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feverinfeveroutfic · 3 months

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like blood from a stone | chapter forty-five

(ao3 title: quicksilver)

I had always been perturbed by hospitals. I had no idea as to whether it came from the fact that they always had this sterility to them, or the feeling of death that surrounded them, but the very moment Chuck and I walked in through those big sliding doors, I shivered and closed my coat. The floors were bright white and every nook and cranny smelled of industrial cleaner. It was right then I had a small sense of gratitude that I had ascended to royalty, lest the two of us get caught up in a cloud of smoke and some heavy duty cleansing.

As we came closer to his room, the smell of cleaner faded out to the smell of flesh and blood. Not death, but more as if that particular wing of the hospital had been infiltrated by a wounded soldier.

My wounded brother.

We turned the next right corner and strode into Jeff’s room, where we beheld the sight of Jeff himself reclined back on the bed with his arms suspended up with long, thin, spindly cables and pale white gauze wrapped around his neck and shoulders. A big white tube had been crammed down his throat to help him breathe; it also took me a second to realize that he had a big swath of gauze on his right hand, and I wondered what exactly had happened at that shootout.

Larry, who was seated off to his left side there, greeted us with a small smile and a listless gesture to the side for the other chairs. Chuck nestled between the two of us, but I lingered off further to the side just to have a better look on at Jeff and his injuries. All the while, I kept on thinking about Chuck from Florida.

“Kirk and Lars were here earlier,” Larry was saying. “I don’t remember if Joey was with them or not, but I do remember them talking about him at one point… it was pretty whirlwind.”

“I would think so,” Chuck replied with a shake of his head and a ruffle of his hair. “Your best friend and fiancé just wound up in the hospital in the middle of the night and now you’re trying to put the pieces together.” Larry rubbed his temple with his fingertips, while I returned my attention to the comatose Jeff.

While his one hand had been wrapped entirely in gauze, his other hand remained pristine. I looked on at the ring on his finger, at the little black stone in the dead center of it all, and I moved my gaze up to his neck and shoulders.

The fact that his gunshot wounds were hidden away behind that protective layer of gauze only brought my attention more to the black stone.

It was right then and there I had an itch to hide myself away, to have all the time to myself just to unwind and release something in the meantime. Being in that hospital did nothing to help, either. I tapped my fingers and looked off to the side for an escape of sorts. Neither of us had any idea if Jeff was going to wake up and be released any time soon, so I had time to tend to.

I turned my attention to Chuck and Larry, both of whom seemed lost in their own little worlds.

It was now or never.

I stood up and ran my fingers through my hair.

“Where you going?” Chuck asked me.

“I need some air,” I told him with a shake of my head and an adjusting of my jacket lapels.

“Want me to come with?” Larry offered me.

“I think I want to be alone for a while,” I confessed to him in a low voice.

“The prince likes his solitude,” Chuck told him.

I then bowed out of the room to the hallway. I needed to get in touch with Chuck from Florida again, at least to show him as to how I truly felt about him before anything else happened to either one of us.

I kept on walking until I reached the outside and I could feel the cool morning air on my skin. If only Eric and Lou were there to give me a ride: we could keep on riding until we reached across the valley over to Yosemite or up to the Redwoods. To be in nature and away from the city. Maybe that was the solution, to leave the Bay Area for a time to be in the woods and in nature.

I reached the corner of the street where I was met with a gust of a cool breeze from the ocean. To be at the beach for a while. I thought about finding a fifth wheel for myself, Eric, and Lou, and the three of us could ride along the entire Pacific coastline, from the Bay Area down Highway 1 all the way down to San Diego and the border, and then back up again to the Bay Area and all the way up to Oregon and Washington into Canada. We could take the highway along British Columbia and the Yukon up to Alaska and post up there for as long as we wanted.

I tightened the sides of my jacket across my body as the cool breeze sent a shiver down my spine.

At the same time, I missed my parents. I missed getting hugs from my mom and hearing my dad’s rants about how I was meshuggah and had a lot of chutzpah and all of that.

