Prophecy: Tome of Skin

17. In My Time of Dying

There was a steady beep on the monitor. That was good. It was the only good thing. It wasn't exactly like Austin was suffering from any normal condition, and though he lay there in the hospital bed they had yet to figure out what was wrong with him. Toby knew that they would not; they couldn't, he was not quite human. Of course, even by their supernatural means, no one else knew what was wrong with him either, and he just lay as he had been. Not once had Toby left his side, and he sat in a chair that he had pulled up beside him, keeping his hand clutched around his as he rested his head on the railing and closed his eyes for just a moment.

"Toby," Austin murmured, causing him to look at him. It wasn't a breakthrough, he'd been going in and out in that way, cold sweat and feverish. He continued on how he had been, looking through his companion as if he wasn't really seeing him, as if he was lost in a fog somewhere in his own mind. "You saved me."

"And I always will, I'm going to stay right here." Toby told him the same thing he'd said the last few times he'd heard those exact words. He recognized them with ease, and it wasn't hard to see that his sickly lover was remembering a time from before, when he'd first woken back to the human world.

"What am I going to do?" Now Austin's face shriveled up and he sniffled, distraught with some thought he hadn't entertained yet.

"Don't worry, I'm going to take care of you." With his free hand Toby ran his fingers through his matted golden hair.

"I know I don't look like much, but I promise I can pull my own weight, honest. You can't leave me here, I want to go with you. You're my hero."

"Yeah, yeah. I won't leave you behind."

"I know you can't love me, what can I offer someone like you?"

"Don't say that, you know I love you, more than anything."

"Please don't leave me," Austin squeezed his hand, focused in on him like he had found more clarity than before. Only he hadn't, and he addressed a memory of the man that sat beside him. "I want so much to be like you."

"No you don't." It was almost impossible to swallow the lump he had in his throat, but Toby tried as he found that it was unbearable to take his hand away from the dying face of his most precious one. "I've made too many mistakes, hurt too many people. But you, you're so good, I've never seen so much light shine out of one person. The truth is, I want to be like you."

"Toby," but Austin had nothing more to say, and with a violent chill his face went blank and he was gone. If it wasn't for the steady beeping of the machine, Toby might've worried for a moment, but he knew that for now his love had only slipped back under the blanket of slumber, and that it was perhaps the best place for him. It was hard any other way, because he couldn't bear to hear the things that were said in waking. They were too honest, an unguarded look into something he knew he was not supposed to be allowed to look in on.

Austin's delirium might have confirmed what he already knew, that he still loved and wanted him, but it was not a victory he could savor. Instead he mourned it, because it would mean nothing in the end if something did not change. Because Austin was still mostly human, the hospital was able to at least sustain him, but without an idea for how to treat him he was deteriorating fast. At the rate he was going, well, Toby didn't need the doctors' apologies to know where they were headed.

He sat still in his chair for a while longer, just staring, and then when he'd sat long enough he got up slowly, leaning over and pressing his lips to those of the man he loved. It was a gentle kiss, and the warmth he could feel there was everything that he needed in that moment. It was good, and he held the embrace for a long time before sitting back down and beginning to talk to him softly. That was all there was to do, anyways. Talk. It filled the empty space, staved off the unsettling inevitability for just a while longer while painting such pretty imagery with his words.