7

I don't want to wake up.

Arthur opened his eyes and couldn't hear anything. The room was too bright and the sunlight pouring in from the window was too warm and he was sweating. But he was exhausted, too exhausted to feel anything other than indifference. He looked to his right and he saw two people talking. It was Alfred and Kiku. He couldn't see Kiku's face, and he couldn't hear what they were saying. He focused his entire being on watching Alfred's lips moving, smiling, could tell that he was laughing but couldn't hear it for some reason. His cheeks were red and his blue eyes were sparkling and his dirty blonde hair was wet—a shower?—and Arthur blinked to try and make his image clearer.

After a few seconds, the rest of his senses came back to him, and he could hear again. Just then, Alfred noticed him and his smile became warmer than the sunlight.

"Arthur! You're finally awake," he grinned. Arthur just blinked at him. He didn't feel that he had enough energy to say anything. "Your manager and I were just talking while you were asleep. You've been out for a while."

Kiku turned around and stood up and walked to Arthur's bedside. He smiled and bowed his head a bit.

"Mr. Jones has been taking good care of you, it seems," Kiku said.

"Isn't this guy such a hoot? He calls me Mr. Jones," Alfred laughed. "How are you feeling?"

"Awful. What happened?"

"Not really sure. Last night you came back from the bathroom and passed out before you could even get back to bed. Doc said it was severe dehydration."

"Like what happened at the photoshoot," Kiku said. "Please, Arthur. I wish you would be more careful."

He tried to move and felt a light pressure in his arm. When he looked down, he saw an IV and realized that he was doomed to be stuck in bed for a while yet. Not that he had the strength to do much else.

"Thank you for helping him, Mr. Jones."

"Don't mention it," Alfred said. He was talking to Kiku, but he was looking at Arthur. "We're friends now, so I have to help when I can."

He appeared very much like he didn't belong in a hospital room, vibrant and happy and energetic. Especially compared to Arthur, with his sunken eyes and papery skin and ragged breathing. Arthur wondered if he'd imagined, in the midst of his stormy nausea and hazy consciousness, the feeling of Alfred's fingers on his lips. He reached up and touched his lips as if to make sure. It was like he could still feel Alfred's fingertips there.

"Arthur, what's wrong?" Kiku said. His voice was quick with concern.

"Huh?"

"You're crying."

Arthur reached up and touched his cheek. Sure enough, it was wet with tears that he hadn't even noticed.

"Oh. I suppose I am."

Before dinner a few days later, Dr. Laurinaitis came in for a quick check-up on Alfred. He had him sit up, had him stretch a little, had him go through a quick eye test. Making sure, he claimed, that his cognitive and movement functions were all still intact. A precaution. Arthur was asleep and the curtain was drawn.

"Eyesight still pretty bad, huh?" Dr. Laurinaitis asked.

"Yeah. I'm pretty much blind without my glasses," Alfred laughed. He needed to laugh while he said it. It was his defense mechanism.

"Unfortunately, I don't think your vision is going to improve after this. But really, we should be thankful that you didn't go completely blind."

"Silver linings, I guess."

"Don't worry, Alfred. If you want to, you can still fight," he smiled with a pat to Alfred's shoulder. "Just pop in some contact lenses. Of course, it's up to you. There's always the risk that something like this, or worse, could happen again."

"Yeah, I know."

"Obviously not a decision you have to make any time soon. But, luckily, I think you're done here. It's almost like you were never injured in the first place, apart from your eyes. I'm having you discharged in the morning."

"Really? Sweet! Thanks, Doc."

"You're very welcome." Dr. Laurinaitis moved to the door and gave one last smile. "I wish you the best of luck, Mr. Hero."

That night, Alfred was almost shaking with excitement. He couldn't sleep. It was still the middle of the night, a few hours from discharge, but he stood up and changed into his street clothes anyway. He wouldn't be able to sleep. There was so much restlessness and pent-up frustration that he could hardly sit still for more than a few seconds.

But then he thought about returning to Coach, returning to training. Returning to a world where he was a failure, a disappointment. Those thoughts crushed the excitement. He would be returning to live, train, fight in the shadow of Ivan Braginsky. Would he ever be able to fight him again, he thought, would he ever even stand a chance?

He sat on his bed buttoning his shirt and playing Candy Crush to pass the time. He hoped that Arthur would wake up before he left, so that he could say a proper goodbye.

Then the thought that he would be leaving this hospital room really hit him. Leaving the hospital would mean leaving Arthur, alone here.

Could he handle that?

Of course he could, who am I kidding. He doesn't even like me that much.

