Slowly, Simmons felt himself beginning to resurface from the depths of unconsciousness once more.
His side still hurt which meant that the whole getting burned affair was not in fact just a bad dream he'd had. He still smelled the awful scent of disinfectants hanging in the air, indicating that he was still lying in the very same cot as last time in the infirmary.
Over the last few days he had zoned in and out repetitively, not really remembering much of anything about what occurred even when he was awake.
The healing properties of the moon dragon's glandular secretion was fucking awesome, but it was apparently heavy stuff all the same that took quite a toll on someone even as it helped them recover. It emptied your energy reserves almost faster than you're able to refill them through the normal means of sleeping, relaxing, and eating.
Fortunately, he was able to drink a normal amount of water again at least as his stomach had finally gotten used to doing so once more.
Learning that had filled him with a huge sense of relief when he had finally been able to satisfy his thirst properly for the first time since he had woken up. Being able to drink normally helped the secretion in a way due its work better as it increased his healing speed even more and also helped to restore his energy faster.
As he was waking up now, however, everything felt more or less the same as it had since Simmons had first woken up from his coma. He always felt horribly thirsty and tired.
He tried telling himself that even though he still felt that way, on the plus side if the healing should keep continuing at the pace it was he would be getting released within the next four weeks still. His body seemed to be responding well to the treatment even if Simmons sometimes didn't feel as if it was and his injuries were healing faster than even Kimball had expected.
This was a huge relief to him. He didn't care for hospitals in general, even less so when he was required to stay in one as a patient.
It was an old aversion he'd carried with him ever since he was a child.
His dad had always been an asshole, and had forced Simmons to do manly stuff he thought would help "man" the boy up.
Such as signing him up to their local club's rugby team.
That particular unpleasant experience had ended with a broken arm and a heavy concussion on the very first day he went to practice. He'd been required to stay in the hospital, Simmons always on edge while there as he knew he couldn't turn invisible for his own safety at the time. It had been pretty stressful as understandably given his younger age at the time, Simmons had even less control over being able to change his cells from visible to invisible through his own will back then.
When he had gotten out of the hospital a week later, he locked himself up in his room for yet another week to recuperate from his lack of sleep earlier and he gave his dad in particular the cold shoulder. His mom had been able to talk his dad out of the idea of sending him to another club after that, fortunately. Simmons would be given the freedom to choose one for himself.
He had ended up joining the mathletes, much to his father's dismay.
Ever since that day, Simmons had become even less visible to his dad than he already was—invisibility power or not.
His dad had only ever bothered to try "knowing" him when he had thought there was a chance still for Simmons to "man" up, and following his joining of the mathletes he only ever talked to Simmons to gripe and complain to him about any of his subsequent life choices. He would talk loudly and with a constant air of disappointment that his son was more of a nerd than the muscular, sporty, and self-confident prick his father used to be.
Following that day as well, his father started to deny Simmons any pocket money of his own. He had said something about taking the allowance money he used to give to a younger Simmons for doing what he had pressured him to do before to pay for Simmons' hospital bill—though his wording and hard eyes when he explained that made it very obvious it was meant to serve as a punishment.
Simmons had worked at different places during high school to try to save up money on his own instead, only to end up getting fired shortly afterwards from just about everywhere due to having two left hands.
He found a job at a local IT office sometime later on where he would do easy work and his extreme clumsiness wasn't an issue. As soon as they noticed that he was a fast learner and a crack in IT, he was allowed to do more and more jobs at the office which further increased his knowledge about all things computer-related.
However, any positives he had started to create in his life then came to an abrupt end after his dad found about his homosexuality when he caught Simmons talking to his mom about it. She had apparently already known about it and hadn't minded at all, but his dad had come home earlier than expected and had heard the last bit of the conversation they were having and he was certainly not of the same mind as Simmons' mother on the topic.
He was extremely lucky that he had gotten away with his life back then. Simmons had gotten beaten up horribly in the wake of his father's fury, only being saved from worse by his mother knocking his dad out.
She had told him to go to Atlanta afterwards as she had heard about a facility for people like him there, giving him the money he would need to travel.
