Blackbird
Blackbird.
3,181 words. Gen. Implied Cash/Singer, Ian/Marshall. PG.
Written for The Cab fic exchange.
The hours following the van incident.
The first thing he hears is the yelling.
The next is the sirens, heavy breathing, feet on gravel, tires. There are muffled voices over head; the sound of metal being pried, clawed apart and Marshall feels his toes curl, picks up his own breathing as the cold air hits him like a train, like a ten ton weight from a cartoon.
It’s all effort, tension, aches that Marshall can’t pinpoint, place, as the lights start flickering behind his eyelids, yellows and reds that splash against a vision that hasn’t begun. A show behind curtains that haven’t pulled open and Marshall has to lift heavy eyelids, clench frozen fingers.
It’s too dark, strained, and he can’t stop blinking, eyes can’t adjust, but suddenly there are hands in front of him, a torso, head, mouth that says, “You’re going to be alright, son, just take my hand. We’ll get you out of here.”
They’re halfway to the hospital before he realises the yelling was him.
&
Singer looks impossibly small like this, flat on his belly against a stretcher bed, underwear neon and hospital-issued paper gown tied loose around his shoulders. The rest of him hangs too open, his spine visible through thin skin, every muscle shift like a secret he can’t keep and when he shivers, it’s a whole body thing, desperate and Marshall can’t tell if it’s from the cold or from hysterics.
The doctor is putting stitches into the gash on the back of his leg, and Marshall should probably leave, would if he could stomach the thought of being on his own, of leaving Singer here, open and aching.
“My daughter,” the doctor says, and she bites her lip a little, doesn’t take her eyes off the back of Singer’s thigh. “She loves to play hospital with the baby dolls she got for Christmas. She bandages them up, and tells her nurse, Moo the teddy bear,” the real nurse laughs at that, loud and honest. “She tells Moo how the dolls got hurt. This afternoon, it was a bunch of boys in a car accident.”
The doctor sits back a little and grins widely over at the nurse beside her, a small, tired-looking woman, who stands holding a metal dish of dainty tools, finicky. The doctor huffs a short laugh, says, “My daughter the psychic.”
Marshall can’t bring himself to say anything, just watches the way Singer’s eyes clench shut, his fingers work against the side of the stretcher bed. The doctor drops the stitch scissors back into the dish, fiddles with the edge of one of her rubber gloves.
“The four am shifts are like peak hour,” she says. “All the interns want a go; want to see the drunks that fall off the balconies, the suicides, the rapes. You’ve got to indulge them a few nights before they’re begging for the sprained ankles and broken arms again.”
The doctor grabs an antiseptic wipe, rubs it over the back of the stitches she just put into Singer’s leg and reaches for a bandage. “As far as four am’s go, you boys aren’t so bad. Compared to the shit I normally get, it’s nice to have a happy ending,” she grins back at Marshall.
“You boys will be fine. Go find yourselves a decent hotel, something greasy from the nearest diner and go to sleep. It’s the best prescription I can offer.”
Singer laughs at that, low and breathy and almost fucking hysterical. The doctor looks back at him with a grin, says, “We need to find you some pants to leave in, huh?” and Marshall opens his mouth to say something, to say thanks or fuck or something, but the words catch in his throat, cling to his voice box and he doesn’t end up saying anything at all.
&
The thing is, if it was a film, a novel, play, painting, there would probably be some romance in the whole thing. As it is though, real and unrefined, concentrated in all the worst ways, it’s just a mess.
Just hurts.
It’s almost painfully cold, and the paramedic wraps another blanket around Marshall’s shoulders, bundles him up that much more and presses a clean antiseptic pad to the gaping cuts on his face. It stings like hell, and Marshall would flinch if he had the energy, say something if he thought he could.
“You’re doing okay,” the guy says, and he glances back at where the van is flipped on the ice, tires up, catching the snow in a way it isn’t designed to. It looks abstract, obscure, sick.
The fireman is almost neon against the snow, complimentary, contrasting, and he’s helping Cash out of the van, holding his arm tight as Cash shakes his way to stability, feet on the ground as he edges out. Marshall watches Cash shrug out of the fireman’s grip, sees him stagger forward a few steps before the fireman grips at his waist, hauls him up properly and walks him towards where a paramedic hurries over, blanket in hands like an offering, olive branch, like a salvation.
