Title: The Crow and the Pitcher
Author: freak-pudding
Disclaimer: Buffy: The Vampire Slayer and all associated articles are the sole property of Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy. No copyright infringement intended.
Summary: He was sick so sick why wouldn't someone pick up that stupid phone couldn't they hear it dammit? Post- Intervention
Author's Note: I've never actually written anything in a stream-of-consciousness style before, so this story is new territory. Any of you vaguely familiar with Johnny Got His Gun will appreciate certain parts of this. (What? It's midnight and I have a study guide I don't wanna do. Bite me.) This title is still tentative; I don't know how much I like it. Don't expect this to get updated regularly. And it'll probably get revised a zillion times.
Chapter 1
The first sensation he was aware of upon waking was a total and complete lack of pain in his right arm. In fact, he had the rather distinct suspicion that he couldn't feel his arm at all.
Consciousness was a slippery concept, and he grasped desperately at its tendrils but was unable to garner a solid hold. The world around him spun rapidly in its careless stationary stance. All at once he was floating and falling; the air around was suffocating and fresh, his body chill and tepid.
And he was sick. Boy, was he sick. His stomach rolled and groaned and churned inside his abdomen, and he felt too full or like he hadn't eaten in weeks. It was the kind of sick that kept strong men in bed for days, the kind he'd only read about, only tasted once at the hand of democratic Nazis.
He remembered when he was a little boy and had gotten a fever, and Mother had sent for Doctor Gull. He'd been up all night, screaming and shaking and retching, and Mother had tried everything, but nothing was working. She pulled the covers off, and he shivered from the cold; she added extra blankets and he sobbed from the heat; she gave him milk and camomile tea and even a sip of brandy but he only retched it back up. Poor Mother, at her wit's end, tears streaming down her face, and the maids constantly having to change his bedclothes.
"Good evening Mrs. Bennett."
"Good evening Dr. Gull I'm so sorry I didn't mean to make you come all the way out here at this late hour."
"Oh it's quite alright where is he?"
He felt like they were speaking to him through a haze of smoke, and Mother's hand on his forehead felt impossibly cool, like a bath of ice.
"Oh now see he's just got a bit of fever ma'am. Just a bit of fever why don't you give him an ice bath?"
"Well that sounds better Clara draw a nice bath won't you? Go and fetch some snow from outside have Mr. Foss get you a pail and you go and fetch my sweet William some ice."
"Yes ma'am I surely will."
And sweet, pretty Clara, with her delicate smile and shining green eyes had gone outside and gotten him a pail of snow and filled up the tub and he had cried and screamed when Mother pulled back the covers and Dr. Gull picked him up and undressed him and plunked him down into the ice bath. And he screamed and kicked and splashed, and little droplets landed on the hearthstone and went up in steam with a little fizzle.
"Be good now boy be good and quiet and you get plenty of rest all right?"
"Oh he will Dr. Gull thank you thank you you're a savior you truly are say hello to Elizabeth for me thank you William say thank you."
Wrapped in blankets, body numb and stiff, something had forced itself from between his lips, something vaguely resembling a statement of gratitude.
"Well I guess that will have to do thank you again."
"You're welcome good night Mrs. Bennett."
"Good night Dr. Gull thank you."
Clara had drawn the rocking chair up to the fire, and Mother sat with him in her lap, bundled in layers and layers of blankets. She sang and rocked and sang some more, and Clara moved through the house, extinguishing every candle but Mother's special kerosene lamp.
It sat on the table beside the rocking chair, and when he peeked from between the blankets, the soft red glow was all he could see. This lamp was special. Father had given it to Mother as a gift on the day they got betrothed, and it was the only thing of his left in the house. Mother trimmed the wick carefully every Sunday and Clara would take down the jar of kerosene and they'd fill it up and sometimes Mother would add little bits of red plaid or green flannel to make it pretty.
Once when he'd been very, very small and he'd knocked the jar down on accident and his father had been very, very angry. That was the first time he'd been whipped, and he remembered crying and his Mother taking him into her arms and kissing his head and rocking him in the chair beside the fire.
But on Sundays she would sit in the chair with her knitting and he would sit at her feet on the hearthstone with his blocks or his little tin soldiers made from old spoons. Like this they would sit until the sun set and Clara would come and light the special lamp and then Mr. Foss would come in with a load of fresh logs. He'd stamp his feet on the rug and ruffle the boy's hair and give Mother a sheepish nod. Then he'd take down the great big red-bound Bible from the top shelf of the book case and Mother would read the gospels. There were Mark Luke John and oh that was no good he couldn't remember who else. But she'd read them and then they'd sit in silence for a while, everyone thinking well isn't that nice Jesus was so good he went and he died so that Father could give Mother a pretty lamp and leave the family and Clara's sister could die and her parents could drop her at an orphanage and Mr. Foss's wife had seized up with consumption and so he could get sick and sick and sick. Sweet Moses wasn't it wonderful that God had looked down and said I love you I love you all so much that I'm gonna give you my only son so you can kill him and I'll get mad and you'll only be cured of one sin but you'll spend the rest of your lives making up for all the others and aren't you glad I made you sick and poor and mean and violent and dark and all those other things that make it all worth living aren't you glad I cared enough to let you die?
"Isn't that nice William isn't our God a good and generous God and shouldn't we pray for all those poor savages in the world who haven't got God yet and shouldn't we pray that they find him very soon?"
Boy oh boy was he sick.
