Rolling, churning, tumbling, and falling helplessly into the deepest, darkest pit of nothingness I had ever experienced. There was no up or down, no noise, even the invisible ringing of silence was gone. It was just like being underwater, a stuffy feeling packing around my ears with no space for anything else. Panic roiled in waves and vivid curls inside my stomach as I felt myself drifting further away. Where was I? Where was this, this endless void? The darkness was so stifling and intrusive, every limb, every tiny millimetre of my being encased in the choking nothingness. I was helpless, completely and utterly still as my muscles felt like loose flabby tentacles that had ceased to function. It seemed to carry me, dragging me under, forcing me to stay away from any glimmer of hope of revival. Help! My mind screamed futilely. Someone… anyone… help me! The blackness seemed to press further, curving perfectly to my body, sinking into every pore. I didn’t feel as if I was breathing; only thick and inky black swallowed me, completely immersing me in its depths.
I was lost.
Am I dead? Is this death?
It can’t be… I’m still breathing… I think. I’m still thinking,
I could feel the satin silk of the blackness sliding smoothly over my fingertips, ensuring me I was in fact still alive. At least that was something. Rolling over my body in lulling waves and eddies the silence caressed my naked limbs with an ease that sent shivers of nervousness across my ‘body’. I couldn’t see anything, couldn’t hear anything but still felt a stuffy sensation in my ears. The only assurance that I was even able to sense anything was the metallic taste on my tongue. Why was I here? What the hell was this place? Had something happened to me… something bad? I didn’t remember… only immeasurable pain, pain that crushed me from every angle, pinning me down only to twist and knife it’s way though every sane thought and every drop of blood bleeding through my veins; then this… nothingness. I didn’t know how long it had been, days, weeks, months… years? I was merely trapped in this dire excuse for existence, craving release, tears refusing to cast themselves from blind eyes. I wasn’t even sure if I was still sane… was this some trick my own mind was playing? Am I trapped inside my own head? Is this finally what has happened, I really have gone crazy? I wouldn’t doubt it.
I didn’t want this! I didn’t want to be stuck here like this, forced into an existence that could barely be classified as life, if it’s even what this was. I had no idea anymore…
Something suddenly glimmered in the distance… a tiny spark, like a glint of a mirror reflecting sunlight. Hey! Hey is somebody there? Hello! Can you hear me? My voice refused to work, lax muscles merely drifting hopelessly. As soon as it appeared it went, I almost thought imagining it, until it happened again, bigger, brighter. HELLO! Accel? Ace is that you? Someone tell me where I am! God, please! Please! Help me! HELLO! There has to be someone there… HAS to…I can’t be dead… I can’t be alone! It’s not fair… it’s not right…
I’M NOT GOING TO DIE!
Blinding light speared through the shadows until they shrivelled and whirled in a panic to escape, smoky wisps thriving in desperation as they burned before my new found sight. Feeling returned to me, the black tendrils releasing me like they had been scorched with fire as light touched them. Breath slammed into my chest and I gasped, crying out in indescribable agony when pain tore through every cell in my being. I couldn’t think straight, could barely even focus on what I should be feeling; shocked, angry, hurt? The knifing pain was so overwhelming. Staining the bleach white, clouding it similar to coloured dye unfolding through water, a smoky element wisping the edges, deep scarlet slowly blossomed in front of my suddenly sharpened vision. The pain intensified, narrowing to a screaming burn on the right side of my chest. Glancing downwards with a strangled cry I watched as an invisible hand carved a rough line over my chest.
Oh my fucking god, why is this happening? Argh! I cried silently, my voice breaking until no sound exited my lungs.
The line was thin, but messy, slashed even, as if an invisible entity was speeding through the mutilating of my body. I screamed, the sound echoing endlessly in the white, breaking the silence so abruptly my ears rang with the noise. To stop the hurt and the butcher like cutting of my flesh, my hands flew to my naked chest, attempting to stem the flow. Still the invisible knife dove deeper, the strokes becoming faster until finally it pulled away and I forced myself to look again.
No… no… No… I don’t understand! Why?