Marshall, he really, really wants to go to sleep.
“It’s going to be fine,” the paramedic says and he rubs a little at Marshall’s arms, tries to warm him up and fuck, it’s just so cold. Marshall can feel his eyelids getting heavier, warmth bleeding into his skull like a welcome, like a sanctuary from the ice, and all Marshall hears is the paramedic saying, “Alex?” right before he passes out again.
&
The ER is the sort of sterile they don’t let you see in Grey’s Anatomy or House, too much of it is dependent on the smell of bleach and the taste of bile that builds in the back of your throat, in your stomach, gall bladder, whatever. Marshall hears the machine beside him hum, Ian tap his fingers on the arm of the chair, the heater whir, the blips of the heart rate monitor from the patient a few beds over, the squeak of shoes on the linoleum.
He hears Singer choke on a sob.
“Fuck,” Singer mumbles, and he swipes at his eyes with trembling fingers, breathes shakily, audibly, and Ian moves that much closer, but he doesn’t touch him, fuck, doesn’t know how, not right now.
“Singer-- ”
“No. Fuck, don’t - my name’s Alex, fuck.”
Ian’s quick to placate, all easy fingers on the back of Singer’s - Alex’s - neck, down his arm.
“Right, Alex, sorry,” and Alex shuffles a little, bites his lip and tilts his head back to the ceiling. He’s blinking so fast, so much, and the way Alex wills the tears away is almost visible, tangible. Marshall can count on one hand the number of tears he actually let’s slip through his grip, down his cheek. Watches the way it leaves a trail on Alex’s bruised face, the way it gives him away.
Cash makes a noise in the back of his throat, low and uneven, rolls his eyes pointedly and rubs at his face with a couple of fingers. He’s sitting beside Marshall on the bed, not quite close enough to touch, and Marshall gets distracted by Cash’s feet dangling off the floor, inches above cold, white tiles. He misses the way Alex’s attention seems to snap towards Cash, like he hadn’t even realised he was there before.
“What the fuck was that for?” Alex says, voice hoarse and low, and Cash arches an eyebrow, sighs through his teeth and tilts his head.
“I didn’t even do anything, asshole.”
Alex flushes, fingers clenching against his knees and Ian says something in the background about calming down, about stress and hurting, but Cash doesn’t look at any of them, just stares at the wall above Alex’s head.
There’s a growls building in the back of Alex’s throat, enough that Ian tightens his fingers around the back of his neck, holds onto where Alex’s curls are sticking to sweat-slick skin. Marshall watches the way Alex’s feet turn into each other on the tiles, the way that Cash’s fingers clench, Ian’s pupils dart and fuck, all he hears are the cracks, all he feels are the flaws, the hurts, aches.
Alex, he just ends up deflating, shrugs Ian’s hand off and moves his own fingers to scratch at the fresh stitches on the back of his leg. Ian might be the one sitting closest, staring hard and earnest, but it’s Johnson who stops him, says, “Jesus Christ, Singer, you want them to have to redo them?” and he grips at Alex’s wrist, pulls his hand away until it’s stuck between them.
Alex just makes a desperate noise in the back of his throat, halfway between hysteria and anger, but when he sniffs, it’s almost desperate, needy, and he says “Cash,” low and soft beneath his breath and Cash, fuck, Cash just stands up, slides off the bed onto steady feet. He closes his eyes, rubs a hand over his head.
“Fuck this waiting around bullshit. I’m going to try and find a cigarette.”
Alex drops his head to his hands, sighs shakily when Johnson pulls him into an awkward hug. Alex has always been touch desperate, but he flinches as Johnson pulls him in tighter, tries to move away, but Johnson just says, “Don’t be a douche, let me fucking hug you,” and Alex leans into it more than he probably intends.
“We’ll be fine,” Johnson mumbles as Cash shuffles out awkwardly into the hall, and Alex, he starts to cry.
