Time To Go

Seventeen: Kennedy

"You look so peaceful when you're asleep." I whisper, a smile staining my lips as I let my fingertips brush across his cheek. The sun lighting the room teasingly as flashes of gold flood his face momentarily.

John stirs a little in his slumber... he must be exhausted.

We had been lying down for ten minutes and he was already out for the count, his chest rising and falling graciously as delicate sounds escaped from in between his chapped and faded lips. I'm lying beside him, propping myself up by my elbow, my fingers drumming casually on my cheek as I trace lines across his pale skin with my other hand.

Being inside John brought us closer. We hadn't exactly spoken about it a lot but I could tell just by the way his eyelashes flutter during his slumber, or the minuscule twitches of his fingers, that he was more than comfortable in my presence. Perhaps he hadn't felt like this for a while... I know that I certainly haven't; I have never felt like this before. This is, of course, the reason why this is all so hard... so difficult.

My throat burns as my eyes dance up to the top of his head. I chuckle a little; his head is so small, so delicate, so fragile... clumps of hair still remain scattered in patches of deep brown across the contrastingly pale surface, and yet he still remains so beautiful... still so magnificent... still so striking... he is every bit the man I wish I could be.

I let my gaze falter as tears threaten my already blurring vision.

How did I get myself into this situation? What made me want to wander around the hospital I hated so much, that day I visited Annie? What made me take the long way out, on a day that his door was left open? I shake my head as my thoughts conjure ridiculous notions such as fate and the whole it was meant to be thing, the whole soul mate lark.

"Jesus Christ, John..." I whisper, letting my lips shake as a small tear bleeds out of the corner of my eye, unnoticed. "You will be the death of me, kiddo." I say, brushing the back of my fingers across his face, allowing myself to spiral into a world filled with nothing but his scent, his persona, his essence.

Oh, what a world it is...

"YOUNG MAN!" A loud voice breaks into my bubble.

I turn to face the door simultaneously to John, stirring softly. I turn at whiplash speed to see a tall man in the threshold of the door, a clipboard in his hands, his eyes fixated on the pair of us, sternly. Before I even realize it, I had pulled away from John and have ended up on my ass at the side of his bed, my elbows smacking painfully onto his bedside table causing a louder commotion than first anticipated.

"You can't be in here!" His voice is angered and I am rubbing my arm, my eyes on him as I watch him from the floor like an infant being scowled at by an angry parent. "This isn't a hotel! This is a hospital..."

"Yeah and it just so happens to be my home so if you don't mind, doc, I wish for Kennedy to stay!"

My eyes shoot to John; he is sitting up now, his hands clenched into fists, clutching the paper-thin sheets firmly as he stares at the doctor before him with malevolence.