Innocent (boyxboy)

Untitled Part 6

A/N ~* I found this picture and I thought it represented Dr. Tormun quite well! Sorry for any mistakes, I was rushed in making this! *~

~Artimeys POV~

My tears stuck to my face while others escaped, falling to cover River's pale eyelids. His eyes were dancing behind the closed lids, and I wondered if he was asleep, if he was going to have a nightmare. His blood, warm and still oozing from his face fell over my hands and my arms. I had let this happen. I had fallen asleep, and this happened.

River. Beautiful, quiet, stuttering, terrified, adorable, childish River had been attacked. I had heard his scream, it was sharp and it hurt to hear, and it had jolted me awake. It had taken me only a few seconds to realize that sound belonged to River. I had ran up the stairs and outside. There had been a man in a neat black three-piece suit with slicked back hair. Blood was on his face, River's blood. He had had a knife, blood falling from it, and blood was oozing from River's face. I had tackled him. He was strong, but I was more agile, and faster.

I had decked with the end of my palm, in an angled way from under his chin. I heard his neck snap painfully, and he had crumpled to the ground. When I had lived on the streets for a while I met a martial arts teacher, he taught me things, I also watched street fights.

Guards had come a few minutes later, and they took the man in. Double restraints, then put his body in the cop car and off to jail. I still had no clue who he was. Patrick and Dr. Tormun and a few other people I hardly knew had gotten there a few seconds later. They all tried to pick him up, put him on a gurney, but I screamed telling them not to. River hated touch, especially from people he hardly knew.

They told me they would go prepare an ambulance, and to meet at the office.

So here I was. Snow fell around me and on me, wetting my clothes and mingling with the blood on River's face. His face was pale, deathly pale, a sick pasty color under the blood. His breathing was slowing, and mine was picking up. I had let this happen. I had promised I would protect him. But I didn't. And now he was hurt.

Squeezing my eyes shut, I started to run to the office. I needed him to live. He had to. The red, white and blue lights of the ambulance lighted the dark evening, coloring the snow, shadowing every face. I was numb and the world around me was fading. I could hear people talking to me, but I could barely understand, I couldn't even make out the faces. Someone tried reaching for him, and I pulled back. I had to protect River.

Patrick was waving me to the ambulance. He told me to climb in, so I did. He was still talking, but I didn't understand it. Everything was fading. I set River in the gurney and delicately strapped his legs down, then his arms. I swipe hair from his head and took off his glasses. I kissed his forehead. Patrick was still talking to me. I sat next to him. The only thing in the world was River. His lifeless body, so small and frail, I couldn't even the rise and fall of his chest while he breathed.

Then it happened. I screamed for one of the paramedics. Four came in and ushered Patrick out. I held onto River's hand. His body was rising and falling violently, his body was convulsing. His hand was deathly cold. Someone carefully and expertly cut his clothes up to his neck, revealing him. Scars. They covered him. Then I saw them. The cuts that had been in the painting. They were there, too.

They squirted a blue gel like thing on his chest and rubbed it in. Then they shouted something and pressed two large things to his chest. They did this twice before he stopped convulsing and fell silently onto the gurney. There was a long droning beep that didn't end. It was a dead heart monitor.

My vision ceased, I couldn't hear, nothing. The only thing I could feel was River's lifeless hand in mine. I squeezed it, willing him to come back. Willing him to squeeze my hand in return. Nothing happened, it stayed cold and still. I couldn't breathe. Then everything went black, my hand still clasping Rivers'.