&
In the ambulance, it’s out of body, out of mind. Marshall, fuck, Marshall doesn’t even feel like he’s there, doesn’t feel like this is happening to him, them, and he watches with glazed, half-lidded eyes as the paramedics cut Singer’s jeans off, careful not to disrupt the gash.
It’s ridiculously hot inside, more people than should really be able to fit and it’s Ian, Johnson and Drew in the other ambulance, Marshall, Cash and Singer in this one. The ground is fast under the tires, smooth, and Marshall sighs, hums along with it, and rests his head back against the side of the ambulance, breathes hard until his chest aches and his fingers itch against his thighs. His face, chin, it aches.
Singer’s trying to roll over, but the paramedic has a gloved hand on the small of his back, says, “No, I need you to stay, Alex. There’s glass in the wound, we just, we need you to sit still.”
Alex makes a low noise, desperate and weak and he looks up to where Cash sits; eyes half-lidded as he watches Alex’s bare thighs tremble, his bright red underwear stark against the damp white sheets beneath him.
“Cash, come on,” Alex mumbles, and he reaches out a hand, all skinny, shaking fingers, tries to grab Cash’s, but Cash just flinches like he’s been burnt, eyes darting away from Singer’s broken frame. Cash, he moves backwards a little bit on the ambulance bench, and Singer shoots him a pained look.
Marshall, he’d hold Singer’s hand, he would. This doesn’t change the fact that none of them move for the rest of the journey.
&
Leaving the hospital isn’t all that different from leaving the crash site. Not really. Marshall doesn’t even know, but even with his chin plastered up and the pain killers numbing the back of his skull, he doesn’t feel all that much better.
The road is painfully smooth beneath the wheels of the taxi, and Marshall presses his forehead against the glass window, breathes against the bitter cold and watches streetlamps light up icy sidewalks, frostbitten roads. Marshall blinks hard, painful, bites his lip and has to stifle his breath, can feel his chest constrict, his stomach drop through his toes and he trembles a little in the dark. The screech of tires fills his ears, Singer’s cry, Ian’s breathless yells, Johnson’s heavy breathing and fuck, Marshall, he clenches his eyes shut.
It takes him a minute to steady his own breathing, to let himself leave that moment enough to feel somebody else’s fingers entwining with his, fisting his hand tight, and Marshall jerks backwards from the window, turns enough to see Ian staring at him. His eyes are dull, tired and it doesn’t suit him, doesn’t sit well enough to be of as enough of a comfort as Marshall needs right now.
Ian sighs after a second, glances down at his knees and squeezes Marshall’s fingers tight between his. Marshall bites the inside of his cheek, looks passed Ian to where Singer draws patterns with his fingers in the condensation on the window. Every so often, Singer, he’ll shoot wide-eyed looks at the back of Cash’s head in a way that eats Marshall’s heart.
He tries that much harder to lose himself in Johnson’s soft snores, in Ian as he holds Marshall’s hand that much tighter.
&
The hotel room isn’t great, isn’t flashy or expensive, but it has cable and room service and fuck, it has beds, which is about as much as any of them need right now.
Marshall collapses into one too easily, sprawls across the double. His face aches, bones, muscle, everything, it all hurts in ways he can’t fix, can’t pull a Wolverine and heal all on his own. It takes Ian maybe twenty seconds to fall on top of him, face against Marshall’s neck, breath hot and moist against his collarbone. Marshall glances down at him, eyebrow raised and Ian doesn’t even look up, look back.
Marshall wishes he could be surprised when the smell of tobacco fills the room, can’t really help himself when he flattens Ian’s hair beneath his hand to see Johnson and Cash both taking long drags, Johnson on the floor, Cash slumped against the wall. They look like they’re both ready to smoke their way to lung cancer, and Marshall’s never been a fan of second-hand smoke, but he doesn’t have the energy to stop it, not right now. Ian clings a little tighter.
“Fuck, stop,” Singer growls, and Cash glances up and over, rolls his eyes and pointedly takes a drag, blows the smoke in Singer’s direction. Singer flusters again, grabs the generic hotel Bible off the coffee table and pegs it across the room at him. He misses by a mile, and the book hits the wall with a more than satisfying thud, drops to the floor with its pages splayed open.
