Chapter Two
When Skids DiAngelo opened his eyes, he was immediately aware of three very important factors:
1.He hurt *everywhere*, and he had a desperate craving for morphine.
2.Cyanide Torres' face was hovering approximately four inches away from his own, his dark eyes intent and the corners of his mouth turned
down anxiously.
3.He wanted to kiss said mouth even more than he wanted the analgesic, which was, all things considered, a helluva lot.
He was moving to follow through with that last idea before he could stop himself, pushing up so fast that his muscles howled indignantly and his injuries throbbed viciously, and it was probably only the pain that saved him. It stopped him, made him pause for a fraction of a second in his upward surge, and it brought him back to reality.
Reality was a cool, white hospital room with the curtains at the windows drawn back to let sunlight in. Reality was the thin cotton hospital gown he was wearing and the lumpy, uncomfortable hospital bed he was lying in. Reality was the smell of medicine mixed with some stale, sickly scent that he had yet to identify, and the quiet beep and hum of machines. Reality was the shocked look on the beautiful face so close to his and the certain knowledge that he *couldn't* kiss Cyanide, no matter how much he might want to.
Reality really sucked.
Be that as it may, he had to deal with it the best he could, just like everyone else. And one thing he couldn't deal with was his best friend hating him, which would surely happen if he continued on the path he was on right now. So. He had the choice of flopping back onto the bed and pretending nothing had happened, which just make what he had intended even more painfully obvious, or he could freeze in midair and hope that Cy thought he was.....stretching or something. As if anyone in the immediate solar system stretched that fast.
Hmmm. Decisions, decisions.
Unfortunately, Skids' brain didn't work too well under pressure, so he ended up going with neither of these options. Instead, acting half on his strong sense of self-preservation and half on the even stronger desire to find out if Cya tasted half as delicious as he looked, he changed direction midway through his lunge, and brushed his lips against his friend's cheek instead.
Soft and smooth and sweet as honey, if honey could make a person's head spin, and for a moment, Skids seriously considered pulling Cy down into the tiny hospital bed with him, consequences be damned. He probably would have acted on that impulse too, but his common sense (what little he possessed, anyway) came to the fore and ordered him to lie back down before he completely humiliated himself. Reluctantly, the rest of him conceded that that was probably the best course of action at the moment, and he obeyed.
Only to find Cya staring at him, his brow furrowed and his expression unreadable. Greeeeeeeat. He'd done his best to divert disaster, and it had happened anyway.
Skids considered apologizing, but that would just give what he'd done even more significance. Plus, he didn't think he could force anything sound out of his dry throat right now. Instead, he settled for staring straight back at Cy and concentrating hard on sending his thoughts through telepathy. Hey, anything was possible, and it was a lot less embarrassing than saying the words out loud. 'I'm sorry, really, Cya. I just got carried away. It won't happen again, I promise. I don't want to kiss you anymore. No! No!'
The dark eyes narrowed a tiny bit.
'Well, okay, yes, I do. But I won't! I promise! Only don't be mad at me, okay?'
Cy opened his mouth and took a deep breath, and the sound was like an explosion in the silence. It awakened something deep within Skids, something wild and panicky that made him want to jump up and run from the room, revealing hospital gown and all. Fear twisted in his gut, fear of the searching, intense look on his friend's face, fear that made him want to scream as loud as he could just to keep himself from hearing what Cy was about to say.
Oh God. He didn't want to be hurt any more.
"Skids--"
"I missed you lots, Cya," Skids found himself murmuring, and he knew he had interrupted, but somehow it was too urgent to wait. Somehow it had to be said before Cy finished his sentence, or it might never be said at all. And it was far too important to be kept quiet.
There was a tiny, tense pause during which they stared at each other silently and Skids felt his heartbeats slow until he could count each of them individually, feel each one reverberating throughout his body, and the panic in his stomach rose insidiously to claw at his throat.
Then Cyanide's expression suddenly softened into a smile, making everything friendly, familiar, and Skids didn't know whether to be disappointed or relieved.