I needed to write a letter to Chuck from Florida as soon as possible. I kept on walking until I spotted a minimart on the corner. A cup of coffee to get things moving and then I could look around for something to write on and write with.

As I sipped on my coffee, I thought about Joey and I wondered if he ever did come along with one of them. I wondered if he was in the hospital and the frantic part of me immediately jumped to his being lost. I shook my head and kept on walking with the cup in hand. If I was going to write on a sticky note, then I would have to do just that. I had snuck out of my parents’ house through my bedroom window, I could unload on little sticky notes.

I returned to the hospital right as the night shift was clocking out, which meant I would probably have to wait until I could sign in for visiting hours as Chuck did the honors for the two of us.

I took my seat in one of the chairs closest to the front door. I set my coffee cup down and let my eyes wander: it was like magic when I spotted the pad of paper on the table before me. The pad of paper and a little white pencil, like one of those little pencils you’d see at a golf course.

Dearest Chuck—

I wrinkled my nose at that, and I scratched it out. I thought about his full name instead and rolled from there.

Dearest Charles Michael,

I must write this out to you because I frankly don’t know any other way of saying all this. I worry about our periphery looking in and seeing it all for themselves, and someone above us could potentially have us reprimanded in some way. It’s bad enough to watch Joey, who has to skirt along the shadows without a wedding band on his finger, but at least he was able to find a loophole. At least there are loopholes, but I’m afraid we won’t be able to find a loophole for ourselves.

At the same time, seeing Jeff in the hospital, comatose, ensconced in gauze, and hooked up to machines left my mind in a whir of sorts. There has to be a better way to indulge in these things, to find ways to make love to each other without having to venture out and take advantage of some kind of ambiguity, whatever it may be and away from any prying eyes. I think of the pain in my head, the scar on my skin that bled out into my hair like that of quicksilver. The pain in my head that comes from my heart.

Before I began writing this, I was thinking of my parents. I love them with all my heart. And let me just say that I miss them with all my heart. I miss waking up in my bed.

Maybe I’m just crazy and I’m really a big baby and a dumb kid instead of a pristine young man, but I haven’t been able to say this to someone else before. I genuinely don’t enjoy being a royal: but what if I could be a prince without the strings attached? It’s a question that has haunted me since I learned about the arrangements. If only I could feel the warmth of velvet and silk without feeling like I rule a land of some kind. If this was Israel, then maybe I could let things slide, but this is California and I am wanting to take off my ring so badly right now: it’s itchy and I can tell that Chuck is uncomfortable as well.

This whole thing is leaving me uncomfortable and uneasy, and I know for a fact that it’s leaving him feeling the same way, and in a way that’s a beautiful thing. But nothing could deny the way I feel about you, though. When I’m with you, I forget everything that happened to me. I remember what it really feels like to be a prince and without the strings attached.

I want you the way the flowers want sunshine. I feel myself burning up when I think of you, the flame of the heart, the blood of lust, the blood from the stone. I feel so bloody helpless that I can only think of looking for quiet spots just to talk to you. There has to be a way out of all of this, a way to be away from the world so we could be alone, and I could be back in the safety of the nest again.

We can always laugh about it all. We can always joke about how the guys from Metallica are having to tiptoe around the fact that there’s so much hate surrounding them, and we can always joke that James will be the one who does them in. And you know, now that I think about it, now that I really think and laugh about it, Lou could absolutely pass off as a girl so we could take advantage of that one loophole without really taking advantage of it with possibly Joey’s help.

If only. This is all I can think about is “if only”, and to the point it genuinely makes me sick to my stomach. I want you, and I’m afraid that I’m not allowed to have you. I have a bit of an appetite now but I am always going to want you in particular. If I can’t have you, I want nausea in the worst way possible, torn away from my own heart, my delicate stomach, and the man and woman who brought me into this world.

I’m rambling at this point. I have no clue what I’m really saying, if I’m honest. I never had a chance to unload upon someone else before, and the only one who came close to that point is now in the hospital and resembling to a partial mummy.