They’re all quiet for a second, until Cash is turning on Singer, fingers clenching around the body of the cigarette as he says, “Good one, Singer, let’s make the higher forces hate this band a little bit more.”
Singer shoots him a dirty look, flips him off as he says, “Then don’t fucking smoke near me, asshole, I hate it so fucking much.”
Cash growls, but Johnson just sighs, stands up and pulls the cigarette out of Cash’s fingers. He takes one last drag of his own before he stumps them both out in the hotel ashtray. Cash shoves at Johnson, but starts yelling at Singer.
Ian’s watching them, interested in that same way people usually prefer to see things fall apart rather than hold themselves together, watches them like a bystander would watch a car accident, and that analogy probably hurts a little more than it should. Ian ends up clenching his fingers around the tiny bit of Marshall’s waist exposed by his t-shirt, and Marshall shivers at the touch. Needs it so badly, to be held right now.
“You okay?” Ian murmurs, and Marshall flashes a wide, paint-by-numbers grin.
“Great, dude, never better,” and Ian rolls his eyes, says, “You didn’t have to be sarcastic.”
Marshall just sighs, watches the way Ian, sprawled on Marshall’s chest, falls with his exhale.
“As good as I can be, I guess,” Marshall says instead, and Ian hums in agreement, holds Marshall that much tighter, says, “Me too.”
He thinks he could almost smile for that, for Ian, only the room is suddenly dead silent, yelling ceased, Cash and Singer both staring at each other, ripped open and hurt, and it’s Cash who growls first, primal and raw. He turns and staggers back to the sofa bed, drops into it and rolls until his back is to the rest of them, curled too far into himself, and Singer watches, strained and hurt, and when Johnson says, “Singer…” he just turns himself over in the single bed, faces the wall and shakes beneath the sheets.
Johnson shoots Marshall and Ian a look that Marshall, fuck, Marshall can’t even place, before he heads to the fold-out couch and crawls into bed with Cash.
&
Marshall jerks awake almost painfully, claws his way out of an image of shattering glass, of cries and cold and aches that throb even in sleep. He scrambles out of the what-ifs, ends up panting against the pillow, fingers clenched in the fabric and it takes him a moment to come back to himself, to get back to earth, to the hotel suite, to the bed.
He pauses, breath tense, body stagnant against the mattress.
The floorboards creak, and Marshall glances over the edge of the bed. Cash is easing off the fold-down couch, feet against the floor and he shakes a little when he stands, barely visible, but enough to be apparent.
Cash looks up enough to see Marshall’s open eyes, and fuck, Cash looks exhausted, drained, uncertain, and Marshall isn’t sure what to do or say to make that look disappear. He tries for a half smile, and Cash shrugs back, tilts his head as he stands, moves slowly, quietly across the room until he’s by the single bed where Singer’s curled into himself, tight and small and it takes Cash a few minutes of shuffling on the spot before he can bring himself to slide beneath the sheets beside him. He wraps an arm around Singer’s tiny waist and pulls him back against him. Singer’s soft, quiet sniffles don’t waver, he doesn’t wake from his sleep, but he turns into Cash like it is something natural, necessary.
Marshall can’t make himself stop looking, not as Cash mumbles something unintelligible against the shell of Singer’s ear.
“I was worried for a minute there.” Ian’s voice is low and steady, the words breaking against Marshall’s collar bone and Marshall doesn’t even start as he hears it, as it echoes through his head.
“Yeah?”
“They’re funny,” Ian shrugs. “I don’t get their relationship, fuck, I don’t even know if that’s the right word.”
“Probably is,” Marshall mumbles, and he watches the way Cash shifts against Singer beneath the sheets, anything to make them closer. “They’ll be fine.”
Ian pauses for a second, shifts so that he and Marshall press together that much closer, that their chests bump and Marshall glances down to Ian’s earnest face, can’t even help the way his own breathing picks up.
“We’ll be fine,” Ian says. “All of us.”
Marshall blinks, bites his lip, but he nods suddenly, because yeah, yeah, okay, “We’re going to be fine,” Marshall mumbles, and Ian, he just smiles.