The first thought that crossed his mind at her statement was that his mother wanted him to go to some exorcist or someone else in order to "cure" his gayness.
But she quickly put that fear to rest by telling him about the Sanctuary.
It turned out that the Abnormal trait of turning invisible was actually something that he had acquired from his mother's side of the family.
She was no Abnormal herself, but her son was one and she contacted other relatives to learn what she could about the invisibility trait as a result of that.
It was only logical given how every so often one of their offspring was born an Abnormal that her family knew of the Sanctuary-Network.
Simmons packed what he thought was necessary for traveling that very evening. Clothes, money, some pictures of him and his mother, and some other sentimental items connected to his mom that he didn't want to part with on account of the memories they held for him-but he packed nothing to remind him about his dad.
Those few sentimental items he had ever owned of his father were still no doubt standing untouched on his desk in his old room, if his dad hadn't decided to transform the room into something else or wreck it in his fury following that event. It wouldn't shock him at all if the man had just thrown them out himself after Simmons had left without any thought or hesitation.
When he left the house, he knew that he was dead to his father after all of this and that his dad was dead to him.
His mom, however, would always still be in his mind — especially after what she had done for him that day.
Simmons hoped he would see her again in the future, that maybe she would showing up at the Sanctuary when his dad finally drove her away too. Although he highly doubted that part of his wishful thinking ever coming to pass, knowing her devoted nature in general.
She would most likely stay where she was, unable to ever leave her asshole of a husband given that but at the very least finally having gained the courage to send her son off to safety.
He missed her, yes, but he didn't have the strong urge to go and visit her. His mother knew he was okay, he had let her know that through a messenger that Kimball had arranged to tell her that upon his arrival at the Sanctuary.
The rest was pretty much history.
Absentmindedly, he rubbed at an itching part of his arm.
The wounds on his side had already closed up completely thanks to the healing powers of the moon dragon's secretion, and his eye was okay too—he was able to see again with both eyes now. His sight was still as bad as always but apparently the eye hadn't gotten anymore damaged.
He took that as a good sign.
The door opened just as he was settling back from his contortions into a comfortable resting position.
"Hey, Gray Guy." Simmons immediately knew that it was Kai even before he looked up at her.
He had only learned recently from Grif that his sister was color blind, which would explain the very loudly-colored dress she always wore after she first managed to turn into a human.
"Hey, Kai."
The girl sat down on the chair beside him, observing the dent in the pillow that she was only able to see instead of him actually resting there.
"How are you doing?" Kai was surprisingly friendly given her usual behavior.
He smiled a bit awkwardly, still not used to the fact that he was still completely invisible as he recovered, "I'm good. My injuries hurt like a bitch, but that's supposed to be a sign they're healing."
"You know, whenever my injuries hurt… I try licking them." She supplied helpfully, "Licking helps with a lot of problems."
Okay, there she was again: the Kai that Simmons knew.
Luckily for him being invisible meant that nobody would see his blushing face.
"Uh, yeah," Simmons coughed awkwardly at that, sitting up and taking the glass of water from the nightstand beside his bed to drink something before answering, "I can't do that as I'm not able to turn. Besides that, I'd rather prefer not to lick them in my case. It would only infect the wounds."
"Huh? How come? I never have that problem." She blinked a few times in confusion, giving Simmons time to answer.
"You have a stronger immune system as you're a wolven." He explained, "I, as a non-wolven, don't have such a positive trait when it comes to self-healing."
"Yeah, wolvens are fucking awesome!" Kai cheered, looking at Simmons with a grin.
"You're right. Speaking of wolven," Simmons changed the subject just then since the thought crossed his mind once more, "Thanks for coming again. I didn't mean to offend you when you were here earlier and I had just woken up. I was just out of my mind and disoriented."
The younger Grif sibling waved him off, "Nah, it's okay. Dex explained to me why you were acting that way." she assured him, "It's fine. The only reason I hadn't come back to visit earlier is just that I was letting Dex be with you whenever he was around so you two could enjoy your dates alone."
