Tick-Tock
The infernal ticking was driving him insane.
Click. Tick-Tick.
The soft whisper movements of the hands belied his thoughts. Why?! Why did it have to be him?
Click. Click. Chime? Tick.
Why couldn't it have been him? He was the one who wasn't supposed to make it past the thrice-damned war.
Whoosh-Whoosh. Swish. Tick.
He suddenly wished the chiming of the blasted clock was back. Whatever this new noise was, it was far more annoying. Couldn't it see that he didn't want to be bothered?
Tick. "He should be waking up any day now." Tick.
He tried to turn his head to the voice, anything would be better than the too loud ticking. He grew frustrated when he found he couldn't. What else was this war going to take from him?
"Professor. I wanted to say thank you."
Quiet breathing replaced the ticking, blocking out the sounds of what he now realized was a ventilator. Oh, no wonder he couldn't move his head.
"It feels weird to be talking to myself, but I think-I think you can hear me."
A soft laugh echoed around his ears. He would rather listen to that rather than the clock. The thought that he knew that laugh and that it had once annoyed him, bore no significance.
"I mean it certainly looks like you can hear me. What with your eyebrows furrowing. Even in sleep, you can't seem to get any peace."
He tried to scowl and gave that up when his muscles wouldn't cooperate. He could find peace, if not for the yammering and that bloody clock. As soon as he was out of this bed, that clock would tick its last tock.
"Please wake up. Yell at me if you must, but please just wake up."
He took it back, the choked off sobs were worse than the ticking. And even more annoying. He had to show his displeasure with the caterwauling somehow and he forced his eyes to open to slits.
"Please." Harry Potter sat in the uncomfortable looking chair beside his bed and if the ventilator hadn't been guiding his breaths, he surely would have stopped.
The boy was alive.
Questions slipped through his mind, sluggish and seeming to take more energy than he had. He didn't notice when the cries stopped, nor when hands scrabbled for his own.
"Professor! You're awake!" Potter smiled at him, snot-covered and red-eyed and Severus suddenly felt uneasy. Maybe it wasn't too late to go back to sleep.
Tick-Whoosh-Tock
Okay, so he couldn't go back to sleep. Maybe at least the boy would be helpful and get this contraption off of him. When he just collapsed onto him, holding him and getting his tears over his hospital gown, he glared over at Potter. He could hear the boy's breath hitch and could feel the tremors wracking through the small frame. Utterly useless.
He forced one shaking hand onto Potter's back, gently, not because he cared, but because he had no strength. He was a fool.
He was a fool and he found that he didn't mind. Potter's breathing evened out, and Severus noticed the dark bags under the wet eyes. He was also skinnier than he remembered and that was a cause for worry. He was already much too thin to begin with. Apparently, Potter hadn't been taking care of himself.
His own eyes fluttered shut, the weight on his chest oddly comforting. He could feel the edges of sleep trying to claim him and he didn't fight it this time. There will be time later for him to yell at Potter.
Tick-Tick.
And to destroy that horrible clock.