There, on once white skin lay the jagged carving of a heart, its edges dark crimson and straight slashes of the cruellest kind. I whimpered as I stared at it, watching in horror as it began to fade, sinking into my chest, the edges knitting together slowly, almost impossible to see, until it had completely disappeared. I was left clutching at the clean skin, scratching at it as if trying to dig the sadistic carving from my body.
Where is it! Where did it go? Oh god… oh god… where am I? What is this? Are you there? Hello! Anyone!
“Hello!” I yelled, stinging tears tracing down my cheeks, my voice straining and breaking. “Anyone? Please! Please! Help me please! ACCEL! ACE!”
What did I do? Why do I deserve this! Am I being punished… Is God punishing me? No… no I didn’t do anything wrong! I loved him! I love him now… I need him now…
“Ace please… please is you can hear me, I want to go home and be with you… I need you,” I whispered, the tears rolling over bloodstained cheeks, only to peel away, hanging like melted crystals in the air, “I don’t want to die!”
The feeling of weightlessness suddenly lifted from my stomach. A nauseating tightness replaced it, as if the same hand that had moments before mutilated my chest, suddenly clenched my insides with an iron fist.
“Wha-” I began, but was cut off as with a sudden wrench I began to fall, plunging faster and faster downwards until I was speeding towards god knows what. I was screaming as the white began to flicker to black again, faster and faster until it was dancing like a checkerboard in front of my mind. Wind plastered my hair back and I struggled to keep my eyes open against the onslaught, the flashing lights surrounding me hypnotizing me until it felt like I was being dragged by a bullet train down a living optical illusion. Helplessly I screamed, begging, pleading for it to stop, the terrifying vertigo causing my head to spin in circles, the lights sending me into a hypnotic trance. I couldn’t focus, couldn’t breathe, it was all becoming too much.
Then everything stopped.
***
The black dragged on for an eternity, a soft drone becoming louder and louder in the dark, until it felt like a bomb siren was blasting inside my eardrums. Screaming, the sound was lost in the mind shattering noise, a twist in the core of my gut, lurching me downwards in the time it took to blink.
With a slam my body crashed into warmth, the world I was in shattering into a million pieces with the sound of glass breaking fading into a another blinding flash of light. It scattered before my eyes, dozens of sounds slamming into my mind, images taking shape before my eyes, the metallic taste intensifying tenfold and the rough feel of sheets caressing my skin.
“… awake! Andrew…”
The voices faded when I blinked, before snapping into a sharp focus as soon as my lids lifted, my eyes desperately seeking some kind of physical being.
“AJ!” a voice yelled. Something warm clasped around my arm and my head rolled weakly in that direction, my mind dizzy and disorientated.
A-ace? My mind croaked, my mouth trying to form words but failed as a bulky and plastic object filled my mouth. Where… What? I don’t understand… how did I get here… where was I? That place… where am I now?
Clouds of pain seemed to bloom across my body, every part of me hurt and I moaned, a stinging tear rolling from the corner of my eye. It coursed like poison through my veins, arching my body as my hands fisted and twisted in what felt like sheet covers to escape the white fire in my chest. I gasped horrendously loud when a loud crash sounded in the background.
Fuck! Arghhh! I couldn’t think straight… my body writhing beyond control until I felt firm grips forcing me still, restraining my hurt being. My head was forced straight and although my eyes could barely focus, I stopped breathing for a second.
Accel…
“…Andrew… AJ! Baby? Princess…! HEY! Come on… I need you to stop moving for me. Please stop! Stop! Andrew! Fuck… stay still dammit!” His mouth was moving, his perfect lips shaping words I couldn’t understand, I was too entranced by his eyes, his teeth, his skin, his hair… just him. The pain seemed to disappear as I gazed numbly, becoming irrelevant. He was everything… everything! How did I ever doubt it? So perfect… my mind whimpered. My limbs fell still, the grip of hands releasing me, the last echoes of pain falling from my mind. He was swallowing me whole in his eyes; I was drowning and helpless to stop it… I didn’t want to stop it. Every cell in my being seemed to narrow down to this moment, blocking out the rest of the world, dulling it in comparison to him. He seemed to drift in front of me like some kind of angel cast from heaven, his frantic movements and deep concern riddling his beautiful features of no importance to me as I reached up towards him, clasping my hands weakly around his warm neck. His warmth, his solidity… the fact that he was really here, that he was breathing, that I was seeing him again, actually feeling his skin beneath my fingertips completely overwhelmed me. I nearly lost him…I may have never seen his face again, never got to hear him tell me he loves me… he needs me… … ever again. I nearly died for fucks sake! A drip tugged on my arm, other plastic tentacles trailing from different parts of my body, but I ignored them all. They were nothing, irrelevant.
