Sinking
I actually wasn't sure at first if this qualified for Angsty April, but then I also realized that my sense of what constitutes angst for this month is highly skewed by all of you people.
This is a sort of companion story to Surfacing.
Prompt: Day Two: Heart in a Box
Warnings: Suicidal thoughts.
Only one person came to pick him up from the hospital. He could see him through the glass doors, lounging against the side of the car as though this was a mere daytrip. Sunglasses, ripped jeans, Vancouver Canucks t-shirt bright white and blue in the sunlight. He had his arms casually crossed over his chest, and as the doors slid open, he was not surprised to see Neil’s face split into a grin.
But the way his feet were planted, the way he stood over the form of his friend who was being pushed out in a wheelchair (protocol, they informed him), was reminiscent of a guard standing sentry. He was not only a driver. He was a military escort.
Neil’s grin died a bit, when he had to be helped into the car. His limbs felt like they had turned to water. The effort of standing left him shaky, and as Neil pulled away from the curb, he was still fumbling to insert the seatbelt into the buckle. He felt as though he had turned old and feeble in a matter of hours.
The radio was blasting a horrid pop song that pounded in time with his head. The sun sank its teeth into his eyes, and he leaned his head against his hand in an effort to shield them. Suddenly the radio clicked off. Neil reached up and snatched the sunglasses off his face, eyes still on the road. He held them out. “Here, man. Maybe if you got some sun on that pasty complexion of yours more often, you wouldn’t be such a vampire.”
“Thanks.” His voice sounded ragged to his own ears. He gratefully slipped the sunglasses on and closed his eyes against the remaining glare.
“I’m not going to give you a hard time about this, because I didn’t exactly go out of my way to stop you. None of us thought it would get this far. But you also went about this in the absolute shittiest way possible, and that’s not you. You don’t do that.”
Kain opened his eyes slightly to see his driver glaring at the road, his movements as he turned the steering wheel sharp and aggressive. “You damn well know better than to do something like that without telling somebody. We already learned the hard way that you need somebody there to check up on you, to pull you back when you’ve been gone too long. And you--” Neil cast him a sidelong glare, “you did it when we weren’t even home.”
No, he had not told anyone. He had not told anyone before that that he had not slept in days, that every time his eyes closed for a few moments the nightmares screamed again. He had always been able to shake it off eventually, that crushing, choking feeling, but he had not told anyone that this time he did not know if he could.
He remembered standing in the kitchen doorway, contemplating the alcohol they kept stashed in one of the cupboards, and how he never touched it when he felt this way. That was when the call came. Endymion’s summons, that tugging feeling in the back of his mind. He had studiously ignored it for the past month, ever since learning that Endymion would soon be with them and these visits would not longer be necessary.
But he had just woken from a dream of his prince’s mutilated body falling at his feet, and he wanted desperately to see him alive and breathing. Kain remembered hesitating between two dark temptations, both dangerous in their own ways.
“Tell me something,” the brunette growled, “did you even get anything useful out of that trip? Do you remember anything he said to you?”
Kain pushed his eyes shut again, every part of him aching. “No. Not a single thing.”
***
The doctors never did figure out why Kain had been found on the couch, unconscious and not breathing. He was a young, fit man with nothing physically wrong with him that they could detect. Apparently when they found him, his nose had been heavily bleeding. And though there were no clear signs of asphyxiation, that he had choked on his own blood while asleep seemed to be the most legitimate--if unlikely--explanation.
Of course, Kain knew better. His body was shutting down because he was not in it. Because he had sent his soul elsewhere, to its former vessel. And while the piece of kunzite was hardly a superior home to his body, it had one clear advantage. It was close to his prince.
He had barely stepped through the front door when an angry Russian with hair like fire stormed up to him. The slap across his face was swift and sharp. It would sting for a long time.
Sasha’s green eyes were ablaze. “How dare you. Your life is not your own to throw away. He needs you alive, Kain.”