Simmons' face immediately turned beet red, "We weren't on any dates!"
Kai scoffed, "Yeah right… you two are totally dating!" she informed him, raising an eyebrow slightly in challenge to any protests Simmons might make on the matter, "Why else would Grif almost have run off into Caboose's fire when he noticed you were in trouble?"
Her voice lowered slightly just then, and she leaned over as if to share an important secret with the currently invisible and bedridden Abnormal, "You do know that we wolvens also tend to change when our mate is in danger, right? He did change."
Simmons didn't reply to that, staring down at his hands in awkward embarrassment with his face feeling as though it was burning so hotly that you could probably fry an egg on it.
"Uh…" Simmons muttered, trying to somehow form a coherent thought once more.
To his great relief, Kai decided to pick up another subject for discussion by this point after having said her piece on the matter, "Have you heard about Kimball going to the black market for you?"
"Yeah, I heard." Simmons replied, thankful for being able to change the subject to something more neutral. Or at least not as terribly awkward as the previous subject had been, "She went to the market to get something to help speed up my healing process."
"Yeah, I got some of it for my paw too. It's already healed." She proudly showed him the scar on her left forearm. The shot had luckily gone through, but it had left behind a nasty scar.
"Looks pretty badass." Simmons told her, smiling slightly, "I'm sure the guys and girls will love it."
"You think? Then I'll be even more of a pussy and dick magnet! Maybe I'll even able to talk the guys and girls into an orgy someday since I'm so damn attractive!" Kai exclaimed happily, rolling down the sleeve of her sweater since it was rather chilly down in the infirmary.
Simmons' face again became a deep shade of red, though it fortunately still went unnoticed by the wolven beside him due to her not being able to see his face.
He decided he would not tell Grif about that latest remark from Kai as he would only freak out and hound his sister about not embarrassing the family and to try to not say such bizarre things anymore.
Keeping Dex out of it was probably for the best for everyone in this case.
The younger wolven soon got bored once there was nothing more to discuss. Kai left with a quick good-bye and after telling him that she would drop by again to see how he was doing later.
Simmons hoped that it wouldn't be too soon, as he felt that his brain still needed to try and recover from all of the information he had just received from their discussion a few minutes ago.
Lying in his bed, he suddenly didn't feel tired at all and instead started pondering and mulling over the snippets of information he had gotten from Kai just then that weren't too embarrassing to think on or too brain-breaking.
Namely, his mind drifted over and over again to the remarks about Grif and all of the mating stuff she'd mentioned.
What was it again that Grif had told him awhile ago back in the library when it came to wolvens and mating?
Right, wolvens created stronger ties when they bonded than even a werecat did with their chosen mate (and he knew werecats developed quite strong bonds as well).
If their mate died, they would too. If their mate rejected them, wolvens tended to die of loneliness as well.
What Grif hadn't told him was that wolvens would turn into their wolven form when their mate was in danger to protect them.
That was new information Kai had supplied him with.
So if it was true that Grif had turned to go and save him when he got injured so badly (and he did not believe Kai would lie about that), did that mean that Grif had bonded to him at some point?
Was that why Grif would always stick around close by?
Simmons felt his face heating up again as he pondered those questions, feeling an odd prickling sensation in his stomach when he thought about the situation more.
The door opened again, Grey entering without her bizarre-looking glasses framing her face which meant that it was once again time for an examination of Simmons while he was visible.
Simmons sighed, lying down and letting Grey sedate him to reexamine his wounds.
At the very latest, he would wake up again tomorrow in the morning.
Simmons only regretted not being able to see Grif again tonight in order to ask him about what Kai had told him.
He would most likely still be knocked out and sleeping when the wolven did show up to visit him then following work.
Blinking his eyes open the next time he woke up, he noticed Donut sitting beside his bed and knitting something with pink wool.
He didn't bother speaking up just then to inform Donut that he was awake.
He knew it was unfair to Donut since he had come to visit with him and everything, but Simmons was still too tired at the moment to have a serious conversation with the merman.