Over the past week or so, Alfred and Arthur had become confidantes. Even when there was nobody else, they had each other. They had talked about so many things, made jokes, learned about each other without actually having to ask. Alfred felt like he had known Arthur his whole life. But he wasn't sure at all what Arthur thought of him. An irritating thorn in his side, maybe—someone who was always too loud when he tried to sleep. Someone who was way too optimistic and happy.

Even though I'm not really. Not now.

He wondered if Arthur were awake and just silent. He'd been a lot quieter since his blackout. More reserved. Although he still had something sarcastic to say every time Alfred opened his mouth.

But then he heard a strange sound coming from Arthur's bed. He couldn't see him with the curtain drawn, but he could hear it with painstaking clarity. Soft, choking sobs. Like he was trying to hold them back but couldn't. Sniffles, the creaking of the bed. Cautiously, Alfred stood from the bed and pulled the curtain back. Not all the way. Just enough to peek his head around.

Arthur was laying on his back in bed, eyes shut tightly and squeezing out tear after tear after tear, and one of his hands was covering his mouth. Alfred felt his heart stop beating and shrivel up. He had never seen anyone look so miserable—is that what he had looked like when he'd first been admitted to the hospital? When he could see and couldn't talk? When he thought he would never see again, never fight again?

The tears were like crystals shimmering against Arthur's pale skin, drops that symbolized without words something that Alfred couldn't understand. They streamed endlessly and defiantly. Alfred felt like he was seeing something that he shouldn't have been. Something taboo, or maybe something sacred, upon which his eyes weren't meant to fall. The moonlight made his face look like a doll's, even as it wrinkled and cried like a child.

"H...hey...Arthur," he said quietly. Arthur didn't open his eyes or stop crying. He just started shaking his head. "Hey, come on. Don't cry."

It made him cry harder. He couldn't muffle the breathless sobs anymore. He sounded so utterly broken, so shattered—reaching his fingers out and trying to piece himself back together only to find himself too broken. He bit down on his finger in a meager attempt to quiet himself. He bit down so hard, and Alfred felt those teeth sinking into his heart. He pushed the curtain aside and took a step forward and knelt beside the bed. He didn't touch Arthur with his tingling fingertips the way he'd done when he'd carried Arthur to bed and resisted the sudden, overwhelming urge to kiss him. Instead, he rested his chin on his hands and spoke in a gentle tone.

"I won't say I understand, because I don't really know what you're going through," he began, "but I do know what it's like to feel like a failure, if that helps. I'm feeling it, too. You know, that hopeless, sinking feeling. But I cried all my tears before you got here."

Arthur's entire body was heaving with his sobs.

"Actually, I'm really nervous about going home. I don't think I'm ready to go back to the gym. I've never failed this hard before, and I feel like Braginsky is gonna follow me everywhere. Maybe that's kind of similar to what you're feeling. Like, the feeling of being trapped, you know?"

Alfred could see that Arthur was exhausting himself. He was using every last ounce of energy he had to cry like this. It was unlike anything Alfred had ever seen. The emotions Arthur had been trying to hide from the moment he'd entered the hospital were suddenly rushing out in waves and beautiful, terrible colors.

"Sorry. I wish I could help more."

"I don't know what to do," he finally whimpered.

"Me, neither."

Alfred was quiet then, and he sat beside Arthur as he cried. That was all he could do for him. He wasn't sure how long it went on for. He sat and he watched, he listened, he tried to feel everything that Arthur was feeling. But how could he possibly have done that? Get into the mind and emotions of someone so different than him, who had lived with experiences so different from his?

After lifetimes and thousands of flowing rivers, Arthur had dried out. His breath wasn't steady, but his sobs had stopped. His eyes were red and bloodshot and his lips were quivering.

"So you're off in the morning," he said. His voice was a little bit shaky, but he was trying to pick himself up. Alfred could see it.

"Yeah. Doc says I'm right as rain."

"With my luck, I'll be here until I'm dead."

"Aw, don't say something like that."

"Sorry, morbidity is in my blood."

"To be honest, I'm kind of scared to go back."

"Scared? Why?"

"Because." Alfred drew patterns with his fingers on the sheets of Arthur's bed. This was perhaps the closest they'd been. "I don't want to deal with Braginsky."

"You don't have to. At least, not yet. Just train until you're ready."

"I'm going back a failure."

"Don't give me that, you twat," Arthur sighed. "You're the last person I want to hear that from."

"Sorry, you're right," Alfred laughed. "I don't know, I just feel like I need to get away for a little bit. Get my shit back together."

"You're telling me."

A light went off in Alfred's head when Arthur said that, a dry and not at all happy smile on his lips.

