The Citizen Soldier (DNF)

19) The World Keeps Turning

*Clay POV*

Three days.

Three days of glares.

Three days of nagging.

Three days of disapproving looks.

Three days of the scarily familiar numbness that always comes when I resign everything.

But one thing that did come, that I was even proud of, was the fact that I was going to be okay, and so was George. We both had to get something of a touch-up, but other than that neither of us had contracted the plague or something like that. With treatment, George's immune system wouldn't be giving him a big fat middle finger for all the mistreatment and abuse, and I was at the very least going to live to see another day. Which was at least what George wanted for me.

I wasn't sure that it was my will, but we'd see I supposed.

On the brightest side that I could see, I was finally allowed to get up and pace around my room. My legs had been twitchy since day one. I started to walk in semicircles around the bed and run my hand through my hair. The click-clack of my hospital-issued shoes echoed across the virtually silent room, all the fabrics either too thick or too thin to absorb much in the way of sound, the heart monitor beside the bed being the only thing making any noise.

The hollow beeping that had haunted me these past days combined with the rapid clicking of my shoes made some sort of odd, primal fear set in where it certainly should not have. I swallowed and tried to push it away, just like all of my other emotions.

But fear has never been quite so simple. Fear, throughout my whole life, has been the only emotion I haven't been able to easily subdue. Happiness was always easy, depression was a learned skill, pain, though not an emotion, was always just as easy to hide as my depression, interest was something that was quelled when I started to have to take care of my little sister, confusion was something that I couldn't dare show at any point anymore, and love is something that I'd been doing my best to keep hidden from the world for a while now.

Fear persists, and even if I try to push it down, it returns in an ever-stronger wave that pushes me under the waters of animalistic terror. Trying to calm down I knew was no use, and it never would be, because almost all the strategies that anyone tried to prescribe to me end up making me panic worse. My eyes darted around the room, looking for some form of escape that I could use. My heart rate spiked as I realized that the only ways out were either the window or the door.

I walked briskly up to the door, they'd put the heart reader on a Bluetooth thing that made it so that I could roam freely around the recovery wing, and I opened it. Even at midnight, the place was bustling and full of life, though not nearly as busy as 3 PM on a bad day. Actually, it seemed like most of the business was just starting to taper off, which was a happy sight to see. It meant that I could be as close to alone as I could get. I shook unwanted shadows from my mind and started to pace on the sidelines, making sure to keep a path clear for the doctors at all times.

All was going well until someone pulled me into their room by the elbow and effectively made me screech in panic. And my voice was just healing too, what a shame. I shook like a leaf, and a hand was clamped over my mouth which did not at all help my panicked state. I was just about ready to throw up until I recognized the person who was holding me.

"Dude, you're gonna need to find new ways of inviting me into a room." I laughed nervously, still feeling ready to throw up.

"Yeah, yeah, like you don't love the flashiness." He flipped his nonexistent long hair, and I felt a strange overcoming need to elbow him in the ribs.

He wheezed in pain and held his arms to his chest. George laughed in the background.

"You had it coming, Skep." I became overly animated as I would always do when I was entertaining my sister, who hadn't bothered to visit me, maybe misconceiving that I was dead. But that couldn't be, because the hospital called her and she responded saying that she would be sure to stop by sometime. It hurt, but I didn't let it show, just like always. She could hurt me all that she wanted and I would still hide it, to preserve her. She needed it more, the forgiveness.

Which is why it stung in my chest when I was being overly dramatic for a solid ten minutes about how Skep was my nickname for the man, how the twinkie ritual must have been a ruse, and how my whole entire life has now lost meaning and the world had stopped turning the moment that these two became friends. George was laughing so hard that he was clenching at his stomach, and Skeppy was on the floor. I smiled at them both with the slightest twinge of pain visible on it, and then I pushed it down again, but not before a single tear could perform an escapist's art and form in my eye. I blinked it away as fast as possible.

The only issue that I saw was that it wasn't actually the only tear there, but it was the only tear that I caught. I wasn't sobbing or anything, but silent, invisible streaks of salty liquid were making a couple of tracks down my face. The moment that George saw this, he was out of bed and crushing me in a huge hug that I didn't know what I did to even deserve. I felt caught for something, and when I brought my fingertips to my cheek they came away wet. My throat closed up and I felt the need to apologize.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to dampen the mood." I creased my eyebrows. I had intended to do the stark opposite. How had I gone so wrong? The pain resurged tenfold in a wave of pure agony and I didn't know why. But I didn't even flinch to indicate that anything was wrong. Too many years of practice had made sure of that. Now George was crying too and clutching at me like I was life itself.

"It's okay, you don't need to apologize to me." He sounded weak and forgiving, and I bit my cheek since I knew that Skeppy could see me and I didn't want him to see how much that hurt me. It hurt me so bad that I felt the need to tase my own blood, despite the sharp pain that always accompanied. I delicately chewed a long-healed scar. Two days down the drain. The metallic taste and sharp pain that followed was gratifying and instant. Three seconds clean.

I didn't respond and just held the hug.

"I swear to god, Clay, I'm going to get you anxiety meds. You very obviously have it, so why haven't you acknowledged it?"

"Because I don't have anxiety," I said tersely. Skep just rolled his eyes and sat on George's unoccupied bed.

"If you say so..." He sighed. "I just don't want you to-" He sighed again and his face contorted into pain, which made the flood rise and new tears come with it. He looked away and at the radiator in the corner sharply. "I don't want you to feel like less or anything." It looked like he was barely scratching the surface, it was readable on his face that he wanted to say more, but perhaps didn't dare to. "I don't want you to start hurting like- like- like..." He waved his hands around like he didn't know what to do with them, then gripped the edge of the bed and kicked his feet a bit. "I don't even know what I was going to say about that." He laughed bitterly at himself, throwing his head back with bellowing laughter.

"I don't want you to be like me, okay? I got over it years ago, and I don't think that it was even near the degree that you feel pain, but ah..., let's just say I never had the best ways of coping with things. I was self-destructive when my mom died. It was never easy, but it was especially hard on dad and the baby, and dad just kinda disappeared. I didn't do much better than him, but what I did do was suck it up and take care of the little one. Died of pneumonia, my dad died of heartbreak because he didn't eat or sleep, and I was left alone at seventeen. Didn't do too hot, but I survived it. I am still proud to say that I've never cut or anything like that, nothing like that, but I'm not proud to admit that I took up smoking the instant it was legal for me and I was like that for about a year."

He stopped talking and went non-responsive after that confession, at first I thought that the fainting was a joke, and then it presented itself into a very cold reality. My face blanched as I let go of the hug that was loosely held and went to make sure that he was okay. After a minute I deemed him okay, but that he was in some sort of pseudo-coma. I turned to George.

"Make sure he gets plenty of water when he wakes up, give him some bread or a cracker, and he should be Scott-free." I offered a tentative smile. Showing so much emotion felt unnatural, especially right now.

"How do you know how to do this?" I wanted to bite my tongue but I stopped myself at the last second.

"My mom is in the military, remember? Before she was on the force she was a healer, and this is an easy fix, one you can teach." I blushed and looked away. Why the hell do I always blush so much? It's so fucking annoying!

language

Phantom Bad.

Fun.

I walked out of the room because of embarrassment and returned to my own.