Kill Me, Kiss Me

THIRTY

WAKING was pain. Waking was fighting through brambles and climbing Jacob's ladder and scaling the tower of Babylon. It devoured him, emptied him out into a dried husk of a man. But still, there was a compulsion, an unheard order that made him climb up, up and surface through the water of darkness.

Waking was wrongness.

Theo's head pounded like a thousand drills were cracking his head open. White lights and the sharp scent of linoleum floors rose like poltergeist around him, grabbing his jaw and forcing them into him to take control of him. There were the white washed walls, the glaring electric lights, the stiff white sheets and pain. Where was he?

Beep, beep, beep, beep.

He blinked slowly, moving his head against the dull ache. It was simple - the place where they brought dying people back to life. It came to him blearily again, he wasn't dead. He'd done it himself this time, and after he tried so hard, he didn't die!

A lulling sort of unease and frustration welled up inside of him, but everything seemed detached and muted as if he was looking at and touching it through a thin veil of silk. There was a throb through his neck, there was a beat inside his head, he couldn't think properly. What was next? Something was next, he had to think. There was danger. 

Danger - a foreign warmth squeezed his hand tightly.

Blinking, Theo flinched, glancing to his right, but everything seemed to swim in slow motion. Faintly - black hair, black eyes, a tight, watchful gaze. Faintly - the name 'Keir'. There was something he needed to do, but again, that blankness. There were things that he knew, but not know, they bulged against the membrane but could not break through it.

Nothing was said. His throat hurt too much for him to utter a sound, and what did he have to say? It was pointless. This Keir he saw seemed too to live in silence. There wasn't any need for words to be said.

'Here I tried to die, but you, my killer, sent me to hospital, and look, I'm still alive.'

It was useless.

The fingers stroked down his hand, tendrils of warmth that lingered on his flesh and penetrated deeper. Keir was still staring at his eyes as if they were a mirror reflecting the image of someone else. Who?

"Who are you looking at?"

Pain ripped dully through his throat, but the words came out clear and loud enough for both to hear.

Dun. Dun. That serial depression rang hollowly in his head. The heart was too far for him to see, but it seemed from a particular moment onwards, Keir liked him better silent. And when was that? The moment those green contacts fell out and he looked increasingly like that shadow?

The hand loosened, the warmth lingered still.

"Go to sleep." Keir said.

Theo closed his eyes to the dim hum of air in his ears. At least he got one stab back this time; there were still fifty to go.

Dreamless sleep and waking moments came in intermittent succession. At one time, he couldn't tell whether he was in the dark of his unconsciousness or whether he was staring at the ceiling again. It was as if he was suspended, mind and body, in a limbo.

"...Oh."

It stirred him, and enough time had passed. He woke properly, the things no longer came to him in pieces. His eyes snapped open, and there was the reality that was hospital, the white walls, the hard bed, the white curtains, and the nurse in the blue shrubs.

"I didn't mean to wake you." She said with a softness.

Theo shifted in the bed and shook his head as much as he could with the hot twist of pain that slithered across his neck.