Raphael /BoyxBoy/

||Twenty-Three||

The hospital room was a glow of bright white lights that took my eyes a while to accustom to. There he lay, with wires and tubes attached to his body. He looked so different from when I had seen him so many ages ago. It felt like ages ago. And the sense of guilt that came along with that revelation was akin to the sickening sensation that clung to these hospital tiles. His dark hair lay flat against his face, and a yellowing bruise was forming harshly against his pale neck.

I pulled out a chair near him and rested there in silence. I had already thought all my thoughts out on the plane, and now I sat with a blank mind, staring at the cold sheets that lay over his thin form.

A few times, a gentle nurse would wander in and send me hopeful smiles as she scribbled things out on her chart, or flicked her nail against a tube. I watched her come and go, until he finally drifted towards consciousness.

His eyes blinked tiredly up at the ceiling, before he shut them again. I saw the strain that sewed together his eyebrows before he could open his eyes again. And when he did, he turned his head to the side and blinked at me several times. Then he closed his eyes.

"I can ask them to turn the lights off," I offered.

Dan winced. "Do you have to wait until then?"

"No."

Now I could only see one side of his face, illuminated by the glow of machinery and the lights outside the window. It wasn't different from all the times he fell asleep in the bed across from mine, his arm slung over his head while the lights outside our dorm room cast similar shadows to tint his skin. Music that escaped his earphones, and made their way over to my bed, so even I had something to listen to while I contemplated and struggled to fall asleep. Or when his arms were around a girl, pulling her closely to him like he was making up for the moment the sun came up, and she would disappear with almost no trace to leave behind.

The same arm that was currently bandaged and resting weakly by his side. The same fingers that once curled around someone's hair, pressed against warm skin. Bruised, and cold.

"Are you okay?" was a question that tasted sour in my mouth. I didn't dare voice it out loud, and remained silent while his eyes remained shut.

He finally blinked them open again and turned to me properly.

"I heard you moved out." His voice was thin and used up.

"I made a good friend."

He nodded. "Were you out of town?"

"You could say that." I smiled.

"They said you were coming on a plane."

For the thousand's time, I felt like I should have never left.

"Yeah. Took a few hours."

"I'm sorry for dragging you here. I tried to stop them."

"It's okay." And his shoulders visibly relaxed.

We sat in silence for a while, and his eyes slid shut again. I thought he wandered back to sleep when he said, "I want to tell you what happened."

"They told me it was an uneven fight."

I didn't mention that they also told me about his staggering form, dragging his legs to the counter and demanding assistance. Didn't mention that they found an unnatural amount of varied substances in his blood stream, that if it were anyone else, Dan wouldn't be capable of breathing, let alone speaking. Or that they found bruises in unexplainable places, and scratches, and blood, and a fragile organ or two. That if he ever had another sip of alcohol, or even another whiff of cigarette smoke, he would have to be rushed to the ER. That when the doctor first greeted me upon my arrival, that look on his tired face, I thought I'd been too late. And had no clue as to what I would do if he really had slipped through my fingers. And I couldn't remember the last words he spoke to me, or I uttered in his presence. Couldn't remember who he kissed last, who to call.

I didn't ask why they rushed me back so quickly, why they demanded me in particular. Not someone else. I wanted to ask why he told them my name, when he could have mentioned anybody else. I wanted to ask why I had to sign the papers, why I had to stare at his bruised, beaten up face, and confirm that he was the same person who breathed in the same room I did, slept in the same room, changed his clothes in the same room.

"I mean before that."

I figured he meant his impromptu disappearance. "You don't have to. At least not for now, okay? just go back to sleep."

He nodded and did as I said.

Eventually, I had to find my way back to Scarlet, and she flung open her apartment door and welcomed me in as if I was never gone. With her, I was free to wallow in my guilt. I blamed myself for not looking hard enough, for not asking more people, for neglecting him in the favor of something so inconsequential.

"You can't blame yourself. These things happen, he did what he did and he still would have done it whether you were hooking up with Raphael or not." With that, Scarlet shoved a mug of coffee in my hand and called an end to the discussion.

On that note, she still found a way to bring up a conversational topic, and spent the rest of the night lying atop my bed with a mug of wine in her hands. She chattered on about her job, and then about college and how she missed it there, and how I should be more appreciative of it since working was "a fucking drag." Her legs stretched out beyond the edge of my bed, and she leaned on her elbows as she took another sip. Her long, springy curls fell thick past her shoulders on the rare occasion she left them untouched, and I watched in fascination as they bounced every time she tilted her head, or nodded to her own thoughts.

And when she realized I wasn't talking as much, she tucked her hair behind her ear and told me that she missed me.

"I wasn't gone for that long," I said, sitting with my back against the wall and my legs tangled in the sheets.

She rolled her eyes. "You're supposed to say you missed me too. What did you get up to?"

I told her about the time I spent in Tom's apartment, half-anxious at the idea of an unexpected visit, half-frustrated at the concerns of his shaky relationship. In return, she mentioned a few tips and tricks that I thought would have been more helpful if Tom was around. But he wasn't, so I quickly turned the subject back to being in the city itself, and how everything there was reminder of something here.

"Like what?" she absent-mindedly began braiding strands of her hair together, and now had a growing collection on the left side of her head. Twisting bodies of Medusa's snakes.

"Like the buildings."

She shot me a flat look. "You mean like Raphael."

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Uh, yeah you do, you just don't want to admit it."

"No," I said. "Dan is in the hospital, school starts in a few days, the world is slowly but surely falling apart, and the least of my concerns is whether a guy has feelings for me or not. The same guy, might I add, who purposely sabotaged whatever it is that we had."

"He misses you, too."

I somehow managed to convince myself that her comment had no effect on me. Not at all.

"I don't care."

She groaned, elbows collapsing beneath her as she buried her face in the sheets. "You two need to fuck again. Everything was so much better when you two fucked. Even I felt better when you two were fucking."

"Yeah, I get it, thanks."

"But seriously. What's the worst that could happen if you just saw him again? Just say hi, or whatever."

"I'd rather the whatever."

"That doesn't make sense."

"It does."

In the end, Scarlet drank the rest of her mug, filled it up, drank it again, and then proceeded to crash on my bed. I was careful when I stood from my bed to turn the lights off, and when I stumbled my way back in the dark, her legs were drawn up to her stomach, and her head was resting perfectly against my pillow.

hey! i actually had things to do this week. le gasp. no but soz it's kinda short and kinda late

thanks for readin' xxx