He stared numbly down at the blond. The words made sense, but somehow they fell short of reaching him.
Jaden’s hand was on Sasha’s arm. “Alright. That’s enough for now.”
The room was swimming. Now it was Neil’s hand on his arm. “Can’t sleep in front of the door, dude. Not unless you want me stepping on your fat ass.”
He was not entirely certain how he made it, with Neil’s guidance, through his bedroom door. He collapsed onto his bed and did not move again. Not for a very long time.
***
His visits to his prince had always passed as though in a dream. Now the dream had followed him back home. He had no conception of the passage of time. Sometimes voices drifted distantly overhead. Sometimes someone prodded him, muttered his name, and he would not or could not respond before spiraling away into darkness again. Sometimes he was shaken roughly and forced to sit up, a glass of water shoved into his hand.
Before, he did not sleep at all. Now it was all he could do. He felt like he had been hollowed out, left most of himself behind with his stone.
A voice hummed nearby, dragging him halfway out of himself. “...if he were here, he could fix this. He’d know how to make this better.”
“None of this would happen to begin with if he were here. It’s fucking ironic, is what it is.” A hand was around his wrist, fingers digging into his pulse. They were checking, always checking, that he was still with them.
***
He blinked in darkness, as a shape took form in front of him. Without the light to catch it, make it blaze in strawberry blond, Sasha’s hair, unbound, was the dark red of rust. It spilled over the thermal shirt that he wore, his flannel-covered knees drawn up to his chest. He was sitting on the bed, and in his dreamlike haze, Kain felt that it was like a spirit had materialized beside him.
“We need you to come back to us. We can’t do this without you.” Kain’s hand lay close to Sasha’s feet. He ran his fingers down his open palm. The heat of them seemed to burn through his skin. “He’s going to be with us soon. And he’s going to need you.”
Kain pulled his hand away. “Get out of my room.”
His voice was flat, final. It was an order. The blond stared at him in hurt surprise before scrambling from the bed, leaving him to his dark and silent room.
***
The days stretched on. His drums went unplayed. His bonsai grew dry and brittle, squatting outside their front door like a starved dog. He barely opened his mouth to speak, and when he did, it was to tell them to leave him be. Sasha did not return after the first time. Jaden eventually stopped coming. Only Neil persisted. When Kain told him to get out, the brunette responded with a “fuck you” and planted himself in the desk chair. He made a point of telling Kain exactly what he thought of him. Like a fly, buzzing and persistent, refusing to let him sink completely into sleep. A fly that swore at him, prodded at him with his foot, turned on the overhead light, and ate loudly beside him.
He did not know how many days passed before Neil came storming in and slammed Kain’s cellphone down on the nightstand. “Your father called. Four times. He wants to know if you’re okay. It was his birthday yesterday, did you know that?”
The brunette towered over him, his dark hair snaking wild tendrils around his face, and he may as well have been wearing battle armor over his Transformers t-shirt. “You know what, fuck this bullshit. I don’t care what attaching yourself to that stone did to you. I don’t care if it hurts you to fucking breathe every moment of the day now because of it. The Kain I know doesn’t fucking give up, and he sure as hell doesn’t throw away what his prince worked so hard to give him.”
Kain stared past him, unseeing. His face had long since stopped itching with white stubble, his hair was well past unkempt. “What if I only dreamed it?”
Neil paused in his tirade. “What are you talking about?”
“His coming here. The only reason any of you believe it is going to happen is because I told you so.” He focused on the dark warrior over him, though his eyes were now unaccustomed to being made to work and stung in protest. “But I don’t really remember it anymore. I don’t remember this time I visited him at all. And maybe I never did. Maybe I didn’t make it all the way to the stone, just hung in a kind of purgatory until you brought me back. So how do I know what was real? How do I know I didn’t dream that?”
