1999
"It has been one hundred and eighty-nine days."
It always started the same way. The doctors, the nurses, the healers gave him updates. They did not even bother eying him warily any longer. He answered formally, politely, to each and every one, even though they were the same. No change. He came anyway, and sat down, and spoke.
Mike Chase did not wake up.
He was in better form than he would have been, in a muggle hospital; they kept him clean, shaved, fed and hydrated here with minimal invasion. There was no worry here for bedsores thanks to simple levitation spells, cushioning Mike a fraction above his bed, like sleeping on a cloud. He was slightly thinner from lost muscle mass, but he was essentially healthy in most ways. His nerve tests all were positive; his body reacted the way it was supposed to. He required no artificial airways.
Essentially healthy in most ways. No one was certain about the other ways.
"Everyone is all right. Perhaps not always perfectly all right, but they are alive and functioning. Ray sends his regards. Drew says you should, and I quote, 'wake the fuck up already.' I told him your eyebrow would answer, if it could."
Guy paused, and then rubbed his eyes, nudging his sunglasses up to do it.
"Your mandrake misses you. She visited this morning. I think she must know that I come here to see you. She even patted my arm like you do. You should be proud of me: I did not recoil and go 'yyeeeeee'."
It always started the same way. Guy talked, and then sat in silence for awhile, then talked more. Updating Mike on everything. It was a rare day that went by when Guy wasn't here, but Guy spoke anyway, in the hopes -- not vain, they are not vain -- that something would get through. The wizards and witches staffing this hospital had even stopped recoiling at a vampire biting one of their patients when Renfield quite nearly exploded on them the first time when they went to attack. Guy bit him often, though he rarely fed from it.
Mike's mind was as silent as his body.
No one, not even the most talented of doctors, knew if he would wake. How badly his brain was damaged by Manny's scream in the Deatheater camp. His beeswax earplugs saved him from death, but no one knew if there was even a man left in the still form on the bed.
No. Guy knew. He simply refused to believe anything else.
"Your house is fine. I sprayed a hornet's nest off of the corner of the porch for you. Mercifully, they did not realize I was the culprit and come after me. I should have liked to capture a number of them and apparate them into the certain cell blocks, but I refrained. Myra was disappointed in my discretion, even when I informed her that you would not approve. Perhaps because I informed her you would not approve. I do not know."
The sunlight slanted across the floor down the way. Mike's bed, thankfully, was in shadow right now; normally, it caught the morning sun through charmed windows, meant to let light in without causing sunburns. Now, in the evening, it was quieter and cooler.
Guy carefully pulled up the soft, flannel blanket and tucked it in. Some nights, he even crawled under it, pulling Mike in against him and holding him until the morning sun forced him out again.
Some nights, he curled up around Mike Chase simply so he would not lose some essence of himself out of the deep, invisible wound he still felt below his breastbone, the one he gained that night.
For him. For Myra.
Now, he leaned over and pressed his lips to Mike's forehead, closing his eyes tight against the swell of grief. When he bit the man, it was not the feeling he wanted burning down the seemingly dead connection.
Instead, he whispered, "I miss you with every breath."
The sun slanted further, before he could move. Breathe again, even around that invisible wound. Center his mind, call forth what it was he wanted to project into the darkness, in hopes of sparking a light.
Forests; trees and green and gold sun, dredged from old memories of his own. Fields; night and cold, the bounding of deer in the dark. Water; the flow and ebb of time, a branch in eddies and spinning, before righting to drift further down river. The house. The detachment. The cruiser. The amusement and pride of watching Mike fishing, and ranting at the one who got away. The warmth of any number of borrowed beds. The high excitement and rush of eluding the aurors, the dark wizards, the informants to get their charges over the border; the mischievous glee, fierce and bright, when their enemies underestimated them yet again.
Their first and last kiss, stolen in the moments before battle.
All of Guy's love, open-hearted, unfettered. All of his longing.
So sunk into giving it all, it was only as he was ready to pull back again that he felt it.
Something warm in the dark.
