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New Deep
Chapter 2:
~@~@~@
Do you remember what you said
When I said
"I hate you."?
…Neither can I.
My heart was screaming
"I love you"
And I couldn't hear
Over the noise.
-When We Fell In Love
~@~@~@
I forgot to breath.
I remembered again, later. I must have, because after all, I didn't pass out on the floor. But it was hard to remember- like I had buried my self in his self and when I had to pull myself out again, I was forced to relearn everything. That's hard. That hurts.
I couldn't see for what felt like eternity, because the lights were dimmed low. He was the only one in the room, no roommate, or anything, which was great luck for me considering what I was about to do. However, it only served to accentuate his condition, the aloneness, the situation at large.
His breath was raspy in the dead room but nearly drowned out by the noise of the machines surrounding the bed like attentive children. They beeped, they hummed, they pushed clear liquids into his body, but they seemed to fade to the background in comparison.
Bandages covered his body to the point where he was closer in kin to a mummy than to the Spike that I knew. I expected that. I had expected him a bit battered, very bruised, with blood everywhere in the typical style of a Spike Screw Up.
Weakness flooded me, I pressed a hand to my stomach.
I hadn't expected this.
For a moment I merely stood, stunned into a wailing oblivion by the seriousness of his injuries, before my eyes made their inevitable pilgrimage to his face-
Oh god.
His eyes.
Oh god, his eyes.
Oh god, they hadn't said anything about his eyes.
What had he said about them? I mean the last time I looked into them. Really, truly looked. That time when I was scared and worried and jealous and god so scared more scared then I'd ever been in my entire life and he said-
He said, "Look at my eyes, Faye.
"One of them is a fake because I lost it in an accident. Since then, I've been seeing the past in one eye and the present in the other. So, I thought I could only see patches of reality, never the whole picture. I felt like I was watching a dream I could never wake up from.
"Before I knew it, the dream was over."
For the first time in my life, I paid attention to something, I didn't merely listen. Inside me, something woke up. How long, I wondered, have you been dying, Spike? How long has it been since I've been alive? Where does Limbo end? I'll take Hell over this. Fuck Heaven.
Fuck Heaven. And its angels.
But my mouth didn't work. And somehow… when I looked into his eyes… it was with such finality.
"Damnit," I cried out softly.
I didn't want to wake him up, if he could be woken up. I was just glad that when he did wake up… he wouldn't ever be able to see me cry again.
~@~@~@
He was deeply unconscious to the point where I worried that he had slipped into a coma and the doctors hadn't disclosed it to me. Nor was I sure whether it would be safe to take him off the breather or slide the IVs out of his veins, but the fact of the matter was he was a lot better off raw than stuck incapacitated while Red Dragons swooped down unheeded. So I made a decision, one of a billion in my life. I like the feeling after deciding something- the sense that I'm controlling my destiny. No one could take away the choices I made in my life because I was the only one who could make them.
It was my judgment to sneak my hands under his sides, beneath his naked back, feeling the extent of his dressings- the thickness, the location- and heave him into the wheelchair next to the bed.
Our little dance was about as graceful as the descent of a cow to the ground.
Nonetheless, we were eventually successful (I thanked any god in the vicinity he was clothed beneath the sheet), and after wrapping a paper-thin robe around his torso in part to hide the amount of blood brought to the surface by the movements, we were prepared to leave.
I paused a moment, readjusted the saggy clothes which were rumpled and twisted. This whole time, I had managed to keep from looking at his face. The bountiful bindings I could deal with because I was often on the other side of things, wrapping him up in them myself. Not to mention the frequency I did that. It seemed to me he was always walking around with a limp, or a bruised rib, or a strained muscle, or something that just hurt and required my immediate attention and plenty of those neat white rolls.
It was impossible to look at his face.
So… I didn't.
Exhaling a long breath I had been holding a long time, I moved to the door and pressed my ear against it. No voices. I turned the knob and let go, setting it free of the posts.
Outside, the distant cacophony of hospital business floated like a whisper down the hall, but the immediate presence of armed men was missing. With as little noise as possible, we made our way out, I making sure there was no slam by easing the door back with my heel. Despite the fact I was absolutely clueless as to our whereabouts, I supremely sure. No more reading magazines without reading them, no more waiting and biting my fingers till they bled, no more worrying about someone else fucking up.
There was only me to fuck up. And I could deal with that.
Okay, Faye, okay. Focus. You have to get out of this deathtrap. Keeping moving. Just don't ever stop moving. Things I knew for sure: I was on floor ten, along with other critical patients. Spike was kept in room 322A, and this is…
This is… I pulled over to the side, dipping my head down into my chest to hide my face from a doctor-ish man clasping a clipboard, followed by two other men who I didn't see as I dropped my eyes. They were coming up from behind me, heavy footsteps swallowed by the encroaching noise of a waiting room- not my waiting room, I saw. I caught a fragment of their conversation from just behind me.
"-man you're talking about, Spie-"
"We're asking you not to use that-"
"We told you no nam-"
Icy lightning shot up my spine. My frantically working mind barely kept my body from shrieking and throwing itself over Spike to hide him, and directed my arms and legs to more worthwhile activities. I clumsily fell to my knees beside the wheelchair and tugged at the bathrobe tangled around his lanky limbs, mentally panting with fear, hoping that my torso combined with the robe would cover his face from recognition if they looked at us.
-Oh god oh god oh god oh god where is my gun? in my holster is itloaded yesyes it'sloaded thank god thank god oh god oh god I'llputabullet through theirbrains oh god fuckyouspikespeigal ihateyou ihateyou ihateyou ihateyou ihateyou ihateyou ihateyou-
"-apologiz-"
"-just…on with it, later we'll deal-"
"-want him released-"
"-seriously… critical- no way-"
"-who do you think you're-"
-Ihateyouihateyouihateyouihateyouihateyouihateyouihateiloveyouihateyouihateyouihateyouihateyouihateyou-
"-you'll… or we'll-"
"-don't fuck with-"
-Ihateyou-
"-very sorry- apolo-…again… please… little further… -released today if you wish-"
-Ihateyou-
Only when their voices dwindled away to nothing did I take my hands away from his face. My fingers on his skin left red marks in the pattern of a fan on his cheek bones. "I'm sorry," I whispered and leaned backward on my heels, before falling over on my butt. The touch of death was disorienting. To us mortals, at least; I've rarely seen him disoriented or unsettled. In the beginning I assumed that was because he was simply somehow immune. Later, I knew much better.
From the floor, I could see we were next to door 454, which explained out run-in with the Dragons. Room 433 was too close for comfort. My arms were rubber when I tried to push myself up and I eventually surrendered and used the wheelchair as a crutch.
"Okay," I spoke to him as if he was calmly sitting and listening to me. He never did that. "Definitely heading in the wrong direction." We made a 180 and I darted off as fast as I dared to go, juggling between the IV stand and the handlebars. "We could really use an elevator," I murmured.
My eyes stuck to each room number we passed like they possessed the gravity of Jupiter.
450.
448.
445.
443.
438.
435.
…434.
"Keep moving," I gritted between clenched teeth, forcing my head not to whip around like a frightened deer and peer into the lair of my hunters.
Oh god, just keep- don't-
As if possessed by a will of its own, in a paralysis of horror, I could feel the muscles of my neck inevitable tensing, swinging around, chin, mouth, cheeks, eyes-
Eyes locked on eyes.
"Fuck," my mouth moved.
The third man of the Red Dragons blinked once and that was all it took before he was rushing for the door.