I stand here by your bed and watch your chest rise and fall with the aid of the respirator. It's funny how something so inherently normal can be rendered horrifying through the intervention of my mecca of modern science. I've taken apart more electronic boards than I can count. I've even seen the innards of your precious lions spread over the oil-streaked flooring of the repair bay like the pieces of a broken puzzle, but this is altogether different. The audacity required to play around with living organic material is almost beyond comprehension. Especially when it's you, lying here on this narrow bed like a child's forgotten toy.
The doctors say that you'll be fine. No permanent damage, this time. That sounds ominous even when it's echoing through my head, which it does in a nonstop loop. Just one more accusing voice to compete with all the rest. One more sound that maybe, just maybe, can overtake the desperation in your eyes the last time I looked into them.
What the fuck did you think you were doing? What happened to the "every life is precious" Hunk I thought I knew? When did you stop giving a shit about your own?
Never mind. I know the answer to that question. It was me.
Well, you know what? I'll let you in on a little secret. I'm not worth it. I'm not worth the pain and suffering you're putting yourself through. If anyone should be on their deathbed with crimson-shaded white bandages decorating their wrists, it should be me.
You moan softly in your sleep, your voice scratching through your throat with a pain I can no longer imagine. Your eyes flicker open for a second, your gaze passing over me with barely a flicker of recognition, and I can't quite stop the hand that moves of its own volition to run through the tangled sweaty mess of your hair. Part of me reaches half-heartedly for the memory of the softness of those same dark waves running over my hand on another night, in another bed, but it seems too far away to hold. Like everything else, the memory, even the disappointment, is buried beneath too many years of apathy and a drug-induced stupor to be real.
Your eyes close again and your face relaxes into the slackness of deeper sleep. I can't help the sigh of relief that escapes from my lips, even while I wonder at how selfish I've become.
What would happen if you truly woke up? Would you be as surprised to find me here as I am? I didn't believe anything could surprise me anymore, but yet here I am. I didn't stop to think what I was doing when I heard the news on INN at the bar of our hotel. A Ritz this time, believe it or not. Lance finally got bored of dancer-boy- can you believe I never did learn his name?- so we set out on our own. I don't quite remember what we were doing there, besides trying to forget. The last thing I clearly remember was Lance giving me every bit of money he had and shoving me on the first shuttle headed this direction, whispering something in my ear about not screwing up second chances.
Isn't that odd? I can't even really remember my first chance, but Lance seems convinced we're on our second.
Maybe I've just been sober too long. Everything's starting to catch up with me, and suddenly nothing makes any sense. It seems like it should be the other way around, but I'm losing my focus completely. I need to get out of here. Air, I just need air, and there's Coran looking in the viewing window with understanding or at least acceptance written all over his face, and he promises yes, of course he'll take care of you, nothing to worry about, and I just have to GET AWAY!
Then there's air and the sting of a needle biting into the tender flesh of my arm, but it lasts just a minute and leaves air in its wake. No pain, no ecstacy, just the caressing feel of the wind on a summer day. Just air, nonjudgemental, impartial air, buffering me through the moment.
Besides, maybe this way you'll be able to convince yourself that glimpse of my face was only a dream. Then at least one of us will be able to sleep at night. It's the only gift I'm capable of giving you.
Back to the Voltron Story Archive