But the last thing I want is, To drag you down here with me

[makes_asteroids]

Who: makes_asteroids and anyone the ICU nurses will let in (until he's in step-down anyway)
When: 4/20-4/25
Where: Skye Medical ICU until 4/23 and step-down 4/23-4/25
Summary: After math of a suicide attempt - surely some people are going to want to yell/cry/slap/glare/demand answers
Warnings: Some talk of suicide, nothing graphic. Family drama.
OOC: ICU

Comments

4/23 - early morning

[tiny_schemer]

Czeslaw still didn't know where he stood. For the moment, right now, it was in front of a doorway. He held a small potted red poppy - the same as he'd brought Dr. Kenzo Tenma, not too long ago - a favorite of his.

He had probably shot up at least an inch since that visit to the hospital, though. He was awkward and antsy in what he felt like was a new body, and the cold stone of anxiety in the pit of his stomach wouldn't go away.

What was he doing out there? Was this really an accident?

Finally, he forced himself to take a few more steps through that door, checking to see if his 'uncle' was awake.

Re: 4/23 - early morning

[makes_asteroids]

Morning where when he was most alert. Not because he was a morning person but because he didn't sleep well. As such, he slept more in the mornings, when the shift change nurses read the notes that he hadn't slept the night before and threatened to sedate him to make him sleep.

That hadn't happened yet. And he was trying to get out of the ICU today. Which meant he needed to be more functional than not and convince the psychologist that what happened had been a result of the overwhelming telepathy. That wasn't going to be easy.

When he heard someone stop at the doorway, he looked over, using his fingertips to raise the bed to get a look.

"Benjamin?" Czeslaw was the only person he knew that size. Even if he couldn't make out his face.

[tiny_schemer]

"That's me," Czeslaw said, even though, technically, it wasn't. "Are you feeling any better, Uncle Michael? I brought you these flowers. They're corn poppies." A wildflower, one that grew in abundance on the fields of his homeland, red as the colors of the flag. Czes darted away a moment to set them down. "They need plenty of sunlight, you see, so you'll have to get better soon."

Czeslaw then returned to Erik's bedside, his voice dropping so others wouldn't accidentally hear the conversation. "How are you really?" he whispered. "What happened?"

[makes_asteroids]

"Sound have a window to put them in soon."

Carefully, Erik shifted over to the right side of the bed, leaving a small space and patted the mattress.

"I'm all right. I've had worse. Ran up against Darkness monsters I couldn't handle, that's all." That that was the PLAN was besides the point.

[tiny_schemer]

Czeslaw sat down. He briefly considered stretching out beside him, but that might be an odd thing for a nephew to do. Not that he knew much about what nephews should do.

"What were you doing out there by yourself in the first place?" Czeslaw asked, still hushed. "You don't know how to use your powers that well. You had to have known it would be very dangerous." Suspicion darkened his voice.

[makes_asteroids]

The only real experience Erik had with nephews was being one - and he would had laid his head on Uncle Erich's shoulder.

"I was talking to talk the Core into letting me leave for a bit. Nothing else." And really, that was all he was doing. Death not being permanent here.

[tiny_schemer]

"Talking to the Core... Erik." The realization hit Czeslaw like a sharp blow. It gave him a pain in his chest, and then, quite suddenly, his eyes began to burn and water. At that same moment, there was an itch in his nose and sinuses and his throat seized up. He was angry and shocked, yes, but there was something else, too. Fear, loneliness, sorrow. It was all too much, too many emotions flooding his small body, and he began to sob. He turned around, lightly beating at Erik's chest with his small fists.

"You idiot! You can't die, you can't, you can't!"

[makes_asteroids]

While it seemed, even to him, unfair - a close magnetic shield took the blows for him. Czeslaw certainly wouldn't have known it was there - just the span of atoms from his skin - but it prevented the blows from doing any damage. And with his injures, they would have. Instead he let Czes vent his feelings, carefully using his hand to rub his back. "I'm not going to die." It was soft but somewhat guilty.