"I missed you too, amigo. In fact," Cy laughed slightly, "I got less sleep in my own bed than I did here. I was up all night worrying that you would die from being forced to consume whatever the hospital calls supper without me here to bring you fast food."
"Well," Skids replied thoughtfully, "it was pretty bad, but they gave me Jello for dessert. So I survived."
"Thank God for Jello." Cya hesitated, and Skids watched, mildly fascinated, as his brow furrowed. "But was it okay other than the food? You're not in more pain than you were yesterday?"
Skids paused for an instant, taking stock. Now that he had assumed control of his hormones (well, most of them, at any rate) and stopped lunging around wildly, the pain had subsided a bit, and, considering what he'd felt like less than a week ago, it wasn't too bad. His shoulder, which had been dislocated, was still a little sensitive, but nothing major, and the sprained right knee was also feeling better. The huge bruise on his thigh was starting to fade a bit at the edges too. Even added in with all his cuts and scrapes and a general soreness, he was still doing pretty good. "I feel better. The nurse told me last night that she thinks I'll be released any day now."
Cyanide's face darkened. "The little blonde? That nurse?" Then, when Skids nodded, he demanded, "What else did she say?"
"Um......not much," Skids replied, suddenly unsure. He'd thought Cya would be happy that they would both be going home to stay soon, but, judging from the scowl on his face, he was anything but. "She just told me to have a good night and said she'd try to bring me a doughnut from the bakery down the street this morning, because the breakfast here is disgusting."
"And did she?" Cyanide growled, turning to pace the room, his strides short and agitated.
"Well, yeah," Skids answered, confused. What was so wrong with the nurse bringing him a doughnut? He'd paid her for it, so it wasn't charity or pity or anything. She was just being friendly. "I thought it was very nice of her."
"Yes, her little plan seems to be working just dandy," Cya muttered under his breath, continuing to pace.
"What?" Okay, his friend was officially raving. Probably all the sleep he hadn't been getting. Maybe he could subtly push the call button and get someone to sedate the poor guy before he really hurt himself....
"Don't you see?" Cyanide burst out, whirling around suddenly in his pacing, startling Skids out of his sympathetic thoughts and causing his eyes to widen in alarm. "She's acting like she's all sunshine and light and considers it a privilege to bring you doughnuts, but in fact she only wants to get into your pants!"
"I don't have any pants," Skids pointed out dryly.
"Well, gown then. The principal's the same!"
Skids giggled. He knew he shouldn't, not when Cy was so upset, but he couldn't help it. The thought of the blonde nurse hitting on him by bringing him actual edible food was just ridiculous. "Yeah," he snorted, "next thing you know, she'll be bringing me roses from the gift shop!"
Cy, looking offended, had just opened his mouth to respond when the door swung and open and the nurse in question came bustling in: a short, petite little thing with long, wavy blonde hair and big blue eyes. In her arms she carried an arrangement of flowers.
Skids gulped as Cya's face went from aggrieved to enraged in the blink of an eye.
"Hello again," Blondie said cheerfully, and then, apparently not noticing his thunderous expression, "Oh, and hello, Mr.Torres. These were ordered for you, Gio, from someone named Tybalt, who included a message that he will stop by to see you later today."
Skids shot Cya an "I-told-you-so" look and heaved an inward sigh of relief. Not that the girl wasn't pretty or nice. She was both. In fact, she was basically a female Harley, at least in looks. But she just wasn't his type.
He wouldn't have thought so five days ago, or if he had, he wouldn't have admitted it. He had been firmly convinced that he was in love with Harley. He'd believed that right up until the moment he'd looked out the passenger side window of Tybalt's car and seen the other vehicle, a little Honda of some kind or another, approximately four feet away, and, as if they had been painted onto the windshield, the words, 'You love Cyanide Torres.'
Then had come the crash, which was currently a jumbled mix of shattering glass and screaming metal in Skids' mind, and the pain, faint and far away, and a voice that he hadn't been able to place at the time but had since recognized as Tybalt's frantically asking if he was all right.