I need to kiss you. Please, god, let me kiss you, and hold you, and touch you, and feel you again. I am in agony, in love and in utter agony.

I hope we can lay down together again.

All of my love,

Alex

I rested the pad on my lap and sipped on my coffee.

It was right then I had an idea, and I hoped we could find Joey again.

#like blood from a stone #like blood from a stone fanfic #fanfic #fanfiction #testament fanfic #testament #testament band #possessed #possessed band #alex skolnick #chuck billy #larry lalonde #jeff becerra #angst #also on ao3 #writing #text

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feverinfeveroutfic · 4 months

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like blood from a stone | chapter forty-four

(ao3 title: pity the living, envy for the dead)

a/n: four months in purgatory, let’s gooooooo 🔥🩸

I could scarcely think straight as Larry and I made our way to the hospital. Everything was dark and everything was quiet, and yet everything was brightly lit and deafening all at the same time. I barely knew Jeff but at the same time, I also wondered what would happen if it was me or anyone else.

Who would do this? I asked myself every so often. Who the hell would do this, and to Jeff of all people?

I glanced over at Larry right as he tightened his grip on the rim of the steering wheel. He had not said a word since we had received the news and when we left as well. In fact, by the look on his face, I could sense that he needn't say a word.

If only I had someone who was this tense and nervous should something ever happen to me. To feel that tunnel vision about someone, and to feel the worry that they could lose me. I had that feeling with a few people in my life, and it makes me curious to know if anyone else has felt that way about me before. I held onto the handle over my head and I kept my free hand tucked in my pocket; I was going to the hospital in a sweater that he had lent me and it hung off my body like an empty potato sack, but I wasn't going to complain. Not everyone could be able to go to the hospital in nothing more than shorts on, let alone a long velvet dress that didn't belong to him.

Larry turned the corner and he bounded us into the hospital driveway as if he was Mario Andretti. He parked right before the front doors of the hospital even though I knew full well that was no place to park, but he had barely switched off the car when he ducked out of there and sprinted up to the doors. They slid open and he started to shriek out Jeff's name.

I climbed over the center console into the driver's seat and switched the car back on: Jeff could have sustained a mortal wound to his chest, the last thing Larry needed was to have his car towed. I drove into the rest of the parking lot: because it was later in the evening and most people who had been visiting that day had gone home, there was a whole assortment of spots to take. I slotted the car into the one closest to the front doors of the hospital. I locked it and hurried back to the double doors to fetch Larry and maybe a nurse or two who could tell us both what was happening.

No sooner had I come inside of the front lobby when I caught the sight of a man on a stretcher with a nasty third degree burn on his face and all the way down his neck and shoulder. I covered my own and ducked away from there, and I nearly ran into a doctor carrying one of those big syringes used to draw out bone marrow. The mere sight of it was so bad that I lunged away and towards the front desk across the room. Out of breath, I clutched at myself and looked on at the black haired receptionist in the pale green scrubs, who had a hand to her chest from surprise, probably from me being there all of a sudden.

“Are you okay?” she asked me, slightly concerned.

“Yeah, I think so,” I confessed; the man with the burn was across the room but that smell was unmistakable. I grimaced at it and fanned my face with the side of my hand.

“Yeah, it's bad,” she replied.

“Um, was there a guy who just checked in named Larry?”

“Yeah, he was looking for his husband. He went down to room nineteen thirty-seven. But—” She stopped me before I could go anywhere. “—visiting hours are done for today. No one who isn't family is allowed in there.”

“But I'm a friend, though,” I insisted to her.

“Family only past that point,” she repeated, to which I fetched up a sigh. I had nowhere else to go and I had forgotten where Jeff and Larry lived because it was dark and I was tired as well.

“Alright. When do visiting hours start?”

“Eight o'clock tomorrow morning because it's the weekend, and they go all the way to six o'clock in the evening,” she replied as she turned back away from me for a second to fetch a piece of paper from the printer behind her. She also reached for a jar of some kind of pale yellow foamy liquid, capped off with a plunger. “And—you and I both are going to need this.”

“What's this?” I asked her.

