Asystole ✷ Mark Sloan

𝟬𝟯𝟯 bad idea right?

I pressed my lips together, frowning as she staggered down the sidewalk, barely even able to keep herself upright. Her hands numbly fumbled against the wall of the nightclub we'd just exited, lips parting only to let out brief but crude swear words.

Ever so often, she'd sway as if she was about to faceplant the floor; I'd draw forwards as if tugged on a string, ready to catch her. She'd bat me away like an annoying insect.

"B-Beth."

I could barely even make out my name as she stopped all together, opting to collapse against the wall. The syllables were a slurred mess, barely more than a jumbled exhaled. Her pale face swung around to stare at me, gaunt and spotted with a rough night.

"We-We should go back inside."

I shook my head. "No way," I glanced over her, towards the road, catching sight of our taxi that was waiting for us at the curb. "We've got to go."

It'd been Derek's idea.

He'd urged me to go out for a Friday night, to follow Amy down whatever rabbit hole she fell down every weekend. He'd reasoned with me that it'd be a perfect celebration for the end of my first year; I'd been worked my ass off for months on end and hadn't had a night off in a long while. (Celebrate. Celebrate. Celebrate.)

But it wasn't graduation, hardly a reason for celebration. And there'd been an unsaid message too. Handle her, get her in a taxi before she wandered off into the dead of night, help me get her back into rehab.

We'd hatched a plan to get Amy back in the Hamptons by tomorrow— I was following through with my part and it was getting harder by the minute.

Oddly childlike, Amy grovelled against the wall, eyes rolling back into her skull as she let out the odd misshapen giggle amongst her moans. She was having a form of tantrum, limbs flailing as she slowly descended down the bricks.

I stopped beside her, letting out a long breath.

"Amy-"

A foot kicked out. A pair of unfocused eyes chased thousands of me across the alleyway.

"Ouch- fuck-" I swore, grasping my shin and staring at her, shocked. I was momentarily stunned, caught off-guard by Amy's moment of violence— she expectedly wobbled to her feet, readying herself to make a break for it— "Not on my watch—"

I've fucking had it.

I wrapped my arms tightly around her, gagging on the pungent smell of a woman whose really not had that great of a time. Amy floundered against my grasp, letting out a whine that was reminiscent of a toddler. Nails clawed weakly against my arm.

Remind me to never get a cat.

"Let me go—"

"No."

"-Beth-"

"No."

I began walking rapidly towards the curb, doing my best to drag Amy in the view of where I knew we'd be able to get help— I was a good ten staggers towards the taxi when the people occupying our taxi cab caught sight.

Within moments, the door was flung open and Derek was rapidly walking towards us.

Blearily, Amy's eyes fixed on me. "Motherfuc-"

"Beth, is she okay?"

Derek sounded out-of-breath, as if the short run from the taxi had been a marathon. I couldn't quite make out an answer, just a guttural grunt as Amy's arm bent to partially block my wind pipe in protest.

"You called my brother?!-"

My brief stint as a gym bunny (a career that began and ended in the last week of my college year to get some of those promised and scarce endorphins) seemed to pay off. I shoved Amy towards her brother and she actually fell to her knees, caught off-guard by my sudden release.