'You love Cyanide, and now he'll never know,' Skids remembered thinking blankly. 'You'll never get to tell him, and you wasted the time you could have spent together because you were too damn stubborn to see the truth.'
"Call Cya," he'd managed to croak aloud, fighting off the darkness swimming at the edge of his consciousness. "Number's in my phone. Tell him......tell him......" And then, apparently, he'd blacked out.
The next thing he remembered was waking up in the hospital room. When he'd come to, he'd been greeted by many faces--Harley, who had been concerned and faking cheeriness, Tybalt, who'd been apologizing from the moment he'd opened his eyes, Mik, who'd been sympathetic and generously offered to take care of all his hospital bills and let Skids pay him back at his own pace, Rasheequa, who had been relieved and mildly remonstrating. But the one that really caught his attention was Cyanide, whose face had been so pale that he'd barely been recognizable. Their eyes had met across the room, and something had passed between them, something comforting and a promise edged with anticipation, though it wasn't clear who was reassuring whom.
Skids felt like he'd been given a second chance. Granted, he wasn't sure what he was going to do about it or how Cyanide would feel when he did decide, but he knew he wasn't going to throw the opportunity away again. No, as soon as they let him out of this hospital, he was going to--
"............Mr.DiAngelo?"
Well, he wasn't going to zone out again like he just had, that was for sure. Skids slowly became aware that both the nurse and Cyanide were staring at him, expressions of concern on their faces, and he felt himself blushing. He had no idea how long he'd been gazing dreamily into space, but it had probably been far too long to pass off as trying to decide where the flowers should go. Though it never hurt to try.
"Uh, I'd like them on the window sill, please," he stammered, and then noticed that the vase had already been placed there. Well. The mortification just didn't end, did it?
"I asked if you were about ready for lunch," the nurse said slowly, frowning at him. "Are you feeling all right?"
"Oh, yeah, I'm great," Skids chirped. "Just fine. Good enough to go home. But I'll stick around for lunch, I guess."
She eyed him warily for a moment longer, then shrugged and smiled. "Okay. It'll be here soon. Call me if you need anything!"
As soon as she was out the door, Cya turned to him with raised eyebrows. "What was that all about?"
Skids studiously avoided looking at his friend. "What was what all bout?" he muttered, picking invisible lint off his blanket.
"Well, you just completely zoned out. I'm assuming there's a reason."
"I was just planning stuff to do when I get home." Well, that was at least half truthful. Just because one of those things that he wanted to do happened to be Cy himself.........Skids felt himself blushing again, and hurried on, hoping his friend wouldn't notice. "There's a lot of things I miss. You know, like my shirts and the spiders.......hard to believe, but at this point I'm actually thinking of them as cute."
Cya's face brightened, and Skids mentally cheered. Good. He'd been successfully distracted. "That reminds me. I brought you something."
He rummaged around in a plastic bag lying on the only chair in the room and finally straightened, waving two brightly colored objects in the air. "Ta da!" Cy exclaimed. "A box of seventy-two brand new, top-of-the-line crayons, including their own sharpener, and your favorite coloring book, which, if I may say so, features the most outlandishly ridiculous pictures of the Disney princesses that I've ever seen. Look, you've made them all virtual clones of Buffy, even Ariel. How Skids, how?"
Horribly, Skids felt tears come to his eyes, and he blinked them back quickly. He couldn't let Cya see him cry, not when he'd just done something so wonderful. So he made sure his voice was steady (well, almost) when he said, "Thank you so much, Cy. It's the best thing anyone's ever done for me."
"Oh, I don't know about that," Cy drawled, still teasing him. "What about that nurse and her doughnuts?"
"Doughnuts have nothing on crayons," Skids answered solemnly, inwardly adding, 'Just like she has nothing on you.'
There was no question about it, he thought determinedly, carefully opening his coloring book to an unmarked page and selecting a color. Judging by the sappiness of his thoughts, it was definitely time to develop and put into action a plan to seduce Cyanide Torres.