“Lemon juice. It'll get rid of that burnt flesh smell. Lean forward, please—”

I leaned forward and she sprayed some of it over the crown of my head and onto my shoulders. I shook my head about as she gave herself a spritz. I thanked her and doubled back out the front doors whilst I held my breath. I was outside in the fresh air smelling of lemons and with nowhere to go but back to the car, either.

I unlocked it and climbed into the backseat to call it a night. Not my idea of spending the night with some friends, but I had no other choice as I locked the doors to protect myself. I tugged the hood of the sweater over my head and lay down on my side. Not the first time a peasant like myself had to do this, and I was certain it wouldn't be the last as I had no other way into the royalty. I could only hope that Chuck and Alex were on their way come the morning as there was no other way I could do anything from thence forth as I somehow drifted off to sleep in those hard leather seats.

When I awoke the next morning, I woke up with a deep chill in my body and an ache in my hip. I sat up with my head spinning and a full view of the fog outside of the car.

No idea what time it was, or if Larry had even come back to the car at any given point during the night, but I unlocked the back door and slid out of there onto the pavement. I stretched my arms over my head as I recognized Eric and Lou down the sidewalk.

They must have come about before I woke up.

I leaned back to the front seat of the car and turned the key so the clock came on: indeed, it was eight forty-five. I took the key out of the ignition, and I locked the car again, and I tucked the key into my pocket. I still smelled of lemons courtesy of the receptionist but I wasn't going to complain: at least it wasn't smelling of burnt human flesh.

Room nineteen thirty-seven, was what she told me.

I made my way into the corridor, past an old man laying on a stretcher with a tube down his throat and an obstetrician holding a newborn baby in her arms, past the intensive care unit and the cardiologists, and all the while with the stench of chemicals all around me. The view of humanity around me as it died and reincarnated again in such sterile fashion, and I was walking a fine line all the while. But then I spotted the sign off to the right, and I bowed into the room.

There was Jeff, propped into an upright position with a tube down his throat and his long hair tied back from the sides of his face to keep it all away, with a patch of gauze over his chest, out like a light. Larry, who had taken his seat at the foot of his bed, nodded at me; Chuck and Alex were right next to him, huddled down like a couple of emperor penguins.

“There you are,” Larry greeted me in a low voice.

“I slept in the car,” I told him, and he chuckled at that, but I shrugged, defiant. “I forgot the way back to your place and I didn't feel like going all the way back to Chuck and Alex's house. How's he doing, by the way?”

“He's conscious and they stabilized him, but he's still really groggy,” Chuck explained. “Doubt he'll be walking and talking while we're all here.”

“What even happened?” I demanded as I pressed my hands to my hips.

“He got caught in a robbery,” he replied. “At least, that's what the cops said.”

“He caught a bullet in his chest and another one in his neck,” Larry explained. “They were able to get the first one out, but they're thinking he'll have another surgery or two for the one in his neck. It's lodged in there pretty good.”

“Didn't you say he got one in his hand, too?” Alex recalled.

“No, he put up his hand in self defense,” Larry clarified. “You know, like he was ducking down and protecting his face. And it nicked his finger before it went into his throat.”

“Oh, yeah, that's right...”

I craned my neck for a better look at Jeff's right hand down by his hip, bound up in a thick white bandage and kept straight with a bit of plywood. I sighed through my nose. I still wanted to know who would do this to him: I didn't want to think of it as something because of us and the royalty but it was difficult not to think that, however.

“Which means our wedding's probably going to be postponed now,” Larry grumbled, to which he shook his head.

“Well, look at it this way, you've got more time to plan it out,” Chuck pointed out to him.

“Yeah, but...”

“What?”

“I was really looking forward to it,” Larry said in a small voice. “I really do feel it with him and now I'm having to wait. I don't give a flying fuck about the royalty, I just—want him.” He closed his eyes and bowed his head, and Chuck reached over with a hand on his shoulder. I lingered closer to Alex, who gazed up at me with a somber look on his face.

I had to find the right moment to tell Chuck the truth, but I had a feeling that this wouldn't be the day.

