all we have is now / feral boys fanfiction

~21~ blood

trigger warnings for part two: angst, mature languages and jokes, violence, blood, death

The weight of a dog jumping on me jolts me from my sleep. The sun is nowhere close to being up yet, so I intend to not be up either. I snuggle closer into the red sheets.

I snuck into Nick's room tonight, as one of us does almost every night. Tonight I picked to stay in his room. I prefer to sleep in here because the sheets always smell faintly of his cologne, and it's been my favorite scent to fall asleep to.

A dog jumps once again with a whine. I can tell it's Vegas, but I don't want to wake up yet. Vegas licks my face with another whine.

I roll over to my right side. The dogs usually sleep through the whole night and won't need to go to the bathroom, but there are specific nights like tonight where they grow restless.

"Nick," I mumble, tapping him with my foot, "The dogs want out."

He grumbles something incoherent back into his pillow.

Vegas jumps off the bed to the floor. Good, he got the point. Shuffling sounds from the foot of the bed, followed by a cough. This time it's not Vegas.

What are they doing?

I sit up a little bit to get a better listen. Coughing from a dog followed by Vegas' whine. He jumps back up on the bed, licks me, then jumps back down.

Coughing. Almost choking.

I throw the covers off the bed and scramble to the end of the bed.

"Celeste," I whisper, "What's wrong?"

Celeste is laying on her right side, panting. There's a pile of a dark substance. It's too dark to make out the color.

She's thrown up before, but this is different.

I shove Nick awake, not caring to be careful.

"Nick, Nick," I urge his sleeping self, "wake up. It's Celeste."

"What?" he asks, turning over on his side to face me.

"She's sick." I turn the light on and take another look at her.

She's laying a pile of her own blood.

Nick is still squinting in bed.

"Wake up, Nick!" I yell, throwing the sweatshirt laying on his chair at him.

He gets out of bed, still not fully here on Earth with us yet.

"Blood," I whisper to him as I put his hoodie on. I don't have to time to get my own clothes. "There's so much blood."

"Oh my gosh," His eyes widen. He grabs his keys from his desk. "Come on, let's get her to the hospital."

Nick picks Celeste up and starts to walk out the door.

I glance around the room for anything we might need. It's only faintly lit from the side lamp, but it's enough to see gray shadows with a slight color around the room. My brain is a foggy mess as I grab her a blanket for the car ride there. I can already tell this is going to be a long night.

Nick carefully walks down the stairs. Vegas stays at my side at the top. His constant whines haven't stopped, and he's pressed against me now. Clay must've heard us frantically waking up because he's peeking out his door down the hall.

"What's wrong?" he whispers as he closes the door behind him.

"She's.. She's ," I put my hand on my forehead as if that'll help me think any clearer. "She's throwing up blood."

"Oh my gosh," he watches Nick make it to the bottom of the stairs. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

I'm shaking my head as Vegas licks my hand. We can't take him with us.

"Actually," I say as I pet Vegas behind his ears. "Could you watch Vegas while we're at the vet?"

"Of course," he says without any hesitation.

I kneel down next to Vegas, "Everythings going to be alright, baby. You stay here with Clay, and Celeste will be back before you know it."I glance up at Clay. "Thank you,"

I give Vegas a kiss on the top of his head, praying I didn't just lie to his face.

I turn to walk down the stairs before pausing once again. "Oh, Clay?"

He's already kneeling next to Vegas, giving him a hug. "Yeah?" his voice is laced with worry.

"When George wakes up," I say, "Could you tell him? I don't want to wake him now, but I'm sure he wants to be there."

George loves Celeste, but I don't want him to stress now. He'll be mad that we didn't tell him right now but hopefully he understands.

"I will, don't worry." Clay nods. "Now go."

I nod and make my way to the car. Nick already has Celeste in the backseat of his car. She's lying on an extra towel he keeps in his car. I've always made fun of him for keeping that in the back seat, but I guess the jokes on me.

I sit in the backseat with her head in my lap. She pants the whole time. Nick drives faster than the speed limit, and I think he runs a couple lights.

I mumble reassurances to Celeste as if she understands me perfectly. Part of me prays she's smart and understands from my soft tone what I'm trying to convey.

She was fine a couple hours ago at the bonfire. What's happened since then? Was it the smoke? Did she eat something and none of us noticed? Baby, Celeste, what's wrong?

I wish I could take away the pain. I wish it was all on me right now. I wish she didn't have to go through this.

"It's going to be okay," I whisper to her in the silence of the car ride.

It has to be.