His hands brushed the tears from my cheeks, brushing hair from my eyes, a foreign pair of hands removing the tubes from my airway. It still hurt, every part of my body was a dull ache, but that’s all it was. Dull. Dull because Accel was the brilliance erasing every thought, chasing away all the clouds to let the rainbows shine. Not that that sounded corny or anything… People were talking in the background but that was irrelevant, in fact their voices were like an annoying buzz in my head compared to the lilting of his voice as he repeated my name over and over again, his hands gripping my head, pushing my hair back, tracing my lips, my cheeks, my eyelashes. I could only focus on what he was saying. I had to, to believe that this was reality; that I wasn’t in some kind of make shift heaven. That he wasn’t going to disappear as soon as my hands fell away. He leaned down into me, burying his head between my neck and pillow, heavy breaths warming my skin, his dark, sensual smell sending me on a roller coaster of memories. Memories that seemed so far away now; so distant even though it felt like only yesterday. Why? Why aren’t they clear?
“A-ace…” my lips formed, my breath to weak to push the voice from my dry throat. I don’t know whether he could simply sense I needed him or whether he just pulled away at the right second, but water was trickling between my lips in seconds. I could tell people were moving around the bed, that there were other people in the room. I didn’t want them there. I wanted them to leave, so I could talk to him, kiss him, tell him everything. To cling to him, melt into his body so I was trapped in a prison of ribs and lungs. So I could feel him, here him, be with him for every second. I couldn’t tell him though, not yet anyway. Oh how desperately I wanted to, but my body refused to function. Just fucking work! I wanted to scream at it, but instead my arms just fell limply by my sides.
“I’m not leaving him!” I heard Accel speaking in the distance, my eyes still completely fixated on him as he turned to face another person, just drinking him in, “I’m not leaving this room.”
“I’m sorry, you can’t stay in this room whether you like it not. I’m asking you to leave. Next time I won’t ask,” the stranger said sternly.
No… don’t leave…
“Oh Fuck OFF. You can do whatever the hell you do in the same room as me. I’m staying.”
Yeah.
“I’ll give you the next five seconds to remove yourself from the room or I will call security.”
What?
“Call your fucking security then. I’ll kick all their asses and then take you down. How many times do I have to say it to get it through your dumb face? I’m not leaving Andrew.” I felt his hand grip my arm tightly, a little painfully but I couldn’t care less. He was touching me and that’s where I wanted him.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw a short, thin woman with her hair pulled into a tight bun walk over to a switch on the wall and press a large green button. She spoke into the wall for a second before smiling thinly at Accel. I could almost hear Ace growling. Shutting my eyes I reached up and squeezed his hand, ignoring the burning in my chest. Electric green met my eyes and I smiled weakly letting my eyes roll towards the door and flicker back up at him. Please… you’ll get hurt or something… and I can’t take that… not now.
Please Ace. It was for his own safety.
“Like HELL,” he spoke harshly to me, instead climbing into the bed and sliding around until somehow he was half buried beneath me. What the HELL!? Get OUT of the bed! OUT!
I tried to nudge him repeatedly with my shoulder but the pain was so intense I whimpered softly. Instantly lips were at my neck, soft kisses sending tingles down my spine. “Shhh. I won’t leave you.”
Dammit.
“What do you think you’re doing?!” the lady practically screeched as she saw the two of us.
“Hugging my boyfriend,” Accel answered snappily, hugging me so gently I could barely feel it. I could practically feel the irritation exuding from his body. The lady froze at his words, clearing her throat in shock. Her mouth was almost a perfect ‘o’. A tiny sigh escaped my mouth as inside I burst out laughing. AS if to prove his point Ace leant over and landed one on my mouth, the firm pressure of his kiss had me melting in seconds. Screw everything else, how could I have survived without THIS. His tongue worked miracles on my nerves and I moaned lightly when he pulled away, staring mischievously over at the lady. “Problem?” he asked causally, licking his lips.