The anesthetic still in his system made him feel horribly groggy and drowsy, and no doubt he also still felt that way because the secretion of the moon dragon was working wonders on his injuries.
He would talk to the merman when he was more coherent.
With Donut, it was very similar to how it was like conversing with Kai. You had to be coherent and a lot more awake to have any sort of serious conversation with either of them.
It wasn't too surprising given how he felt just then upon waking up from a drugged sleep that Simmons preferred lying there with his eyes closed for a little while instead, listening to the steady clicking of the metal needles Donut was using to knit.
He also heard the merman hum a song that Simmons didn't know, though Donut must have been very familiar with it as he was varying the tune as he worked-sometimes humming the first or the second vocals for it, sometimes focusing more on humming some of the instruments' parts for it instead.
Listening to the humming, his thoughts again drifted onto a certain orange-wearing wolven.
Kaikaina told him that Grif had been looking for him following what had happened that resulted in Simmons getting injured, even turning when Simmons was in danger.
He thought back to all of the many times that Grif had been somewhere nearby.
It never seemed to take him long at all to find Simmons when he was in the library, and Grif had shortly afterwards picked up the habit of dropping by and sleeping on the couch there beside the redhead whenever he was studying.
It was very fortunate in a way for Simmons to have the other man around. Grif's relaxed and chilled attitude seemed to radiate off of him whenever he was close by, causing the redhead to feel more at ease in the wolven's presence than he normally ever felt.
Then again, that very same guy could also nearly drive Simmons nuts with that very same slacking-off attitude.
Grif's room was often left uncleaned and messy which forced Simmons to clean it up regularly despite it not being his room just to make sure that the lazy fuck wouldn't end up catching something from spending any amount of time in his own room since, arguably if left the way Grif usually left it, the room could count as a biohazard site.
Simmons actually wouldn't be the least bit surprised if whenever he opened the door to Grif's room the second after he was released from the infirmary, he would see something walking towards him out of that mess. Something that wasn't Grif, but some kind of unknown animal or creature that had somehow been born in there and subsequently evolved to the point where it had learned to walk during the time Simmons hadn't cleaned up the room.
He had a strong suspicion that that Grif hadn't bothered cleaning his room any while he was in the infirmary.
Musing over these things caused him to drop off into a light slumber again while thinking about Grif.
On this night, he dreamed of Grif turning into his wolven form and shredding a tin can to pieces because it hadn't opened when Simmons tried getting it to do so with a can opener. It had something to do with how that was a possible threat to Simmons as the redhead attempted cooking something in his parents' house.
That was strange: he never dreamed of doing anything in his parents' house. That must mean that thread of information meant something to his sleeping mind. The dream was mixing past things with more present ones.
Simmons frowned somewhat in his sleep when he realized that particular piece of information with more conscious thought, but it slipped away as quickly as it came and he fell more deeply back into the dream—Simmons deciding to just let it go since Grif was whining in the dream now because he was hungry.
After the 'shredder incident,' they watched a movie and ate a dinner that Grif hadn't attacked previously.
The movie they watched was Pacific Rim. They were eating popcorn along with it and suddenly the two of them were no longer in Simmons' old house but were sitting in the multimedia room of the Sanctuary.
They were alone there, and the two of them both fell asleep after deciding to watch another movie about halfway through it because the new film turned out to be absolutely boring.
When Simmons woke up in his dream, he was slouched against the wolven with his head resting on Grif's broad shoulder while the Hawaiian's head was resting on the redhead's.
The wolven was sleeping soundly still, just as Simmons had been doing only some minutes ago.
The redhead frowned again in his sleep. He was dreaming absolute nonsense before that made no sense, only to have somehow wound up in one of his fondest memories that seemed to be replaying now exactly as it had happened before.
That was a bit strange and disturbing in a way, but once more Simmons couldn't bring himself to care too much as his more conscious thoughts began being overpowered by his dreaming state once more.
He closed his eyes again in his dream and snuggled closer to the wolven, feeling the chubby man respond to the display of affection the redhead had just displayed by turning around slightly.
Grif was now lying on his back on the couch with Simmons on top of him, his head resting on the wolven's comfortable and broad chest.
