Oliver had barely any memory of what happened after he was knocked out. There was pain, a pure, all encompassing pain that had replaced that awful state of rage. It was almost like relief, feeling something more important than anger, that was most of what he remembered. For a time he might have been sitting, barely conscious, perhaps in a state of shock. He remembered the sharper pain of jostling, taking his breath away. Then there was the foggy haze of medication, taking the edge off and making the world seem like a distant thing. The techs in the infirmary knew him too well, it was more than simply pain meds keeping him quiet.
At some point the haze receded far enough to let the memories swirl around in his tired mind, and Oliver wallowed in the pain and regret it brought. He had attacked his friends, not just accidentally, but deliberately and repeatedly. Having spent all those months building up his strength, only to use it on the people he cared for? The shame of being afflicted not just once but twice over, having that rage push him to do terrible things he never would have done before... it was too much.
The blood had been cleaned from his face while he was unconscious, and it was dampened again with tears and snot as he cried silently to himself. Each shaky breath brought fresh pain he didn't even attempt to fight, it seemed like necessary penance for what he had done while under the influence of the virus. When someone came by to check up on him he tried to refuse, making attempts at pain-addled words of protest, but a repeat dose of medication was pushed into his system and he slept once more.
It seemed as though the night would never end, every time he cried himself out and slept he was woken up again and then left alone with his broken thoughts. At some point one of the infirmary staff sat with him as he cried, gently wiping his tears and saying soothing things he didn't want to listen to.
The light of the following day woke him, or the aches spread across his body, something of that nature which had roused him naturally from sleep. He was too weary to cry, and with a sort of melancholy clarity he allowed himself a couple minutes to piece together exactly what state he might be in. It was no surprise that he hurt. While he was in that state of incomparable rage he had not been kind to his body, and just as he could remember his own attacks, he could remember the consequences. Bearing the brunt of his own attacks. Returned blows. Falling down stairs. All of this without the benefit of Jökul to protect him. As a mere human, his body had been sorely abused by recent events.
His head hurt. That seemed like a given considering all the tears that had been spilled, but the pain seemed focused in one spot slightly above and behind his right ear. His first attempt to reach up brought sharp spasms to his ribs and shoulder, and the heavy limb barely lifted from the bed covers. There was a cast on his wrist, he didn't try to test his fingers. Exploring the head wound with his other hand was more successful, there was a large bump covered with bandages. The side he had struck first on the stairs, the place he had banged his head...
Oliver felt tears threatening once again. He deserved every bit of it, the pain, the heartache... When he had first woken up on the island so many months ago he had feared for his life, and then when he realized his life was forfeit just being in this job he feared his incompetence would make things worse. He was afraid his cowardice would get people hurt, and wished more for a simple, uncomplicated death than a long life at the expense of others. Perhaps that was why he still counted in months since awakening. Sixteen altogether. Months had been his life expectancy, and some part of him had accepted that. He would live, be terrified, and then die.
Somewhere along the line he had found friends, found some meaningful work he was actually good at, and maybe that was where things had gone wrong. Because here he was, laying in the infirmary, somehow having done the exact opposite of what he had hoped. He lived, after directly causing harm to the people he cared about...
He still lived, and right then that thought hurt worse than any broken bones and bruised muscle. Clenching his right hand into as much of a fist as he could sent pain radiating up his arm, but it didn't seem like enough to make up for what he had done. Oliver kept it clenched, fresh tears in his eyes, and his other arm crossed his chest with fingers pressed mercilessly against his sore ribs.
A tiny whimper escaped his lips.
Then the curtain swished, and a Moon division orderly was there with their well-timed medication delivery. Relief was the last thing Oliver wanted, but he was too tired to protest. He closed his eyes, and let the staff uncurl his fingers, and return his other arm to it's resting place at his side. Maybe he could at least pretend he wouldn't wake up...