3,181 words. Gen. Implied Cash/Singer, Ian/Marshall. PG.
Written for The Cab fic exchange.
The hours following the van incident.
The first thing he hears is the yelling.
The next is the sirens, heavy breathing, feet on gravel, tires. There are muffled voices over head; the sound of metal being pried, clawed apart and Marshall feels his toes curl, picks up his own breathing as the cold air hits him like a train, like a ten ton weight from a cartoon.
It’s all effort, tension, aches that Marshall can’t pinpoint, place, as the lights start flickering behind his eyelids, yellows and reds that splash against a vision that hasn’t begun. A show behind curtains that haven’t pulled open and Marshall has to lift heavy eyelids, clench frozen fingers.
It’s too dark, strained, and he can’t stop blinking, eyes can’t adjust, but suddenly there are hands in front of him, a torso, head, mouth that says, “You’re going to be alright, son, just take my hand. We’ll get you out of here.”
They’re halfway to the hospital before he realises the yelling was him.
&
Singer looks impossibly small like this, flat on his belly against a stretcher bed, underwear neon and hospital-issued paper gown tied loose around his shoulders. The rest of him hangs too open, his spine visible through thin skin, every muscle shift like a secret he can’t keep and when he shivers, it’s a whole body thing, desperate and Marshall can’t tell if it’s from the cold or from hysterics.
The doctor is putting stitches into the gash on the back of his leg, and Marshall should probably leave, would if he could stomach the thought of being on his own, of leaving Singer here, open and aching.
“My daughter,” the doctor says, and she bites her lip a little, doesn’t take her eyes off the back of Singer’s thigh. “She loves to play hospital with the baby dolls she got for Christmas. She bandages them up, and tells her nurse, Moo the teddy bear,” the real nurse laughs at that, loud and honest. “She tells Moo how the dolls got hurt. This afternoon, it was a bunch of boys in a car accident.”
The doctor sits back a little and grins widely over at the nurse beside her, a small, tired-looking woman, who stands holding a metal dish of dainty tools, finicky. The doctor huffs a short laugh, says, “My daughter the psychic.”
Marshall can’t bring himself to say anything, just watches the way Singer’s eyes clench shut, his fingers work against the side of the stretcher bed. The doctor drops the stitch scissors back into the dish, fiddles with the edge of one of her rubber gloves.
“The four am shifts are like peak hour,” she says. “All the interns want a go; want to see the drunks that fall off the balconies, the suicides, the rapes. You’ve got to indulge them a few nights before they’re begging for the sprained ankles and broken arms again.”
The doctor grabs an antiseptic wipe, rubs it over the back of the stitches she just put into Singer’s leg and reaches for a bandage. “As far as four am’s go, you boys aren’t so bad. Compared to the shit I normally get, it’s nice to have a happy ending,” she grins back at Marshall.
“You boys will be fine. Go find yourselves a decent hotel, something greasy from the nearest diner and go to sleep. It’s the best prescription I can offer.”
Singer laughs at that, low and breathy and almost fucking hysterical. The doctor looks back at him with a grin, says, “We need to find you some pants to leave in, huh?” and Marshall opens his mouth to say something, to say thanks or fuck or something, but the words catch in his throat, cling to his voice box and he doesn’t end up saying anything at all.
&
The thing is, if it was a film, a novel, play, painting, there would probably be some romance in the whole thing. As it is though, real and unrefined, concentrated in all the worst ways, it’s just a mess.
Just hurts.
It’s almost painfully cold, and the paramedic wraps another blanket around Marshall’s shoulders, bundles him up that much more and presses a clean antiseptic pad to the gaping cuts on his face. It stings like hell, and Marshall would flinch if he had the energy, say something if he thought he could.
“You’re doing okay,” the guy says, and he glances back at where the van is flipped on the ice, tires up, catching the snow in a way it isn’t designed to. It looks abstract, obscure, sick.
The fireman is almost neon against the snow, complimentary, contrasting, and he’s helping Cash out of the van, holding his arm tight as Cash shakes his way to stability, feet on the ground as he edges out. Marshall watches Cash shrug out of the fireman’s grip, sees him stagger forward a few steps before the fireman grips at his waist, hauls him up properly and walks him towards where a paramedic hurries over, blanket in hands like an offering, olive branch, like a salvation.