When Skids DiAngelo opened his eyes, he was immediately aware of three very important factors:
1.He hurt *everywhere*, and he had a desperate craving for morphine.
2.Cyanide Torres' face was hovering approximately four inches away from his own, his dark eyes intent and the corners of his mouth turned
down anxiously.
3.He wanted to kiss said mouth even more than he wanted the analgesic, which was, all things considered, a helluva lot.
He was moving to follow through with that last idea before he could stop himself, pushing up so fast that his muscles howled indignantly and his injuries throbbed viciously, and it was probably only the pain that saved him. It stopped him, made him pause for a fraction of a second in his upward surge, and it brought him back to reality.
Reality was a cool, white hospital room with the curtains at the windows drawn back to let sunlight in. Reality was the thin cotton hospital gown he was wearing and the lumpy, uncomfortable hospital bed he was lying in. Reality was the smell of medicine mixed with some stale, sickly scent that he had yet to identify, and the quiet beep and hum of machines. Reality was the shocked look on the beautiful face so close to his and the certain knowledge that he *couldn't* kiss Cyanide, no matter how much he might want to.
Reality really sucked.
Be that as it may, he had to deal with it the best he could, just like everyone else. And one thing he couldn't deal with was his best friend hating him, which would surely happen if he continued on the path he was on right now. So. He had the choice of flopping back onto the bed and pretending nothing had happened, which just make what he had intended even more painfully obvious, or he could freeze in midair and hope that Cy thought he was.....stretching or something. As if anyone in the immediate solar system stretched that fast.
Hmmm. Decisions, decisions.
Unfortunately, Skids' brain didn't work too well under pressure, so he ended up going with neither of these options. Instead, acting half on his strong sense of self-preservation and half on the even stronger desire to find out if Cya tasted half as delicious as he looked, he changed direction midway through his lunge, and brushed his lips against his friend's cheek instead.
Soft and smooth and sweet as honey, if honey could make a person's head spin, and for a moment, Skids seriously considered pulling Cy down into the tiny hospital bed with him, consequences be damned. He probably would have acted on that impulse too, but his common sense (what little he possessed, anyway) came to the fore and ordered him to lie back down before he completely humiliated himself. Reluctantly, the rest of him conceded that that was probably the best course of action at the moment, and he obeyed.
Only to find Cya staring at him, his brow furrowed and his expression unreadable. Greeeeeeeat. He'd done his best to divert disaster, and it had happened anyway.
Skids considered apologizing, but that would just give what he'd done even more significance. Plus, he didn't think he could force anything sound out of his dry throat right now. Instead, he settled for staring straight back at Cy and concentrating hard on sending his thoughts through telepathy. Hey, anything was possible, and it was a lot less embarrassing than saying the words out loud. 'I'm sorry, really, Cya. I just got carried away. It won't happen again, I promise. I don't want to kiss you anymore. No! No!'
The dark eyes narrowed a tiny bit.
'Well, okay, yes, I do. But I won't! I promise! Only don't be mad at me, okay?'
Cy opened his mouth and took a deep breath, and the sound was like an explosion in the silence. It awakened something deep within Skids, something wild and panicky that made him want to jump up and run from the room, revealing hospital gown and all. Fear twisted in his gut, fear of the searching, intense look on his friend's face, fear that made him want to scream as loud as he could just to keep himself from hearing what Cy was about to say.
Oh God. He didn't want to be hurt any more.
"Skids--"
"I missed you lots, Cya," Skids found himself murmuring, and he knew he had interrupted, but somehow it was too urgent to wait. Somehow it had to be said before Cy finished his sentence, or it might never be said at all. And it was far too important to be kept quiet.
There was a tiny, tense pause during which they stared at each other silently and Skids felt his heartbeats slow until he could count each of them individually, feel each one reverberating throughout his body, and the panic in his stomach rose insidiously to claw at his throat.
Then Cyanide's expression suddenly softened into a smile, making everything friendly, familiar, and Skids didn't know whether to be disappointed or relieved.