"Let's do it, then."

"Huh?"

"Let's do it. Let's get away. Get our shit back together."

"What're you on about?"

"I wanna get away. You wanna get away. So let's go. Right now."

Arthur sat up and glared, straight into Alfred's wide and glimmering eyes. Now that he'd said it, and now that the idea was in his head, he couldn't think of or consider anything else.

"Go? And just where the hell would we go?"

"Anywhere."

"Right now?"

"Yes! Right now! Would you rather stay in this hospital another night?"

"Well, no, but..." Arthur's gaze began flickering around the room. "I don't understand."

"What's so hard to understand? I'm asking if you wanna sneak out of the hospital with me."

"Why would you even bother?" Arthur finally blurted. "You're leaving in the morning. You don't have to sneak out. They'll let you out willingly and you can go wherever you want."

"But then you're still stuck here. That defeats the purpose."

Alfred could hear Arthur catch his breath. Maybe afraid of the very sound of it. He shut his mouth tightly and, even though it had seemed as if he'd cried himself dry, tears appeared on the brims of his eyes.

"Why?" he murmured. "You don't even know me. Why is it so important to take me with you?"

"Because you don't want to be here. And I already told you. We're friends now," Alfred said softly. "So I have to help when I can. We may not have known each other long, but...it doesn't really feel like that, does it? At least, not for me."

The truth was, Alfred's motivations for bringing Arthur with him were completely and utterly selfish.

"I don't understand you at all," Arthur whispered. "You could so easily leave and get on with your life. But you're hung up on this, aren't you?"

"It's just what heroes do," Alfred winked. Arthur stared at him for a few moments before letting out a burst of laughter.

"Heroes? Really?" he cried. "You really are raving mad."

"Birds of a feather flock together."

"Yet again, I can't argue with your logic."

"So, are you gonna come with me?" Alfred stood up and put his hands in his pockets.

"I can't very well refuse such a genuine, strong hero, can I?"

"No, you can't."

Alfred smiled and Arthur smiled back.

Arthur changed quickly into a set of clothes that he had with him, probably something Kiku had brought him during one of his visits.

"Poor Kiku," he mused from behind the curtain. "He'll probably lose his mind. I'll have to call and leave him quite an apologetic message."

"I'm not even gonna bother with Coach. I'll wait until I get back to get chewed out."

"Perhaps for the best."

By the time he'd finished getting dressed, Alfred had come up with a plan. He realized that he'd never seen Arthur wearing anything but the hospital gown. Even dressed this casually, he looked straight out of a magazine. A loose pair of jeans ripped at the knees, a white and pink striped t-shirt, rings on his fingers and necklaces hanging in clusters and tangles around his neck.

"Guess you really like accessories," Alfred laughed.

"Excuse me. I have to look my best all the time, even sneaking out of a hospital," Arthur replied haughtily. "Unlike someone."

"What's that supposed to mean? We can't all be fashionable models, you know."

Alfred threw another wink. Then he laid out the plan for escaping the hospital (the window was out of the question, considering they were on the sixth floor). It was a fairly simple plan. They would put on hospital gowns over their clothes and walk outside and Arthur would lean against Alfred and, if the nurses asked, Alfred would say that he was helping Arthur get to the restroom. The truth was that Arthur had managed to regain the majority of his strength, but he agreed to play up his illness for the time being. Arthur would go into the bathroom and Alfred would stand outside and, once there were no nurses or doctors around, he would knock on the door and they would make a beeline for the elevator. After that, they could take off their hospital gowns and walk out and nobody would notice them.

"Where are we even going to go?"

"We can grab a taxi to my apartment," Alfred replied. "We'll grab some clothes and food—I don't wanna spend a lot of time there. We can just play it by ear after that."

"Well, if I'm crazy, at least you're crazy, too."

"That's the spirit. Ready?"

"As ready as I'll ever be."

Then, Alfred and Arthur managed to sneak out of the hospital at night—neither discharged, both delirious and exhausted and ready to finally escape this cage. And for some reason, one that neither could really come close to understanding, they were together.

As they were hurrying through the parking lot, snickering and sweating and their hearts beating quickly in time, Arthur tugged lightly on Alfred's sleeve.

"What's up?" He glanced down. There were tears streaming down Arthur's cheeks again. But somehow, they looked different in the silver light of the moon outside that hospital room.

"Thank you, Alfred," he said. "Thank you for not leaving me behind."

Sorry, Arthur. But it wasn't for you.

Alfred smiled and wished he had the bravery to reach forward and wipe the tears.

This is totally, shamelessly for me.