The brunette gave him a long look, but he could see the doubt in his eyes. “Then you’re going to be in for a surprise when he shows up.”
This is a sort of companion story to Surfacing.
Prompt: Day Two: Heart in a Box
Warnings: Suicidal thoughts.
Only one person came to pick him up from the hospital. He could see him through the glass doors, lounging against the side of the car as though this was a mere daytrip. Sunglasses, ripped jeans, Vancouver Canucks t-shirt bright white and blue in the sunlight. He had his arms casually crossed over his chest, and as the doors slid open, he was not surprised to see Neil’s face split into a grin.
But the way his feet were planted, the way he stood over the form of his friend who was being pushed out in a wheelchair (protocol, they informed him), was reminiscent of a guard standing sentry. He was not only a driver. He was a military escort.
Neil’s grin died a bit, when he had to be helped into the car. His limbs felt like they had turned to water. The effort of standing left him shaky, and as Neil pulled away from the curb, he was still fumbling to insert the seatbelt into the buckle. He felt as though he had turned old and feeble in a matter of hours.
The radio was blasting a horrid pop song that pounded in time with his head. The sun sank its teeth into his eyes, and he leaned his head against his hand in an effort to shield them. Suddenly the radio clicked off. Neil reached up and snatched the sunglasses off his face, eyes still on the road. He held them out. “Here, man. Maybe if you got some sun on that pasty complexion of yours more often, you wouldn’t be such a vampire.”
“Thanks.” His voice sounded ragged to his own ears. He gratefully slipped the sunglasses on and closed his eyes against the remaining glare.
“I’m not going to give you a hard time about this, because I didn’t exactly go out of my way to stop you. None of us thought it would get this far. But you also went about this in the absolute shittiest way possible, and that’s not you. You don’t do that.”
Kain opened his eyes slightly to see his driver glaring at the road, his movements as he turned the steering wheel sharp and aggressive. “You damn well know better than to do something like that without telling somebody. We already learned the hard way that you need somebody there to check up on you, to pull you back when you’ve been gone too long. And you--” Neil cast him a sidelong glare, “you did it when we weren’t even home.”
No, he had not told anyone. He had not told anyone before that that he had not slept in days, that every time his eyes closed for a few moments the nightmares screamed again. He had always been able to shake it off eventually, that crushing, choking feeling, but he had not told anyone that this time he did not know if he could.
He remembered standing in the kitchen doorway, contemplating the alcohol they kept stashed in one of the cupboards, and how he never touched it when he felt this way. That was when the call came. Endymion’s summons, that tugging feeling in the back of his mind. He had studiously ignored it for the past month, ever since learning that Endymion would soon be with them and these visits would not longer be necessary.
But he had just woken from a dream of his prince’s mutilated body falling at his feet, and he wanted desperately to see him alive and breathing. Kain remembered hesitating between two dark temptations, both dangerous in their own ways.
“Tell me something,” the brunette growled, “did you even get anything useful out of that trip? Do you remember anything he said to you?”
Kain pushed his eyes shut again, every part of him aching. “No. Not a single thing.”
***
The doctors never did figure out why Kain had been found on the couch, unconscious and not breathing. He was a young, fit man with nothing physically wrong with him that they could detect. Apparently when they found him, his nose had been heavily bleeding. And though there were no clear signs of asphyxiation, that he had choked on his own blood while asleep seemed to be the most legitimate--if unlikely--explanation.
Of course, Kain knew better. His body was shutting down because he was not in it. Because he had sent his soul elsewhere, to its former vessel. And while the piece of kunzite was hardly a superior home to his body, it had one clear advantage. It was close to his prince.
He had barely stepped through the front door when an angry Russian with hair like fire stormed up to him. The slap across his face was swift and sharp. It would sting for a long time.
Sasha’s green eyes were ablaze. “How dare you. Your life is not your own to throw away. He needs you alive, Kain.”