[tiny_schemer]

"You don't know that!" Czeslaw's voice was horribly tinny and whiny in his own ears, squeaking upward in a shaky panic. "Everything's changing! I'm changing!" He struck a few more blows before burying his face in his arms against Erik's chest, trying to quell the sobs. He was shaking. The tears wouldn't stop flowing.

Czeslaw was often frightened for his own well-being as an immortal, obsessed with keeping himself safe from all those that would harm him or take advantage of his small size. Now those feelings came back tenfold - along with vivid memories, things that usually only lurked in his subconscious so many years after the fact - and he felt like an animal, jumpy, vulnerable, frightened. "I can't lose you!"

[makes_asteroids]

Erik shifted carefully, moving his arm to wrap around Czeslaw, holding him. The injuries he had left him without his normal strength but he was far stronger than he had been at the beginning of the week, with his powers returning. Turning his arm, he used the one unsplinted digit he had on that hand - his thumb - to rub circles in Czeslaw's small back. "I'm not going anywhere, all right?"

"And I know, it's scary. I've been through it. You'll going to be all right, I promise. Everything is going to be fine." He keep his voice even, and soothing.

[tiny_schemer]

"I'm sorry," Czeslaw said, muffled near Erik's collarbone. "I'm normally not like this." He hadn't realized just how different he felt with these slight changes to his body. There were moments the feelings of growth, the ability to tire and become hungry were very refreshing to him. But overall it felt like some kind of violation, these unexpected changes without his permission.

"You say you're not going anywhere but what if something like this happens again? Won't you just try the same thing again? Except next time..." Czeslaw sniffed, rubbing his eye with the heel of his hand, "Next time you might succeed."

[makes_asteroids]

"I know. It's all right, really. You saw me at the beginning of this." He continued gently rubbing Czeslaw's back,

"No, I don't think I will. This was...just...a lot of the wrong things at once." 'Overwhelmed' hadn't began to describe how this week had left Erik feeling. Anniversaries of Anya's murder and Magda's abandonment - and fifty years was a big marker, Charles' death, loosing his powers, the sudden telepathy, being trapped in some universe's super-person concentration camp...a great deal of everything at once that he just hadn't been able to cope with.

[tiny_schemer]

The hand on his back felt warm, comforting even. Czeslaw couldn't help but think of how long it had been since anyone was this close to him. The other immortals touched him now and then, squeezed his shoulders, patted him on the head. Aside from that, Erik was the only person who was ever allowed this close.

The only one who ever held him aside from Fermet.

Sometimes Czeslaw wished terribly that he could remember his mother.

Cautiously, Czeslaw rubbed his fingers across the thin material of Erik's hospital gown.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I couldn't... I couldn't do enough for you. I don't know how to be a good friend."

[makes_asteroids]

The sad fact of Erik's friendship with Czeslaw was this: If Czeslaw had had the body of an adult, Erik would never had been able to hold him like this. He had a larger sense of personal space than most, and children were able to get the closest, followed by women. Charles and Cortez had gotten close enough to be allowed access to his bed. Cortez had betrayed him horribly, and Charles...they were certainly in a circle of attachment, abandonment/betrayal, avoidance, reconciliation. And had Czeslaw had an adult body...Erik knew he wouldn't be able to hold him like this. Not right now. Perhaps not for years yet. But his child's body made it easier

[tiny_schemer]

Czeslaw was fortunately not the least bit aware of any sort of internal debate, it likely would've fueled more resentment to his body and situation than he already had. Such a cruel irony: now that his body had changed, even a little, he was unsure he ever wanted to be different. As long as he could still have moments like this, it might be alright, just listening to Erik's breathing and feeling a slight tingle of a thrill beneath his skin at this almost-forbidden intimacy.

"Sometimes, when it got to be... very bad with Fermet, I would wish I could die and escape it. I guess I can understand why you might've felt that way."

[makes_asteroids]

"The only time I will ever know peace is in death. It's why I'm not afraid. I just...wanted peace, for a little while, until the Core yanked me back."

Peace sadly meant sitting at his child's grave but even that...there was peace in that place, it having been sanctified by a father's tears.