In the morning...
Typist: ...er...prose-style account of Ghost's morning in my apartment. Um. Yes.
He falls asleep curled up in the chair.
He has nightmares and he wakes up crying.
When he opens his eyes, the dream is still there, dark and terrible and advancing slowly. It fades away with only a step to go before it can swallow him whole and he wonders who would notice that he was missing if, one of these days, it doesn’t disappear. Steve would. Or he thinks he would. He hopes he would. Thoughts, memories, feelings - they’re all too fuzzy and mingling to be sure.
That’s when he notices he’s bleeding.
A thin line of red trickles down over is forehead and along the slope of his nose. He watches the drop fall and bloom into a spreading crimson flower on his T-shirt. There are more stains than just that.
His fingers, he realizes, are snarled into his hair so tightly that it should hurt. It doesn’t, though. His scalp has gone numb. That’s where the blood is coming from. When he untangles one hand, it’s painted slick. The back is clean aside from a few flecks but there’s only a small strip of dry skin on the palm, down near his wrist and, slowly but surely, that’s disappearing, too.
He carefully untangles the other hand as well, which doesn’t look any better than the first, then gets up and walks to the bathroom.
The water from the bathtub is hot and he watches as it runs red down the drain. He kneels there, washing his hands and his face first, then he cleans the fingerprints off of the faucet and starts the shower. Getting the stains out of his shirt will be hell but he doesn’t think about that as he pulls it carefully over his head. When he drops the rest of his clothes on the floor and steps in, the water stings his scalp so badly that he can feel the tears burning in the corners of his eyes.
He was sixteen the last time this had happened. He was sixteen and he had had a near-death experience that wasn’t his own. It was the first time anything had happened since Miz Deliverance had died. Steve had been there, though. Steve had taken care of him - forced him to eat, forced him to drink. In the morning, things had been all right.
Now? He curls up under the shower and just lets the water fall, watching the blood wash away until the stream flowing between his toes runs clear again. And he almost wishes that he could be selfish enough to worry for himself.
But even his selfishness is never his own.
He falls asleep curled up in the chair.
He has nightmares and he wakes up crying.
When he opens his eyes, the dream is still there, dark and terrible and advancing slowly. It fades away with only a step to go before it can swallow him whole and he wonders who would notice that he was missing if, one of these days, it doesn’t disappear. Steve would. Or he thinks he would. He hopes he would. Thoughts, memories, feelings - they’re all too fuzzy and mingling to be sure.
That’s when he notices he’s bleeding.
A thin line of red trickles down over is forehead and along the slope of his nose. He watches the drop fall and bloom into a spreading crimson flower on his T-shirt. There are more stains than just that.
His fingers, he realizes, are snarled into his hair so tightly that it should hurt. It doesn’t, though. His scalp has gone numb. That’s where the blood is coming from. When he untangles one hand, it’s painted slick. The back is clean aside from a few flecks but there’s only a small strip of dry skin on the palm, down near his wrist and, slowly but surely, that’s disappearing, too.
He carefully untangles the other hand as well, which doesn’t look any better than the first, then gets up and walks to the bathroom.
The water from the bathtub is hot and he watches as it runs red down the drain. He kneels there, washing his hands and his face first, then he cleans the fingerprints off of the faucet and starts the shower. Getting the stains out of his shirt will be hell but he doesn’t think about that as he pulls it carefully over his head. When he drops the rest of his clothes on the floor and steps in, the water stings his scalp so badly that he can feel the tears burning in the corners of his eyes.
He was sixteen the last time this had happened. He was sixteen and he had had a near-death experience that wasn’t his own. It was the first time anything had happened since Miz Deliverance had died. Steve had been there, though. Steve had taken care of him - forced him to eat, forced him to drink. In the morning, things had been all right.
Now? He curls up under the shower and just lets the water fall, watching the blood wash away until the stream flowing between his toes runs clear again. And he almost wishes that he could be selfish enough to worry for himself.
But even his selfishness is never his own.