Work Text:
Got given a grief that I couldn't give back,
A suitcase of sorrow too large to unpack.
Got lost in the losses but held onto hope,
Built a home on the knot at the end of my rope.
Sat in the storms ‘til I learned from the thunder,
Those nights were so dark but the stars were a wonder.
...
3,100 feet per second.
13 stitches.
7 weeks.
2 appointments.
2,900 feet per second.
18 stitches.
6 weeks.
9 appointments.
The phone drops somewhere, practically disappears in the shadows.
3 pints of blood in the sand.
Over a liter in the street. Another half in the ambulance, then on the gurney.
He tries to find a spot to focus on, blinking away the black clouding his vision. It all blends in with the walls, dropping him somewhere aimless.
30 minutes with a bat in his hands.
20 hours in front of Frank.
It starts in his shoulder, where a bullet had obliterated the muscles and ligaments and artery, the numbness. Takes his breath away just the same, knocks his balance somewhere out of reach or just awareness, he can't tell, spinning like this. And his ears…
The ringing picks up in pitch, shrill and piercing. Frank said something…something about stress and tinnitus…
Other than that, he knows, distantly, it's too quiet to be like this, on the verge of something this loud.
Last time, he'd ended up in the hospital with sensors stuck to his chest and a pamphlet forced in his hands.
Last time, he'd bloodied his fists before reaching for the bat.
Last time, Christopher heard.
He clamps a tingly hand over his mouth, squeezing, pressing, muffling his wet gasps as best he can in the still 4am silence. His face is wet and hot, contorting painfully as one thought bleeds into another and another and another.
Even through the steady ringing he hears the sob he can't fully block, making him blindly reach for his pillow to smother the sound. He clutches it to his aching chest, hugging it tight, getting no less air with his face pressed into the material than he was without because the noose around his neck was his best pain management.
Alone, he knew no better. Had no one to reach for and help, had no one to hold or devote to or throw himself at. Alone, he was deafeningly lost.