I swear she nearly fainted on the spot. She would have if the door hadn’t swung open and the biggest, ripped body builder walked through the door at that moment. “Security?” he questioned, sizing up the two of us and narrowing his eyes at Accel.
“Oh the fucking irony,” I heard him breath against my neck before stiffening and pulling himself out of the bed.
“Come on. Out,” the human boulder motioned, shifting his bicep. Accel stared him down warily, before squaring himself and lifting his chin.
“No. I’m staying with AJ.” I wanted to cry at his words. You fucking IDIOT, just LEAVE!
“Alright kid. Let’s go.”
The guy grabbed Accel’s arm and pulled him towards the door.
Great.
***
Fifteen minutes later and another security guard, this one less ‘I-just-fell-off-the-side-of-a-cliff-in-human-form’ like, Ace was finally out of the room and more nurses entered. Personally I was impressed at the fight he put up. Not that I should be surprised or anything. I mean, it is Accel. Twenty more long minutes later and they were done, leaving the room. Still, Accel didn’t return, instead a middle aged man with a turtle like neck, no hair and think framed glasses shuffled into the room. Reading off his clipboard, I was asked to verify a series of questions and describe what I remembered. Numbly I did so, flashes of the incident coming back, also with a deep unsettling feeling that it wasn’t over. The questions seemed to drag on forever, until suddenly they ceased, the man simply snapping his folder shut and shuffling back out of the room. As soon as the door was about to hit the doorframe, Ace burst back in.
“Did they do anything? What did they do? Are you hurt? You’re fine right? They better not have fucking hurt you or I’m go-”
“I’m fine…” I breathed exhaustedly. I felt so drained, even blinking was an effort. “Just tired.”
A strange look crossed his face at that moment before it cleared and he smiled.
Did he look guilty? What?
Don’t be an idiot… oh shit ow.
I winced as I accidentally stretched the massive wound in my chest.
“How long was I out of it?” I whispered quietly, shutting my eyes and relaxing back on hard pillow.
“Three days,” Accel said harshly, however when I opened my eyes to meet his the green was swimming with concern and regret. Three days? Wow.
“Three days!” I repeated, shocked.
“Yeah. When you got sho- … when the bullet entered… it pierced one of your lungs, shattered and fragments were lodged everywhere. They said you were pretty lucky to survive.” He paused for a moment. “If any went in your heart you could’ve di-” he stopped, his breath catching, before he looked away from me, staring at the floor. “It would’ve been bad.”
I swallowed, also avoiding his eyes. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. He nodded once, a heavy silence descending on the room. It stretched on forever, until I thought it was either going to kill one of us or Accel would leave the room.
Finally he glanced towards me, reaching over and grabbing my face firmly between his hands, forcing me to look at him. “Just promise me, PROMISE me, you won’t ever do anything as fucking stupid as that again,” he spoke harshly, pressing his forehead against my own until his eyelashes were nearly touching mine, our lips merely millimetres apart. “I nearly lost you Andrew; I never might have seen you again. I nearly watched you take your last breaths in that ambulance and all you say is ‘sorry’. PROMISE ME you will never, ever, even CONSIDER doing anything that reckless ever again!”
With a raging fury he pushed forwards, catching my lips with his so quickly I barely had time to draw breath. Passionately he plundered them, caressing, rubbing, the pressure of the velvet soft skin spinning fireworks through my mind. I had no energy left to resist, I simply lay there, immobilised completely by the fire slowly burning through my body as over and over his tongue stroked the sensitive nerves. God… I wanted to moan aloud but his lips remained fused perfectly to my own, not allowing an inch of space between us. Finally when he pulled away, all I could do was lie back in pure bliss, wondering he stopped.
I sighed heavily, savouring the coffee like flavour lacing my lips. Why can’t I just be perfect… I wondered, staring deep into his eyes, my fingers gaining the strength to slowly feather through his raven strands, everything would be so much easier.
“I just want to protect you,” Accel whispered softly into the air between us, “I can’t lose you. I won’t.”
Closing my eyes against his words I merely sunk backwards into the bed.
I know.