Work Text:
The pain was so blinding that Ford almost collapsed to the ground the second he woke up. It lanced through his head, burning and unending, throbbing through his skull. As he braced his knees and sucked in ragged gasps of air, Ford reached up to feel at his head where the pain was at its most acute.
There was blood trickling down his face, warm and thin. He could feel it trailing down to his chin. A lot of blood. Head wounds bled heavily.
The pain bloomed anew the second his fingers brushed against the edge of a wound, and Ford almost crumpled again. For that brief second before he yanked his fingers away, he thought he felt something hard. Bone, perhaps.
Had Bill cracked his skull in?
Ford attempted to straighten up, blearily looking around the room—his bedroom, he realized. He patted around his torso; his coat was still on, the journal still in one of the inner pockets. Good, good.
He swayed in place, his legs weak. The pain pounded at his head, and he struggled to think, to plan.
A curse was torn out of him as the pain around his temple was joined by a sudden horrible burn of pain at the back of his head, just above the nape of his neck. He clapped a hand there. It was worse, somehow. How was it worse?
He tried to think, tried desperately. He hurt so badly it was all his mind could process. He could feel panic working its way through him.
How bad was the injury?
Were there more?
What had Bill done?
Could he fix it?
God, it hurt. It hurt.
How did he stop it? Did he have any medication that he hadn’t thrown out in a fit of fear that Bill would send him into an overdose?
How did he stop this?
His breathing came faster until they sounded more like sobs. He could barely stand, but he needed to get out of this room, needed to keep working on a solution. To the pain, to the weak spots in his defenses, to Bill.
If he could just move, he could work. If he could work, he could plan. If he could plan, he could fix this.
He just needed to move.
His head hurt. The world was tilting, blurring. It was so hard to cling on to thoughts, it felt like it was impossible to think.
Except—even as the pain blinded him, dissolved anything else but its presence away, a strange feeling overtook him.
It wasn’t panic. It wasn’t a sudden burst of calm. It was just nothing. Nothing at all.
Ford breathed in.
There was one thought crystallizing in his mind.
I’m going to die.
It wasn’t a thought born of fear, not the panicked cry of a mind newly aware of something coming to kill him. There was no rush of adrenaline to accompany the thought, the body’s desperate reach for survival. No fearful surge of motion or acuity to keep living.
The thought was pure fact. Immutable.
I’m going to die.
There was no use in trying to save himself. Ford knew this with a cold, unshakable clarity. There was no saving himself from death. He was already dead. What had killed him had already occurred, and his body could not undo it. His body knew this. It wasn’t going to try anymore.
I’m going to die.
He staggered forward towards the wall, collapsing against it with weak arms. The was a dark stain of blood on the wall. Was this where Bill had cracked his head open?
Was this where Bill had finally killed him?
He slid down the wall.
I’m going to die.
His arms felt numb. The pain in his head still pounded. He could feel the pound of his heart with it. A heart that would soon slow to a stop. Was it already slowing?
I’m going to die.
Something warm rolled down his face. It must have been more blood, but it was odd that it trailed down both sides of his face. He couldn’t spare the brainpower to care.
I’m going to die.
Ford knew that all he had to do was stay here, crouched against the wall like a frightened animal, and it would happen. Everything would be over with.
A new thought came into being, sudden and stubborn and childish: But I don’t want to!
A groan of despair escaped him.
I’m going to die.
I don’t want to die.
He was supposed to fix this. He was supposed to stop Bill. He was supposed to dismantle the portal. He was supposed to get rid of the mural.
He was supposed to see Stanley again.
I’m going to die.
I don’t want to die.
It was too late. It was too late. He was gone already.
He clawed his stiff, numb fingers into the folds of his coat, drawing out his journal. Guided only by feeling, he pulled out a note he had stuffed in between its pages for safekeeping.
The note for Stanley was supposed to just be a precaution, a bit of paranoia. He wasn’t going to die. But just in case…
Ford let his bloodied head slide further down the wall until he was folded over his own knees, his forehead resting on the ground, the journal and the note cradled in his arms between them and his chest like it was an old, worn teddy bear. He clung to it as though it could comfort him just as much.
There was only the howling of the wind outside to accompany him as his body gave up.
His last thought was desolate, miserable, and empty.
I don't want to die.