"I missed you too, amigo. In fact," Cy laughed slightly, "I got less sleep in my own bed than I did here. I was up all night worrying that you would die from being forced to consume whatever the hospital calls supper without me here to bring you fast food."
"Well," Skids replied thoughtfully, "it was pretty bad, but they gave me Jello for dessert. So I survived."
"Thank God for Jello." Cya hesitated, and Skids watched, mildly fascinated, as his brow furrowed. "But was it okay other than the food? You're not in more pain than you were yesterday?"
Skids paused for an instant, taking stock. Now that he had assumed control of his hormones (well, most of them, at any rate) and stopped lunging around wildly, the pain had subsided a bit, and, considering what he'd felt like less than a week ago, it wasn't too bad. His shoulder, which had been dislocated, was still a little sensitive, but nothing major, and the sprained right knee was also feeling better. The huge bruise on his thigh was starting to fade a bit at the edges too. Even added in with all his cuts and scrapes and a general soreness, he was still doing pretty good. "I feel better. The nurse told me last night that she thinks I'll be released any day now."
Cyanide's face darkened. "The little blonde? That nurse?" Then, when Skids nodded, he demanded, "What else did she say?"
"Um......not much," Skids replied, suddenly unsure. He'd thought Cya would be happy that they would both be going home to stay soon, but, judging from the scowl on his face, he was anything but. "She just told me to have a good night and said she'd try to bring me a doughnut from the bakery down the street this morning, because the breakfast here is disgusting."
"And did she?" Cyanide growled, turning to pace the room, his strides short and agitated.
"Well, yeah," Skids answered, confused. What was so wrong with the nurse bringing him a doughnut? He'd paid her for it, so it wasn't charity or pity or anything. She was just being friendly. "I thought it was very nice of her."
"Yes, her little plan seems to be working just dandy," Cya muttered under his breath, continuing to pace.
"What?" Okay, his friend was officially raving. Probably all the sleep he hadn't been getting. Maybe he could subtly push the call button and get someone to sedate the poor guy before he really hurt himself....
"Don't you see?" Cyanide burst out, whirling around suddenly in his pacing, startling Skids out of his sympathetic thoughts and causing his eyes to widen in alarm. "She's acting like she's all sunshine and light and considers it a privilege to bring you doughnuts, but in fact she only wants to get into your pants!"
"I don't have any pants," Skids pointed out dryly.
"Well, gown then. The principal's the same!"
Skids giggled. He knew he shouldn't, not when Cy was so upset, but he couldn't help it. The thought of the blonde nurse hitting on him by bringing him actual edible food was just ridiculous. "Yeah," he snorted, "next thing you know, she'll be bringing me roses from the gift shop!"
Cy, looking offended, had just opened his mouth to respond when the door swung and open and the nurse in question came bustling in: a short, petite little thing with long, wavy blonde hair and big blue eyes. In her arms she carried an arrangement of flowers.
Skids gulped as Cya's face went from aggrieved to enraged in the blink of an eye.
"Hello again," Blondie said cheerfully, and then, apparently not noticing his thunderous expression, "Oh, and hello, Mr.Torres. These were ordered for you, Gio, from someone named Tybalt, who included a message that he will stop by to see you later today."
Skids shot Cya an "I-told-you-so" look and heaved an inward sigh of relief. Not that the girl wasn't pretty or nice. She was both. In fact, she was basically a female Harley, at least in looks. But she just wasn't his type.
He wouldn't have thought so five days ago, or if he had, he wouldn't have admitted it. He had been firmly convinced that he was in love with Harley. He'd believed that right up until the moment he'd looked out the passenger side window of Tybalt's car and seen the other vehicle, a little Honda of some kind or another, approximately four feet away, and, as if they had been painted onto the windshield, the words, 'You love Cyanide Torres.'
Then had come the crash, which was currently a jumbled mix of shattering glass and screaming metal in Skids' mind, and the pain, faint and far away, and a voice that he hadn't been able to place at the time but had since recognized as Tybalt's frantically asking if he was all right.
