by; takesguts
Love is not a victory march; it's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah.
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Picking the lock is kind of a blur to Mickey.
Vaguely, he recalls the mechanics of it - twisting, fumbling, jittering then click, yes, and the door was opened. But he doesn't recall finding the apartment; there's flashbacks of waiting outside, watching the guy with sandy colored hair and too white of teeth exiting the building, but he can't remember how he found the right door.
Now he's railing lines of bars off the bathroom counter and there's blood everywhere.
"Fuck," he remarks, laughing at himself, but it feels far away. Like he's watching it on replay, at a low volume.
The card slips over the dollar bill, sending half the pill across the counter. When he reaches for it, his hand feels heavy and curling his fingers to grab at the cut pill takes all of his body weight.
His septum is blown, swollen and sore, in his left nostril. It burns when he snorts the first half, and he swears out loud again for forgetting. The corners of his vision are blurring, swirling, and somewhere in his mind he thinks he might vomit. When he swallows, his throat is dry and thick, coated with something toxic, and he remembers to use his right nostril when he does the second half of the line.
The bathroom itself is pretty boring - neutral colors, an average faux tiled countertop that will stain rust with the way Mickey's nose is bleeding all over. In the corner of the room there's a laptop, smashed and bent from his feet, the porcelain on the tub scuffed from how he kicked the computer repeatedly against it.
On his phone there's fourteen missed calls from Ian, and a number of texts on his notifications that Mickey can't comprehend.
He doesn't want it, any of it.
"I don't want it," he says to himself, out loud and slurring, tongue heavy.
Shards of glass are sticking out of his hand, and forearms; the sound the mirror made when shattered reverberated in his skull, made his ears ring. The screen on his phone is no longer clear or readable. He can't feel the way the glass is piercing his skin, nor the slide of his spine against the wall when his legs give out.
There really is so much blood.
Stomach rolling, he slips further down the wall, onto his side.
There's blood in his nose, his mouth, pouring from his arms.
An average human heart beat is anywhere from sixty to a hundred beats per minute; Mickey remembers Ian telling him one night when he first started his EMT training, late at night, excited and breathless. Mickey's is too accelerated, he can feel it in the sides of his throat. His body is working harder, for some reason.
The minutes between his breaths are slower, and he gasps for air at one point, startling himself.
"Who are you?"
A woman's voice, somewhere behind him, maybe, off to the side.
"Who are you, oh god, are you okay? Dude, are you - "
Somewhere in the room, there's a lady calling an ambulance and his mouth works to tell her no, he's fine, but no sound is coming out.
Another voice - a man's, he's yelling, then putting pressure over his wrists.
One hundred and thirty one, one hundred and thirty two, thirty three -
Eyelids slipping closed, he exhales slowly, is helpless to the way it makes his lungs burn.
"Heartbeat," he garbles, laughing weakly - another shaking breath, "one forty - "
It hurts, his pulse, his heart.