Not Your Average Hero

•26• astroboy

"You look terrible!" I said; because I can't seem to keep my mouth shut, and sad people made me nervous.

Skyler snapped out of his trance, and looked me over with wide eyes. After a few seconds, he knocked over his chair while in the process of running to me, and took my face in both of his hands. He was kissing me before I could blink. It wasn't like the first time; there seemed to be more emotion in this one. When I put my hands on his cheeks, they were wet. And warm.

"I thought I lost you." He whispered, he placed his forehead on mine, interlocking our fingers.

"Why?" I whispered.

He placed two hands on my shoulders and took a step back, to inspect me again. He looked as though he was about to say something, gulped, shook his head and closed his mouth. His eyes stopped on my blood-soaked shirt, and he winced. "You're alive and that's all that matters." He pulled me into another hug.

"Where's Sterling and Anderson?" I asked, hoping to wiggle out of his snake-like grip.

Skyler pulled back, and grinned. "They're healing Alden."

"Alden?" My voice cracked; I didn't hallucinate him. He wasn't some disgusting trick Cyrus played on me. Alden really is alive.

Skyler lead me down the hallway, still holding onto my hand as if when he let go, I would disappear. I didn't complain. We stopped in front of the room I was in the first time we were in Anderson's base.

Alden was lying on the bed, in a deep sleep, Anderson was checking the monitors, and Sterling- he was holding Aldens hand, rubbing his thumb over his knuckles.

I looked at Skyler, and he looked at me. He mouthed 'I know!' As if he could read my thoughts.

I wondered if it was a Lawson-Amaris relationship, or if Alden was keeping secrets from us. Then I thought about how Alden and his old roommate kept sending each other glances that, I thought, held a bit more than friendship.

Skyler cleared his throat, and Sterling turned to look at us. There was pained look in his eyes. "Skyler, I know you miss her, we all do, but don't you think it's a little psychotic to build a replica robot of her? This isn't Astro Boy, man."

"What do you mean, we all miss her?" I asked, narrowing my eyes; Sterling jumped at the sound of my voice.

Skyler looked at Sterling with alarm, and shook his head, but Sterling ignored him. "You're dead-" he trailed off.

I looked at Skyler. "What's he talking about?" I asked; he winced.

"This can't be happening right now." Sterling mumbled, "I'm going crazy already."

"We tried to get you here as fast as we could, Sterling and I. When Anderson saw you, I thought he was going to kill us." Skyler looked nervously at Anderson as he starred at our interlocked hands, his eyebrow twitching ever so slightly. Skyler didn't let go, but he squeezed tighter. "He brought you to a room to preform surgery, he tried to fix you up-" he wiped a tear away, "but we got there too late. He told us you lost too much blood- that you died."

"Oh-" I mumbled, "I'm sorry."

His golden eyes seemed to glow as were staring into mine. "you were so cold." He shivered recalling the memory, "your eyes were glazed over- there wasn't a pulse."