He stared numbly down at the blond. The words made sense, but somehow they fell short of reaching him.
Jaden’s hand was on Sasha’s arm. “Alright. That’s enough for now.”
The room was swimming. Now it was Neil’s hand on his arm. “Can’t sleep in front of the door, dude. Not unless you want me stepping on your fat ass.”
He was not entirely certain how he made it, with Neil’s guidance, through his bedroom door. He collapsed onto his bed and did not move again. Not for a very long time.
***
His visits to his prince had always passed as though in a dream. Now the dream had followed him back home. He had no conception of the passage of time. Sometimes voices drifted distantly overhead. Sometimes someone prodded him, muttered his name, and he would not or could not respond before spiraling away into darkness again. Sometimes he was shaken roughly and forced to sit up, a glass of water shoved into his hand.
Before, he did not sleep at all. Now it was all he could do. He felt like he had been hollowed out, left most of himself behind with his stone.
A voice hummed nearby, dragging him halfway out of himself. “...if he were here, he could fix this. He’d know how to make this better.”
“None of this would happen to begin with if he were here. It’s fucking ironic, is what it is.” A hand was around his wrist, fingers digging into his pulse. They were checking, always checking, that he was still with them.
***
He blinked in darkness, as a shape took form in front of him. Without the light to catch it, make it blaze in strawberry blond, Sasha’s hair, unbound, was the dark red of rust. It spilled over the thermal shirt that he wore, his flannel-covered knees drawn up to his chest. He was sitting on the bed, and in his dreamlike haze, Kain felt that it was like a spirit had materialized beside him.
“We need you to come back to us. We can’t do this without you.” Kain’s hand lay close to Sasha’s feet. He ran his fingers down his open palm. The heat of them seemed to burn through his skin. “He’s going to be with us soon. And he’s going to need you.”
Kain pulled his hand away. “Get out of my room.”
His voice was flat, final. It was an order. The blond stared at him in hurt surprise before scrambling from the bed, leaving him to his dark and silent room.
***
The days stretched on. His drums went unplayed. His bonsai grew dry and brittle, squatting outside their front door like a starved dog. He barely opened his mouth to speak, and when he did, it was to tell them to leave him be. Sasha did not return after the first time. Jaden eventually stopped coming. Only Neil persisted. When Kain told him to get out, the brunette responded with a “fuck you” and planted himself in the desk chair. He made a point of telling Kain exactly what he thought of him. Like a fly, buzzing and persistent, refusing to let him sink completely into sleep. A fly that swore at him, prodded at him with his foot, turned on the overhead light, and ate loudly beside him.
He did not know how many days passed before Neil came storming in and slammed Kain’s cellphone down on the nightstand. “Your father called. Four times. He wants to know if you’re okay. It was his birthday yesterday, did you know that?”
The brunette towered over him, his dark hair snaking wild tendrils around his face, and he may as well have been wearing battle armor over his Transformers t-shirt. “You know what, fuck this bullshit. I don’t care what attaching yourself to that stone did to you. I don’t care if it hurts you to fucking breathe every moment of the day now because of it. The Kain I know doesn’t fucking give up, and he sure as hell doesn’t throw away what his prince worked so hard to give him.”
Kain stared past him, unseeing. His face had long since stopped itching with white stubble, his hair was well past unkempt. “What if I only dreamed it?”
Neil paused in his tirade. “What are you talking about?”
“His coming here. The only reason any of you believe it is going to happen is because I told you so.” He focused on the dark warrior over him, though his eyes were now unaccustomed to being made to work and stung in protest. “But I don’t really remember it anymore. I don’t remember this time I visited him at all. And maybe I never did. Maybe I didn’t make it all the way to the stone, just hung in a kind of purgatory until you brought me back. So how do I know what was real? How do I know I didn’t dream that?”
The brunette gave him a long look, but he could see the doubt in his eyes. “Then you’re going to be in for a surprise when he shows up.”