Oxygen (Catfish And The Bottlemen/1975)

Benji

"At least she's awake, you're acting like its not a good thing jesus lid, smile," Larry grinned teasing me a little as he clapped me on the back and started messing with the window latch of our dressing room.

"I just wish she hadn't had to wake up on her own like," I shrugged guilt twisting in my stomach as I thought of her on her own with Fliss who was probably still just as stuck inside her own drug addled mind.

"She didn't wake up on her own, Fliss is with her," nodded Bob, but Van didn't smile like he usually would. He looked just as uncomfortable as me. I wondered if perhaps the same words were going through his head.

"Did she?" He mused with a dry sort of smirk, "cause last time I saw her Fliss wasn't acting much like Fliss,"

"They're both okay, have a little more faith in them lads," said Bondy picking up a bottle of water and tossing it in our vague direction, "you'll be wi them in an hour or two so quit mitherin would yous,"

I nodded slowly forcing a smile as I tried to force myself to believe Bondy's wise words. I knew that he was right but I couldn't help fret over them. When the rest of the lads saw the girls it was through eyes just as hazy and blurred by alcohol and hash, but when I saw them I saw a vulnerability I wasn't sure anyone else had noticed yet and it scared me to think that they hid it so well.

Take Fliss for example, the last time I'd seen her she'd been in a daze, a melancholy trance, trapped in a reality a little left of center from our own. I'd been certain the doctors would take her in and pump her system, wire her up to her own machine in her own bed, leaving Katie to wake up alone and yet somehow she had proven me wrong.

Somehow she'd been able to deceive every doctor she'd seen and if she'd been with Katie she'd have seen and spoken to a few. On the hour every hour.

No one had seen her and thought better of leaving her to it. No one had noticed the red around her eyes, the way she shivered and chewed her cheek vacantly, the way her hands clawed at her jeans or pulled at the hair band round her wrist.

It worried me to think that she could get away with that, because if Fliss could get away with it then so could Katie. I knew that if Katie saw an opportunity to escape the confines of her hospital bed she'd jump at it without a second thought for her health and wellbeing.

When we got to the hospital a nurse warned us not to crowd her, said she'd seemed a little disturbed when last she'd checked up on her. So me and Van went in first and when I saw her my heart skipped a beat, relief flooding my veins when I saw the two of them sleeping soundly again, chests rising and falling skin milky white not flushed or paper thin. Van grinned and took out his phone.

"'Ave got to get a picture of tha," he chuckled, "how cute is that?!" He laughed and I had to agree. They looked so peaceful that I almost didn't want to wake her, but I didn't have to. As if sensing his presence in the room Fliss began to stir, rolling over slightly and pushing herself up. She heard us before she saw us, a small smile creeping onto her lips at something Van had said.

"Bought yous a present," he flashed her a grin taking a bottle of lucosade from behind his back and tossing it to her. She winced as she caught it letting out a little squeak, flinching and swaying a little like she might be about to fall off the bed and, when she almost did the girl sleeping soundly beside her began to stir too.

When her eyes fluttered open and she screwed her face up I couldn't stop a grin from spreading across my own.

"Oh, hello," she smiled softly struggling to sit up straight.

"Hello," I chuckled smirking as I slipped into the space Fliss has previously occupied. Somehow her and Van had slipped away unnoticed in the moment it had taken him to jump to her aid and pull her into a hug.