"It has been one hundred and eighty-nine days."
It always started the same way. The doctors, the nurses, the healers gave him updates. They did not even bother eying him warily any longer. He answered formally, politely, to each and every one, even though they were the same. No change. He came anyway, and sat down, and spoke.
Mike Chase did not wake up.
He was in better form than he would have been, in a muggle hospital; they kept him clean, shaved, fed and hydrated here with minimal invasion. There was no worry here for bedsores thanks to simple levitation spells, cushioning Mike a fraction above his bed, like sleeping on a cloud. He was slightly thinner from lost muscle mass, but he was essentially healthy in most ways. His nerve tests all were positive; his body reacted the way it was supposed to. He required no artificial airways.
Essentially healthy in most ways. No one was certain about the other ways.
"Everyone is all right. Perhaps not always perfectly all right, but they are alive and functioning. Ray sends his regards. Drew says you should, and I quote, 'wake the fuck up already.' I told him your eyebrow would answer, if it could."
Guy paused, and then rubbed his eyes, nudging his sunglasses up to do it.
"Your mandrake misses you. She visited this morning. I think she must know that I come here to see you. She even patted my arm like you do. You should be proud of me: I did not recoil and go 'yyeeeeee'."
It always started the same way. Guy talked, and then sat in silence for awhile, then talked more. Updating Mike on everything. It was a rare day that went by when Guy wasn't here, but Guy spoke anyway, in the hopes -- not vain, they are not vain -- that something would get through. The wizards and witches staffing this hospital had even stopped recoiling at a vampire biting one of their patients when Renfield quite nearly exploded on them the first time when they went to attack. Guy bit him often, though he rarely fed from it.
Mike's mind was as silent as his body.
No one, not even the most talented of doctors, knew if he would wake. How badly his brain was damaged by Manny's scream in the Deatheater camp. His beeswax earplugs saved him from death, but no one knew if there was even a man left in the still form on the bed.
No. Guy knew. He simply refused to believe anything else.
"Your house is fine. I sprayed a hornet's nest off of the corner of the porch for you. Mercifully, they did not realize I was the culprit and come after me. I should have liked to capture a number of them and apparate them into the certain cell blocks, but I refrained. Myra was disappointed in my discretion, even when I informed her that you would not approve. Perhaps because I informed her you would not approve. I do not know."
The sunlight slanted across the floor down the way. Mike's bed, thankfully, was in shadow right now; normally, it caught the morning sun through charmed windows, meant to let light in without causing sunburns. Now, in the evening, it was quieter and cooler.
Guy carefully pulled up the soft, flannel blanket and tucked it in. Some nights, he even crawled under it, pulling Mike in against him and holding him until the morning sun forced him out again.
Some nights, he curled up around Mike Chase simply so he would not lose some essence of himself out of the deep, invisible wound he still felt below his breastbone, the one he gained that night.
For him. For Myra.
Now, he leaned over and pressed his lips to Mike's forehead, closing his eyes tight against the swell of grief. When he bit the man, it was not the feeling he wanted burning down the seemingly dead connection.
Instead, he whispered, "I miss you with every breath."
The sun slanted further, before he could move. Breathe again, even around that invisible wound. Center his mind, call forth what it was he wanted to project into the darkness, in hopes of sparking a light.
Forests; trees and green and gold sun, dredged from old memories of his own. Fields; night and cold, the bounding of deer in the dark. Water; the flow and ebb of time, a branch in eddies and spinning, before righting to drift further down river. The house. The detachment. The cruiser. The amusement and pride of watching Mike fishing, and ranting at the one who got away. The warmth of any number of borrowed beds. The high excitement and rush of eluding the aurors, the dark wizards, the informants to get their charges over the border; the mischievous glee, fierce and bright, when their enemies underestimated them yet again.
Their first and last kiss, stolen in the moments before battle.
All of Guy's love, open-hearted, unfettered. All of his longing.
So sunk into giving it all, it was only as he was ready to pull back again that he felt it.
Something warm in the dark.