Marshall, he really, really wants to go to sleep.
“It’s going to be fine,” the paramedic says and he rubs a little at Marshall’s arms, tries to warm him up and fuck, it’s just so cold. Marshall can feel his eyelids getting heavier, warmth bleeding into his skull like a welcome, like a sanctuary from the ice, and all Marshall hears is the paramedic saying, “Alex?” right before he passes out again.
&
The ER is the sort of sterile they don’t let you see in Grey’s Anatomy or House, too much of it is dependent on the smell of bleach and the taste of bile that builds in the back of your throat, in your stomach, gall bladder, whatever. Marshall hears the machine beside him hum, Ian tap his fingers on the arm of the chair, the heater whir, the blips of the heart rate monitor from the patient a few beds over, the squeak of shoes on the linoleum.
He hears Singer choke on a sob.
“Fuck,” Singer mumbles, and he swipes at his eyes with trembling fingers, breathes shakily, audibly, and Ian moves that much closer, but he doesn’t touch him, fuck, doesn’t know how, not right now.
“Singer-- ”
“No. Fuck, don’t - my name’s Alex, fuck.”
Ian’s quick to placate, all easy fingers on the back of Singer’s - Alex’s - neck, down his arm.
“Right, Alex, sorry,” and Alex shuffles a little, bites his lip and tilts his head back to the ceiling. He’s blinking so fast, so much, and the way Alex wills the tears away is almost visible, tangible. Marshall can count on one hand the number of tears he actually let’s slip through his grip, down his cheek. Watches the way it leaves a trail on Alex’s bruised face, the way it gives him away.
Cash makes a noise in the back of his throat, low and uneven, rolls his eyes pointedly and rubs at his face with a couple of fingers. He’s sitting beside Marshall on the bed, not quite close enough to touch, and Marshall gets distracted by Cash’s feet dangling off the floor, inches above cold, white tiles. He misses the way Alex’s attention seems to snap towards Cash, like he hadn’t even realised he was there before.
“What the fuck was that for?” Alex says, voice hoarse and low, and Cash arches an eyebrow, sighs through his teeth and tilts his head.
“I didn’t even do anything, asshole.”
Alex flushes, fingers clenching against his knees and Ian says something in the background about calming down, about stress and hurting, but Cash doesn’t look at any of them, just stares at the wall above Alex’s head.
There’s a growls building in the back of Alex’s throat, enough that Ian tightens his fingers around the back of his neck, holds onto where Alex’s curls are sticking to sweat-slick skin. Marshall watches the way Alex’s feet turn into each other on the tiles, the way that Cash’s fingers clench, Ian’s pupils dart and fuck, all he hears are the cracks, all he feels are the flaws, the hurts, aches.
Alex, he just ends up deflating, shrugs Ian’s hand off and moves his own fingers to scratch at the fresh stitches on the back of his leg. Ian might be the one sitting closest, staring hard and earnest, but it’s Johnson who stops him, says, “Jesus Christ, Singer, you want them to have to redo them?” and he grips at Alex’s wrist, pulls his hand away until it’s stuck between them.
Alex just makes a desperate noise in the back of his throat, halfway between hysteria and anger, but when he sniffs, it’s almost desperate, needy, and he says “Cash,” low and soft beneath his breath and Cash, fuck, Cash just stands up, slides off the bed onto steady feet. He closes his eyes, rubs a hand over his head.
“Fuck this waiting around bullshit. I’m going to try and find a cigarette.”
Alex drops his head to his hands, sighs shakily when Johnson pulls him into an awkward hug. Alex has always been touch desperate, but he flinches as Johnson pulls him in tighter, tries to move away, but Johnson just says, “Don’t be a douche, let me fucking hug you,” and Alex leans into it more than he probably intends.
“We’ll be fine,” Johnson mumbles as Cash shuffles out awkwardly into the hall, and Alex, he starts to cry.
