call out my name [2gether]

CH 26

THE PRICE OF LOVE.

It had been three days already. Three fucking days. And nothing.

Tine had opened his eyes, stirring up quite the ruckus at the hospital ward when several nurses rushed through the long, white halls to respond to the call when Type had anxiously and incessantly pressed on the nurses' call button hanging on a cord at the head of Tine's hospital bed.

At the time Sarawat had pivoted around right down the hall, just on his way out when a nurse hurried past him, nudging his shoulder and making the young man stagger lightly, the green light of the exit sign swimming around in his confused line of vision. He saw how the nurse scurried inside of Tine's room and then how a couple of more people in white, fluttering rocks followed suit. Heart thumping loudly inside his ears, Sarawat backtracked as if in a daze, returning back to the intensive care unit and quietly standing back against the flat wall inside the room, like a looming angel of death in his all black ensemble, while the medical staff handled the emergency.

In that precarious moment Sarawat was nothing but a bundle of buzzing nerves, big eyes darting crazily around the tiny room, pink tongue darting out to swipe over his dry bottom lip. The young man was desperately trying to see past all the people hovering around Tine to fucking understand what was going on. He then almost stopped breathing when a gap between the flurry of sharp movements reveled Tine's wide open doe eyes, staring blankly into space.

Hah?

Sarawat's breath hitched audibly in his throat as he swiftly leaned away from the wall, hypnotized by the unexpected, but oh so desired view. Was Tine awake? How was that even possible?

Sarawat's fingers twitched anxiously, an unnamed force buzzing just below his skin as he craned his neck to see better. He should really try not to get ahead of himself, he thought bitterly while trying to hold himself back from surging forward. There was no such thing as a free meal in this world. And maybe Sarawat was quite right when it finally dawned on him that Tine had not blinked even once while the medical staff was fretting around him.

It looked very unnatural, if not creepy even, with Tine just lying there on the white bed motionlessly, pink mouth slightly ajar and eyes glassy, arms white and limp, stretched out on each side of him. Sarawat shuddered as the miserable image left a harsh imprint inside his mind. Tine was undoubtedly going be his undoing.

Sarawat curled his hands into fists to stop them from shaking as something finally broke inside of him. Any hope Sarawat might have harbored was now sluggishly bleeding out of him. He could not help thinking that Tine's accident was somehow unnatural, as if something had seriously gone wrong out there in the world and it was now trying to push them together to mend the festering wound. But it was too late, the gap was too big. Fuck. The slight sting of Sarawat's neat nails digging into the flesh of his palm felt at least somewhat grounding, keeping Sarawat from acting like a total emotional wreck. Unlike Type.

Tine's older brother had tears streaming down his cheeks, nose flushed pink. One of the nurses was both supporting him from limply collapsing at the foot of the bed and keeping Type back from throwing himself foolishly over his little brother while the head physician carefully checked Tine's vitals.

After looking at monitors and shining a light into Tine's unresponsive, glossy eyes, the doctor straightened up with a small sigh, pocketing his penlight. He turned around with a watery smile on his kind face, keeping both Type and Sarawat in clinical suspense.

"It's not unusual for comatose patients to open their eyes or even move their fingers," he carefully explained. "These occurrences are just non-purposeful reflexes going through their system and not a voluntary, responsive movement to external stimuli. I'm sorry but this doesn't change Mr. Aekaranwong's current state."