Simmons felt the rise and fall of Grif's chest as he breathed in and out, heard the regular thumping of Grif's heart against his ear, and felt the warmth radiating off of Grif's body just as he had back then.
The dream had suddenly become even more real, causing him to relive what he had felt at that time.
Simmons didn't move and was content to simply continue lying on top of Grif's chest. He just enjoyed being with the other man as he was at the moment, feeling comfortable and safe on top of the wolven while encircled by his strong arms.
He had fallen asleep again soon after.
Simmons woke up in his bed, at first disoriented and unsure as to why he was in his room and lying on the worn mattress beside his bed.
The one thing about the situation that was still the same as when he had gone to sleep before was that Grif was holding him close in a strong and yet surprisingly soft embrace as he continued to doze.
Grif woke up a few minutes later due to feeling Simmons' shifting movement as he woke, explaining that he had brought Simmons back to his room when Grif couldn't wake the redhead earlier.
Kimball knew that they had the multimedia room for that night, and she also knew that they would clean it up the following day after speaking with Simmons earlier. She had told him that she didn't mind whenever they ended up cleaning the room the next day since no one had reserved the space for anything after them, as they both had earned having a night off and the next day to sleep in due to their hard work around the Sanctuary.
So Simmons once more decided to stay in bed and have a long and relaxing nap, cuddled closely to the wolven beside him instead of getting up and helping the others, or rushing out in a hurry to clean up in the multimedia room like he normally would have done.
When they went to clean the room the next afternoon, they didn't say much to one another.
There was an awkward silence, the chaos of cleaning up their mess from before and the boring movie replaying in the background as they did so reminding them of what had happened before and made them tense around one another.
This awkwardness, however, soon dissolved into nothing but thin air when they left the room later on, deciding to hang out in Simmons' room and play some computer games on his laptop.
Grif again fell asleep at some point during the game which allowed Simmons the opportunity to finally do some work.
What differed heavily from what he had really witnessed and experienced during those two days in the past and the dream he was currently in now, was the fact that Grif sat up at some point during the time that Simmons was working.
Instead of trying to coerce him into putting the laptop aside and taking a nap with him, the wolven took the device from Simmons' lap without saying anything and put it on the bed. Luckily he didn't throw it away in the dream, which would have been a pretty realistic thing for Grif to do too.
He then grasped the back of Simmons' shirt, making him lie down on the bed.
While he laid there, Simmons supposed the wolven would be lying down beside him to nap again since that tended to be how these types of moments went.
Instead, the wolven braced his weight on one of his arms as he regarded the redhead and rested a hand on Simmons' cheek.
Simmons couldn't really do anything else besides lie there and stare into those wonderful ocean-blue eyes the Hawaiian had whenever he was in human form.
He felt Grif getting closer and he did not mind the proximity at all.
He even met the wolven halfway when Grif leaned in for a kiss.
The sensation he felt then was the same as when he had been about to drop off to sleep several days ago and had felt that something had been pressed against his lips.
Breaking the kiss before either of them could become out of breath, Grif lied down beside the redhead and pulled him close into another embrace. Simmons couldn't help but cuddle happily into the wolven's form.
He again felt Grif place a kiss on the top of Simmons' head before the young man fell asleep.
And then he woke up in the real world, still in the infirmary.
To his large surprise, nobody was around for once. It was dark currently so Simmons suspected it to be night and the shining numbers of the clock on his nightstand confirmed that.
He did feel bad that he had apparently slept through Donut's entire visit earlier when he hadn't meant to do so but he figured that Donut would probably be understanding about why that had happened since clearly Simmons' body still needed all the rest it could get.
He closed his eyes to fall asleep again.
His thoughts, however, drifted back to Grif again and again which hindered him from falling asleep again too quickly.
After what felt like hours, though technically from the time his clock was displaying it had been only been around one and a half in reality, Simmons finally managed to fall asleep once more.
Simmons slept through the rest of the night until the next morning with no more dreams, weird or not, showing up again which left him to the dark and relaxing sleep he needed so urgently for his continued recovery.