&
In the ambulance, it’s out of body, out of mind. Marshall, fuck, Marshall doesn’t even feel like he’s there, doesn’t feel like this is happening to him, them, and he watches with glazed, half-lidded eyes as the paramedics cut Singer’s jeans off, careful not to disrupt the gash.
It’s ridiculously hot inside, more people than should really be able to fit and it’s Ian, Johnson and Drew in the other ambulance, Marshall, Cash and Singer in this one. The ground is fast under the tires, smooth, and Marshall sighs, hums along with it, and rests his head back against the side of the ambulance, breathes hard until his chest aches and his fingers itch against his thighs. His face, chin, it aches.
Singer’s trying to roll over, but the paramedic has a gloved hand on the small of his back, says, “No, I need you to stay, Alex. There’s glass in the wound, we just, we need you to sit still.”
Alex makes a low noise, desperate and weak and he looks up to where Cash sits; eyes half-lidded as he watches Alex’s bare thighs tremble, his bright red underwear stark against the damp white sheets beneath him.
“Cash, come on,” Alex mumbles, and he reaches out a hand, all skinny, shaking fingers, tries to grab Cash’s, but Cash just flinches like he’s been burnt, eyes darting away from Singer’s broken frame. Cash, he moves backwards a little bit on the ambulance bench, and Singer shoots him a pained look.
Marshall, he’d hold Singer’s hand, he would. This doesn’t change the fact that none of them move for the rest of the journey.
&
Leaving the hospital isn’t all that different from leaving the crash site. Not really. Marshall doesn’t even know, but even with his chin plastered up and the pain killers numbing the back of his skull, he doesn’t feel all that much better.
The road is painfully smooth beneath the wheels of the taxi, and Marshall presses his forehead against the glass window, breathes against the bitter cold and watches streetlamps light up icy sidewalks, frostbitten roads. Marshall blinks hard, painful, bites his lip and has to stifle his breath, can feel his chest constrict, his stomach drop through his toes and he trembles a little in the dark. The screech of tires fills his ears, Singer’s cry, Ian’s breathless yells, Johnson’s heavy breathing and fuck, Marshall, he clenches his eyes shut.
It takes him a minute to steady his own breathing, to let himself leave that moment enough to feel somebody else’s fingers entwining with his, fisting his hand tight, and Marshall jerks backwards from the window, turns enough to see Ian staring at him. His eyes are dull, tired and it doesn’t suit him, doesn’t sit well enough to be of as enough of a comfort as Marshall needs right now.
Ian sighs after a second, glances down at his knees and squeezes Marshall’s fingers tight between his. Marshall bites the inside of his cheek, looks passed Ian to where Singer draws patterns with his fingers in the condensation on the window. Every so often, Singer, he’ll shoot wide-eyed looks at the back of Cash’s head in a way that eats Marshall’s heart.
He tries that much harder to lose himself in Johnson’s soft snores, in Ian as he holds Marshall’s hand that much tighter.
&
The hotel room isn’t great, isn’t flashy or expensive, but it has cable and room service and fuck, it has beds, which is about as much as any of them need right now.
Marshall collapses into one too easily, sprawls across the double. His face aches, bones, muscle, everything, it all hurts in ways he can’t fix, can’t pull a Wolverine and heal all on his own. It takes Ian maybe twenty seconds to fall on top of him, face against Marshall’s neck, breath hot and moist against his collarbone. Marshall glances down at him, eyebrow raised and Ian doesn’t even look up, look back.
Marshall wishes he could be surprised when the smell of tobacco fills the room, can’t really help himself when he flattens Ian’s hair beneath his hand to see Johnson and Cash both taking long drags, Johnson on the floor, Cash slumped against the wall. They look like they’re both ready to smoke their way to lung cancer, and Marshall’s never been a fan of second-hand smoke, but he doesn’t have the energy to stop it, not right now. Ian clings a little tighter.
“Fuck, stop,” Singer growls, and Cash glances up and over, rolls his eyes and pointedly takes a drag, blows the smoke in Singer’s direction. Singer flusters again, grabs the generic hotel Bible off the coffee table and pegs it across the room at him. He misses by a mile, and the book hits the wall with a more than satisfying thud, drops to the floor with its pages splayed open.
