolled on her bed to face the wall, her muscles not seeming to comply with the scrambled messages her brain was struggling sending out. The last of the syrette's was in her hand, she fumbled trying to get the cover off the needle. Her hand gripped it too tightly and the glass shattered in her hand gouging deep in to it. Her fingers started twitching and blood began to flow from the wounds, she watched as the blood moved through the creases and wrinkles of her and off her palm. She naturally could not feel the glass digging in to her bone. Deryn let her hand fall over her torso and drifted off to her self medicated bless, not hearing Alek open the door to the room.
Alek saw Deryn lying on the bed facing the wall, he assumed she was asleep and decided to leave her that way. He walked past Bovril snoring lightly on his pillow and patted him gently on his head. Looking at his wardrobe and bed it was an absolute mess, hell his entire part of the living quarters was a train wreck reminiscent of the Orient Express. He decided to clean up a bit until Deryn woke up and then they would talk. In his wardrobe after much hanging and folding he found the clothes he had been wearing when the Leviathan rescued him and the other renegade Austrians from the Swiss Alps. They seemed so small even after a little over a year; he held the black trousers up against his legs and looked in the mirror inside the wardrobe. The legs of them stopped an easy inch from his ankles. He chuckled and threw them over in the pile of things he was disposing of. The ship vibrated suddenly and caught Alek off balance and nearly threw him on the floor. He muttered a curse in German at the turbulence. The shudder must have woken Deryn because he heard her mumble something from her bed. He walked over to the small oak desk in the corner of his space and grabbed a ruler from the center drawer. He poked her in the back.
"Come on sleepy head wake up, you'll never believe where were going now."
No response, he poked her again and still no movement. He took a step closer and crushed something under his shoe. Alek looked down and noticed shards of glass were on the wood here his foot had been. Then he noticed the other five syrette's on the floor and he realized what was happening. She was overdosing on Dr. Busks morphine. He panicked and rolled Deryn on to her back and saw her eyes wide open staring at nothing. Then he looked at her chest and saw her blood, he flowed the trail back to her hand still lightly pumping the life out of her. He ran over to his old clothes and grabbed his shirt and ripped off the arm. He got back to her and started picking the glass out tears rolling down his cheeks while doing it. Each shard he pulled out seemed to make the blood come faster, he felt the warmth of it on his own hands and the pungent irony smell filled his nose with each breath. Deryn was the only person who he truly loved and would do anything for her, now he might lose her and the worst part was that there was almost nothing he could do about. He gingerly wrapped her hand with the shirt sleeve the blood seeping through the thin silk.
Not knowing what to do he scooped her upper body up in his arms and sat down on the bed next to her. He slowly rocked her back and forth silently crying not knowing what to do, this was the most shocking thing he had seen and he did not understand why she had done it. He kissed her on the top of her head and nuzzled her short blond hair, his silent crying turning in to sobs and heaving breaths. Bovril jumped up to the bed and curled up in Deryns' lap gently cooing, echoing Aleks' pain as though he understood what he was feeling. Alek stayed in this state for a while just holding Deryn thinking he might lose her, he didn't go for help from Dr. Busk for fear of revealing to him that not only had she stolen the morpheme but also that she was a girl. Then he thought that Dr. Barlow might be able to help somehow, but he couldn't bear to leave Deryn in this state alone where someone might walk in and find her. It occurred to him that Bovril could help when he nosed his hand and looked up at him with his big sappy eyes.
"Bov, go to Dr. Barlow and tell her… help!"
He could hardly stop hyperventilating to get out one sentence, but Bovril must have understood as he scurried through a message lizard tube off to find the lady boffin. He was left alone with Deryns' limp body, he started begging her to stay alive weather she could hear him or not. Alek was so much in shock he slid back in to German doing it.
"Bitte, bitte nicht jetz. Lass mich nicht Deryn, nicht nach allem, was wir durchgemacht haben. Bitte. Bitte."