'You love Cyanide, and now he'll never know,' Skids remembered thinking blankly. 'You'll never get to tell him, and you wasted the time you could have spent together because you were too damn stubborn to see the truth.'
"Call Cya," he'd managed to croak aloud, fighting off the darkness swimming at the edge of his consciousness. "Number's in my phone. Tell him......tell him......" And then, apparently, he'd blacked out.
The next thing he remembered was waking up in the hospital room. When he'd come to, he'd been greeted by many faces--Harley, who had been concerned and faking cheeriness, Tybalt, who'd been apologizing from the moment he'd opened his eyes, Mik, who'd been sympathetic and generously offered to take care of all his hospital bills and let Skids pay him back at his own pace, Rasheequa, who had been relieved and mildly remonstrating. But the one that really caught his attention was Cyanide, whose face had been so pale that he'd barely been recognizable. Their eyes had met across the room, and something had passed between them, something comforting and a promise edged with anticipation, though it wasn't clear who was reassuring whom.
Skids felt like he'd been given a second chance. Granted, he wasn't sure what he was going to do about it or how Cyanide would feel when he did decide, but he knew he wasn't going to throw the opportunity away again. No, as soon as they let him out of this hospital, he was going to--
"............Mr.DiAngelo?"
Well, he wasn't going to zone out again like he just had, that was for sure. Skids slowly became aware that both the nurse and Cyanide were staring at him, expressions of concern on their faces, and he felt himself blushing. He had no idea how long he'd been gazing dreamily into space, but it had probably been far too long to pass off as trying to decide where the flowers should go. Though it never hurt to try.
"Uh, I'd like them on the window sill, please," he stammered, and then noticed that the vase had already been placed there. Well. The mortification just didn't end, did it?
"I asked if you were about ready for lunch," the nurse said slowly, frowning at him. "Are you feeling all right?"
"Oh, yeah, I'm great," Skids chirped. "Just fine. Good enough to go home. But I'll stick around for lunch, I guess."
She eyed him warily for a moment longer, then shrugged and smiled. "Okay. It'll be here soon. Call me if you need anything!"
As soon as she was out the door, Cya turned to him with raised eyebrows. "What was that all about?"
Skids studiously avoided looking at his friend. "What was what all bout?" he muttered, picking invisible lint off his blanket.
"Well, you just completely zoned out. I'm assuming there's a reason."
"I was just planning stuff to do when I get home." Well, that was at least half truthful. Just because one of those things that he wanted to do happened to be Cy himself.........Skids felt himself blushing again, and hurried on, hoping his friend wouldn't notice. "There's a lot of things I miss. You know, like my shirts and the spiders.......hard to believe, but at this point I'm actually thinking of them as cute."
Cya's face brightened, and Skids mentally cheered. Good. He'd been successfully distracted. "That reminds me. I brought you something."
He rummaged around in a plastic bag lying on the only chair in the room and finally straightened, waving two brightly colored objects in the air. "Ta da!" Cy exclaimed. "A box of seventy-two brand new, top-of-the-line crayons, including their own sharpener, and your favorite coloring book, which, if I may say so, features the most outlandishly ridiculous pictures of the Disney princesses that I've ever seen. Look, you've made them all virtual clones of Buffy, even Ariel. How Skids, how?"
Horribly, Skids felt tears come to his eyes, and he blinked them back quickly. He couldn't let Cya see him cry, not when he'd just done something so wonderful. So he made sure his voice was steady (well, almost) when he said, "Thank you so much, Cy. It's the best thing anyone's ever done for me."
"Oh, I don't know about that," Cy drawled, still teasing him. "What about that nurse and her doughnuts?"
"Doughnuts have nothing on crayons," Skids answered solemnly, inwardly adding, 'Just like she has nothing on you.'
There was no question about it, he thought determinedly, carefully opening his coloring book to an unmarked page and selecting a color. Judging by the sappiness of his thoughts, it was definitely time to develop and put into action a plan to seduce Cyanide Torres.