Pouncival looked himself over in the rearview mirror. Even after all this time, he didn't want to have a hair out of place, when Tumblebrutus arrived. He had sent a very unceremonious "Here" text and was not waiting in the parking lot for his tomfriend to get off work. He was fresh off work himself and more than ready to get back to the apartment he shared with Tumblebrutus.
"OMW" was the reply he received, and Tumbebrutus emerged from the building, moments later. He hopped in the passenger's side of the nondescript, black sedan and wasted no time in leaning across the center console to kiss Pouncival. "Hey."
"Hey, how was work?" Pouncival asks, putting on his seatbelt.
Tumblebrutus scoffed. "Shitty."
"Oh, I'm sorry."
He shrugged. "Same shit as always. You ready to go?"
Pouncival flashed him a playful smile. "You ready to put on your seatbelt?"
"We live just down the street," Tumblebrutus reminded him.
Pouncival took his paws off the steering wheel and folded them in his lap. "I'm not going anywhere until you put on your seatbelt," he taunted.
Tumblebrutus rolled his eyes and reluctantly strapped himself in. "Okay, Mom."
"I do it, because I love you." Pouncival took Tumblebrutus' paw and gave it a kiss before placing both his paws at ten and two to maneuver them out of the parking lot. Once on the road, he took his tomfriend's paw back in his own.
Tumblebrutus turned on the radio and made a face out of the synthetic sound that filled the car. "Why is all music shit, these days?"
"I don't think it's so bad," Pouncival replied timidly.
The light turned green, Pouncival smoothly pressed the accelerator, and the car moved into the intersection.
"Yeah, well, I guess it- Oh, shit-"
Pouncival didn't know what hit them. The world went blurry, and he felt his seatbelt snap tightly against his chest and stomach, but the sound is what startled him first. It sounded like a meteor had fallen from space and onto the roof of the sedan.
Next, they were spinning. Spinning, spinning, and then?
Then, suddenly, everything was still.
The airbags did not deploy.
That's when the pain set in. Pouncival felt a dull burn spread throughout his body, punctuated by a sharp pain in his neck. His left paw was still at ten o'clock on the steering wheel, and his right was still clutching Tumblebrutus' now limp paw with all its might.
First, Pouncival looked down. He saw shards of glass in his lap. There were cuts on his arms. Sticky blood leaked from his wounds, but he could barely feel it. He felt cold. Cold and hot, at the same time. Cold and hot.
Next, Pouncival looked at Tumblebrutus. The pain in his neck was severe, and he winced. It took a moment for his eyes to refocus.
He barely registered the hoarse scream coming from his own mouth.
His tomfriend…oh, his poor tomfriend, slumped forward in his seat like a ragdoll. His head was smashed and oozing blood from where it had hit the window, and he was covered in cuts from the broken glass. Red bubbled from his nose and mouth with every breath he took.
Pouncival was sobbing, screaming between gasps of air. From pain, from fear, or from sadness, he couldn't say. In fact, he couldn't say anything. He simply did what his traumatized mind compelled him to do and attempted to get out of the car.
Pouncival ripped his seatbelt off and managed to open the car door. Unable to stand, he collapsed onto the pavement.
"Don't move!" he heard a voice cry. A tom and a queen ran up to the scene and knelt down beside him. "Don't move, sweetheart," the queen said, suppressing panic. "You could hurt yourself." She tried to ease him into a more reasonable position as the tom looked in the car. "Oh, Everlasting Cat," Pouncival could hear the tom say.
Tears kept falling from Pouncival's eyes, as reality began to set in, or perhaps slip further away. The queen tried to keep him calm, while she stabilized his head and neck.
The next thing he remembered, he was shifting uncomfortably, his groggy mind simply wishing that annoying sound would stop.
The memory slapped Pouncival in the face. He understood why nobody told him, but that didn't make him any less angry.
"Just tell me," he snapped.
"Tell you what?" Jellylorum asked timidly.
Her son glared daggers at her, and she relented. "He hasn't woken up, yet, Pouncie."
"Is he going to?"
Jellylorum gently caressed her son's face in an attempt to comfort him, as she told him, "We don't know, Pouncie. I'm so sorry."
The crushing stakes of the situation rolled over Pouncival like a wave. Fear gripped his chest, and all the air he could take in didn't feel like enough. Tumblebrutus, his beautiful tomfriend, was lying on death's door…
Because some cat decided to drink and drive?
Or because Pouncival didn't get through that intersection fast enough?
"I want to see him," Pouncival hissed, as a nurse, a young tom called Reagan, walked in to check on him.
All the nurses and doctors knew of the situation. Reagan sighed heavily. "I'll have to ask Dr. Mal, but I think you're well enough for us to put you in a wheelchair."
Jellylorum wheeled Pouncival to Tumblebrutus' room. To be fair, Tumblebrutus looked a lot better than he did, the last time Pouncival saw him. That didn't stop Pouncival's heart from sinking, though. Tumblebrutus looked pathetic, like if somebody sneezed in his direction he would shatter like glass. His wounds, while no longer bleeding, were scabbed over, bruised, and lined with dark blue stitches. Both legs and his right arm were at least partially covered with casts, and bandages covered his head and nose.
Pouncival wanted to get out of that wheelchair and run to him, but he knew he couldn't. He wanted to wrap his arms around his tomfriend and never let go of him, but he knew he couldn't. More than anything, of course, he wanted Tumblebrutus to wake up, but he knew he couldn't.
"Hi. You must be Pouncival."
Pouncival had been so distracted by his tomfriend's state that he hadn't noticed the doctor.
Tumblebrutus' doctor was a lot younger than Malicowren, but he gave off an aura of calmness that made it clear he was just as trustworthy. He had a gray-brown tabby coat with a white chest and stomach and deep brown eyes. It took Pouncival by surprise, just how handsome his tomfriend's young doctor was.
Sometimes, being gay could be inconvenient, like that.
"Yes," Pouncival replied softly.
"I'm Dr. Felixtel," the doctor said, extending his paw for Pouncival to shake.
Pouncival dazedly obliged, more out of habit than any conscious thought.
He looked back and Tumbebrutus. He always imagined that coma patients would look peaceful. This was nothing like that. Tumblebrutus looked like his body was fighting a moment-to-moment battle to stay alive.
While his mother and Dr. Felixtel had a quiet conversation over his head, Pouncival took hold of the wheels on his wheelchair and rolled himself over to Tumblebrutus' bedside. Carefully, he took his tomfriend's left paw in his – the same paw he had gripped so tightly the moment his life was almost ripped away. The contact with his loved one was both comforting and killing Pouncival.
He lifted Tumbebrutus' paw to his face and kissed it. "Please, please stay alive, Tumbles."