They’re all quiet for a second, until Cash is turning on Singer, fingers clenching around the body of the cigarette as he says, “Good one, Singer, let’s make the higher forces hate this band a little bit more.”
Singer shoots him a dirty look, flips him off as he says, “Then don’t fucking smoke near me, asshole, I hate it so fucking much.”
Cash growls, but Johnson just sighs, stands up and pulls the cigarette out of Cash’s fingers. He takes one last drag of his own before he stumps them both out in the hotel ashtray. Cash shoves at Johnson, but starts yelling at Singer.
Ian’s watching them, interested in that same way people usually prefer to see things fall apart rather than hold themselves together, watches them like a bystander would watch a car accident, and that analogy probably hurts a little more than it should. Ian ends up clenching his fingers around the tiny bit of Marshall’s waist exposed by his t-shirt, and Marshall shivers at the touch. Needs it so badly, to be held right now.
“You okay?” Ian murmurs, and Marshall flashes a wide, paint-by-numbers grin.
“Great, dude, never better,” and Ian rolls his eyes, says, “You didn’t have to be sarcastic.”
Marshall just sighs, watches the way Ian, sprawled on Marshall’s chest, falls with his exhale.
“As good as I can be, I guess,” Marshall says instead, and Ian hums in agreement, holds Marshall that much tighter, says, “Me too.”
He thinks he could almost smile for that, for Ian, only the room is suddenly dead silent, yelling ceased, Cash and Singer both staring at each other, ripped open and hurt, and it’s Cash who growls first, primal and raw. He turns and staggers back to the sofa bed, drops into it and rolls until his back is to the rest of them, curled too far into himself, and Singer watches, strained and hurt, and when Johnson says, “Singer…” he just turns himself over in the single bed, faces the wall and shakes beneath the sheets.
Johnson shoots Marshall and Ian a look that Marshall, fuck, Marshall can’t even place, before he heads to the fold-out couch and crawls into bed with Cash.
&
Marshall jerks awake almost painfully, claws his way out of an image of shattering glass, of cries and cold and aches that throb even in sleep. He scrambles out of the what-ifs, ends up panting against the pillow, fingers clenched in the fabric and it takes him a moment to come back to himself, to get back to earth, to the hotel suite, to the bed.
He pauses, breath tense, body stagnant against the mattress.
The floorboards creak, and Marshall glances over the edge of the bed. Cash is easing off the fold-down couch, feet against the floor and he shakes a little when he stands, barely visible, but enough to be apparent.
Cash looks up enough to see Marshall’s open eyes, and fuck, Cash looks exhausted, drained, uncertain, and Marshall isn’t sure what to do or say to make that look disappear. He tries for a half smile, and Cash shrugs back, tilts his head as he stands, moves slowly, quietly across the room until he’s by the single bed where Singer’s curled into himself, tight and small and it takes Cash a few minutes of shuffling on the spot before he can bring himself to slide beneath the sheets beside him. He wraps an arm around Singer’s tiny waist and pulls him back against him. Singer’s soft, quiet sniffles don’t waver, he doesn’t wake from his sleep, but he turns into Cash like it is something natural, necessary.
Marshall can’t make himself stop looking, not as Cash mumbles something unintelligible against the shell of Singer’s ear.
“I was worried for a minute there.” Ian’s voice is low and steady, the words breaking against Marshall’s collar bone and Marshall doesn’t even start as he hears it, as it echoes through his head.
“Yeah?”
“They’re funny,” Ian shrugs. “I don’t get their relationship, fuck, I don’t even know if that’s the right word.”
“Probably is,” Marshall mumbles, and he watches the way Cash shifts against Singer beneath the sheets, anything to make them closer. “They’ll be fine.”
Ian pauses for a second, shifts so that he and Marshall press together that much closer, that their chests bump and Marshall glances down to Ian’s earnest face, can’t even help the way his own breathing picks up.
“We’ll be fine,” Ian says. “All of us.”
Marshall blinks, bites his lip, but he nods suddenly, because yeah, yeah, okay, “We’re going to be fine,” Marshall mumbles, and Ian, he just smiles.