It was just a glance.
Fleeting.
Indulgent.
A stupid fucking joke that had your eyes flitting away from the road ahead to smile at him, and he was smiling, too.
You could see the crows feet at the corners of his eyes.
The soft lines that would deepen when he laughs.
A flash of white teeth as his smile widened into something amused and fond.
You saw headlights behind him, too close to avoid.
Now.
Now, you see colour.
Green and blue and red amidst a backwash of the purest white you've ever seen.
There's glass separating him from you.
There's blood staining the otherwise perfectly white tiled floor beneath his cot.
“Riley?”
You can't bring yourself to look away.
Not from him. Not from the flurry of green and blue scrubs rushing around in the room adjacent.
“Riley Martin?”
“It's Raleigh..”
Pointless.
Meaningless.
Hollow.
Your eyes sting and it takes everything not to reach up and scrub the building tears away.
“Alright. I'm here to explain Mr. Alleinder's condition.”
“..Martin. Elijah Martin.”
Jesus christ.
This isn't happening.
You keep hoping, praying that this is a dream – that you'll blink, and that'll be it.
The smell of disinfectant will fade into something familiar.
Like smoke, and whiskey, and the fucking Aussie shampoo you keep insisting he use because you'd noticed just how fucking good it smells on him.
The white walls will be replaced by the colour you both had trouble deciding on, because - 'If you want our walls to look like someone sneezed all over them, be my guest, sweetheart.'
You'd still settled on green, in the end.
Maybe you'll wake up, and you'll be warm – wrapped tight around the man you love, and he'll be safe and sound, oblivious to the way your heart thuds so rapidly against your chest because.. for a moment there, you thought you were going to lose him.
No such luck.
“Mr. Martin..”
It's a sigh.
It's resigned, and hopeless, and everything you don't want to hear.
It dawns on you, then.
Like a siren call and you've reached the rocks that are waiting for you just in time to realise how badly you fucked up.
Just in time to see what you could have done differently.
A moments breath from crashing and burning and you feel your heart in your throat.
You fucked up.
And then.. they're shouting.
You freeze, because they're shouting.
Monitors are blaring and you turn to stare through the glass pane.
Your heart is racing, and his just.. isn't.
Thump-thump-thump-thump.
“Don't..” a voice that sounds nothing like your own, but you feel your lips shape the word.
“Fuck, c'mon, sweetheart..”
You blink through the tears.
Don't do this.
Don't do this.
You see him jerk with the current that slams through him, and that sound drones on, unchanging.
Again, and again, and each time tears you apart just that little bit more.
Pieces falling away with every spasm that yields nothing but the steady drone of that fucking heart monitor.
And then, everything slows down.
They step back, away from the cot.
Resigned.
Their shoulders seem to slump.
Defeated.
You see someone shake their head.
Hopeless.
A hissed breath through your teeth and you feel a wetness on your cheeks..
Not yet.
Your hands meet glass with a resounding bang that have their heads lifting.
No, no, no. Not yet.
"..Time..?" You hear one of them ask, and they're looking at you, but you can't see.
No..
"..Three-thirty-six a.m.."
~ ~
It's.. surreal.
Like you're trapped inside your own head and there's nothing to pull you back to reality – to reel you back in and anchor you - to tell you everything is fine.
You lost that - the ground beneath your feet, and the air you breathe.
The colours of the world washed away into something bleak and it feels a hell of a lot like there's nothing holding you up anymore - more of a life line than puppet strings and it's gone. They're gone.
He's gone.
You could scream the words over and over but you don't - the mask you wore so long ago falling into place, and it's cracked in places, falling to pieces, but it's enough - enough to keep up the facade of normalcy you need because without it, you're done.
Maybe you can pretend.
Deny it all you want.
Convince yourself it's a nightmare - that when you wake up he'll be right there, warm and real and so, so alive in your arms, but..
You've tried it before, remember?
It never works.
She's crying again - the sound ringing in your ears like nails on a chalkboard and you want to shout, scream a little, let it all out but again, you don't. You can't.
It's too much.
You're moving before you even know what you're doing, and you think you hear your phone ringing again but you pay it no mind.
Carmen, Harleigh, Kaylee, Kissa - it could be any of them calling for the hundredth time but you ignore it anyway, like you have been doing for the past few days, and you move into the hallway, the cries growing louder with each step you take.
The little shit is scratching at the door, and even though you're there, you see her and she see's you, she still doesn't stop crying.
You know why.
It hurts enough to have your breath catching painfully in your throat.
You reach down, and for once the little cat doesn't try to fight you - too old to give you much sass these days. You scoop the pretty little feline into your arms even as you sink to the floor, your back to the wall, and.. she lets you.
This isn't real.
..But it is.
Your fingers pet carefully through soft fur and though it doesn't grant you a purr, her cries grow quiet.
"I know, you little shit.." You say, and your throat feels raw, unused and gruff, "I know. He.. he ain't here. I'm sorry."
She looks at you, then, and it feels like your heart is breaking all over again.
"I'm sorry, sweetheart."
~