And in fact, the four of us were there all morning until around lunchtime when the nurse asked us to leave because of Jeff's surgery. Larry was in shambles, and Alex held up next to him to keep him company for the time being. Meanwhile, I turned to Chuck as he was putting on his leather jacket and running his fingers through his lush black curls: I caught the view of the rings on his fingers, and I couldn't believe I was going to do it.

But I was going to do it anyway.

“You know, I really, really hate to do this,” I told him.

“What?” he asked me, taken aback. I then pursed my lips and turned away from him: no way I could tell him, not with Alex still in earshot.

“Nothing, nothing,” I quipped with a shake of my head. “There's... there's a time and a place for it.” I stepped away from him to make it look as though I was walking after Alex and Larry to the cafeteria on the second floor.

“No, tell me,” he insisted, and he walked closer to me.

“Chuck, we nearly lost a brother,” I quipped to him in a haste. “I don't think for one second that this is the best time for it.”

“Joey, listen to me,” he insisted, slightly out of breath. “We all could die randomly at any time. Whatever is on your mind right now, speak now or forever hold your peace.”

Alex and Larry went ahead, and I found a spot in the corridor where there wasn't things going on, and I turned around to face him. He stopped right before me with his eyebrows raised and his hand on my shoulder.

“I was going to tell you that—” I began, and then I stopped right in my tracks.

“What?”

“I—”

“Yes?”

“I like you,” I said, and the words just came pouring out. “A lot. In fact, I'm inclined to say that I love you. I'm in love with you. I can't live without you.”

I swallowed, and it was hard to swallow as well. I then shook my head and bowed away from him.

“No. No, I'm sorry. I can't. That's not fair to either of us. Not fair to you, to me, to Alex, to—” I could hardly talk. I shook my head again, and I turned away, and I headed back for the double doors of the hospital. My face grew hot with embarrassment, and even though I ran under the vents of air conditioning, I was sweating buckets. I needed to be outside, out in the gray daylight and away from the cold sterility of the hospital.

I ducked outside to the overcast sky overhead with my head tilted back, and my hair strewn back from my head, and my mouth wide open as if I was drowning.

I was drowning.

I was drowning in the worst feeling ever.

I couldn't bear to show my face to him again, at least not in this lifetime.

“Joey!” I thought I could hear his voice. “Joey!”

I ran. I ran as fast as I could away from there. I was going to go back to the house, but then I remembered that I would have to face him and Alex there. I could go to Kirk and Lars' house, but then I would have to deal with the drama over there.

I couldn't go back to Larry and Jeff's place because I had forgotten where they lived; same story with Eric and Lou.

I had nowhere to go. I literally had nowhere to go from thence forth.

“Joey!” His voice shook floorboards, and it shook my bones, even from way off in the distance.

I finally stopped and turned around for a glance back at him as he hurried up to me, completely out of breath.

“I feel terrible, Chuck, I can't,” I sputtered. “I can't! I can't!”

He clasped onto my shoulders, and I held still as a result. It was like two puzzle pieces locking together.

He then leaned into my face with a kiss on my forehead. I never moved a muscle even as the feeling made me so weak at the knees. He then gazed into my face.

“Keep it between you and me,” he whispered into my face. I gazed into those big bright eyes as they glistened back at me through the shadows like the sun through the gray fog right over our heads. In the dim light, I could see the corners of his mouth curl up into a little smile, and then he leaned forward to my face for another kiss, that time on my lips. I closed my eyes and held still as I relished in the feeling.

Chuck let me go and, right as I opened my eyes, he closed his, and then he bowed his head.

“There has to be another way,” he confessed to me.

“Yeah, there—there has to be,” I sputtered out. He raised his head and looked into my eyes once again.

“Should I go back to the house?” I asked him in a low voice.

“No. It's too far. Alex and I'll drive you home later. But in the meantime, let's get something to eat.” He then put his arm around me and guided me back to the hospital. I had no idea as to how long we would be there, but I had a feeling that it wouldn't for long as Jeff stared down another round of anesthesia.

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