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Don’t. Don’t. Don’t.
Don’t think. No speech. No feeling in his fingers, fuzz in his toes. A hand is on his arm. An arm around his chest. Don’t let them get. Don’t. They deserve it. Ray would do the same for him. Any of them would.
Michael wakes with a start, a cold sweat holding him with soft hands. Ray’s hands.
A bed. Nothing else. His shirt is soaked in blood.
“We…” Michael starts, but realises he doesn’t know how to say the rest of his words.
“I thought you were dead.”
Ray doesn’t sound happy. Doesn’t look happy. Looks like shit, actually. How many hours has it been?
“Have you slept?” Michael asks, shifting in Ray’s arms to lean against the wall. He can’t feel his right arm. It was pressed between him and something in his sleep.
“No. Don’t move that. It’s broken.”
Michael looks at the floor. Nothing is broken
. Ray gives him a look.
“What?”
“Your arm. They broke it.”
Michael screws up his nose. He can’t really feel anything. He can see his legs but he’s not sure they exist.
He looks at Ray’s hands. They’re wrapped around his. Knuckles are white.
“I’m alive, right?” Michael asks. “Am I warm?”
Ray blinks a few times. Looks away and back. Nothing’s changed.
“You’re alive,” he says, as close to death as Michael is, was. Was. Was. He’s not. Not going. Can’t. Ray isn’t going to cry again.
Michael watches the tears gather, but they don’t fall. He reaches up to wipe the water away. His thumb doesn’t work. What’s up with that. His hand won’t move. A fiery pain travels from his spine to his wrist in a second, but it dies there. Fuck. He still can’t feel anything.
“I have to,” Michael starts and doesn’t finish. He pushes away from the wall with his shoulder and slides from the bed. The metal box that’s nailed to the floor that’s pretending to be something.
Ray would watch but he’s terrified seeing will make it real. He wants Geoff. Jack. Anyone. No one. He knows if anyone tried to save them anyone would be dead.
Michael is still trying to stand. Ray knows his legs are broken beyond repair. Even Jack can’t fix nerves. He’ll never walk again.
Michael gives up. Michael doesn’t want to cry. Michael is broken.
Fuck AspenTech. Fuck Elm Street. Fuck the deal and the dudes and especially fuck Dan Gruchy. Fuck Gavin, a little bit. Dumbass. Dumbass. Dumbass.
Ray still wants someone to come through that door, but no one will. No one is here. Michael is broken. Ray is empty. There is no savior. There is no Crew.
They are alone.