Posted: Tue Aug 11, 2015 6:02 pm
Solo - Sleep TIght (Aug. 10 2015 - Until I Fall Asleep, pt.2)
Oliver woke once that night. It came on gently, a peaceful stirring into consciousness vastly unlike the shaking, gasping jerk out of a nightmare. He felt enveloped in a cosy haze, warmed by the heat at his back, trapped comfortably by the thin blanket around him. The farther he drifted from sleep, the more aware he became of the still dark room around him, the hard floor pressing against his shoulder and hip, the unfamiliar yet soothing weight resting across his ribs, the angle of his neck that might pain him later, yet felt impossibly comfortable after snuggling into just the right spot while he slept.
Something clicked suspiciously in the back of his mind, but it wasn't until he shifted that it was drawn to the forefront of his thoughts. That warmth at his back, the pressure against his chest... An arm wrapped around him.
In the unfamiliarity of the situation Oliver found his body tensing up. The previous night had just been another night. Horace had visited his room to chat, they planned a spur of the moment sleepover. He hadn't approached it with any more anxiety than having Lydia stay over when her room mate had gone missing, or when Aro invited him over so he wouldn't be alone with his nightmares. And nothing fundamentally different had happened. Except Horace wanted to sleep on the floor, and their mutual stubbornness had led to ever so slightly shared sleeping arrangements, and...
And nothing, they had gone back to sleep. Yet here he was, pulled into that unexpected embrace and now completely awake with his mind racing. What on earth was he supposed to do? Horace's breaths were calm and even, and his arm was dead weight. He was fast asleep, and Oliver was too afraid of waking his friend to shift position, let alone extricate himself from the hug.
Quietly, and as calmly as possible, Oliver tried to evaluate the situation.
The obvious answer was to wiggle away. Get free. Run away from the unintentional contact that hinted at social awkwardness on the horizon, because surely it was unintentional. It was definitely unintentional. He doubted this situation could have happened if either of them had consciously willed it so.
But he couldn't give into his instincts to flee right away, because he was more afraid of waking up Horace. His good friend who had also not been sleeping well, yet was now not only fast asleep, but calmly so. It was a precious time for rest... and besides... Oliver thought... he wasn't exactly uncomfortable either. That realization was like a shock of it's own to the young man.
Oliver had spent his teenage life devoid of touch. His father, the only family he had left after his mother died, had no more hugs for the boy, no companionable hair ruffles, no proud shoulder pats for the child who was growing too old for open familial doting once Oliver's mother was gone. He was a ghost in his own house, moving through it and leaving it undisturbed in his wake. During school he was barely any better. His forced mask of being 'okay' kept adults at a distance, and he ran from his peers before the absence of touch could be filled by a bully's fists. It was painful to get too close to anyone.
While he kept as much unpleasant interaction as he could at arm's length, even his ability to seek out like minds was afflicted with a lack of contact. Screen names, MMORPG characters, chat windows, forum posts... The people he would rush home at the end of a hard day to play with were miles away in reality, their presentation merely a disguise similar to his own. He could spend hours raiding guilds, looting dungeons, testing his skills with these friends who had his back in all those digital battles... and yet only feel the touch of keys on his fingertips, or a controller resting in his palms, the voices in his ear piped in from half a world away over a simple network of electronics.
Oliver felt Horace shift behind him, that arm tightening for a slow second or two, and he felt a warm breath on his ear. No amount of friendly touch had quite prepared him over the last year for this amount of contact, it was like a mental turning point for the emotional young man. Arorangi's bone-crushing bear hugs that lifted him off his feet, Harley's casual abundance of inattentive contact and light touches, Lex's hair ruffles, and the warmth of Noemi's hand in his... Oliver never expected that those little gestures could have become so important to him. And this persistent, unflinching contact, the platonic innocence of Horace's warmth at his back, the casual arm around his chest, a part of him longed to invite that kind of closeness with his friends all the time instead of always running away scared.
Why couldn't he be brave enough to feel this warmth all the time?
The kid took a shaky breath, matching his inhale and then exhale to the rhythm of his friend's chest at his back. This was okay. He was comfortable, warm, safe. It might have been impossible to stay where he was under any other circumstances, but Horace still slept calmly. Oliver felt his limbs grow heavy as he relaxed. Tomorrow morning he could just pretend he had slept through the night, like nothing out of the ordinary had happened. They wouldn't have to talk about it, there would be no awkwardness...
Just this precious memory of being warm and loved.
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