Chapter Text
EDMUND
When he opened his eyes, it was to the lights of a hospital room and the fretful and bruised face of his best friend, Rob Apsall. Everything was a little blurry, but he figured it would clear up shortly:
“Oh, thank God you're awake, Edmund!”
“Hi, Rob,” he croaked faintly. They'd just managed that morning to wean him off of the ventilator, Rob knew, and it was amazing that he could even speak at all.
“How are you feeling?”
“Like I've been run over by a fucking ten-ton train.”
Rob laughed, even with tears standing in his eyes:
“No surprises there.”
Rob was the one least injured in a crash that had killed Richard York Sr., the patriarch of the York family, critically injured Edmund, the family's second-eldest son, and left the city in sociopolitical upheaval.
Edmund took a deep breath and groaned as it strained his injured ribs:
“Ah, shit! There's – there's got to be something they can do for this pain, Rob.”
“I'll go talk to the nurse,” Rob murmured, stroking the back of his friend's hand with his thumb and pressing a kiss to his knuckles, before standing to exit the room.
That's strange, Edmund thought through the fog of pain and exhaustion, he's never done anything like that before. Maybe he... no, don't kid yourself. There's no way.
Rob returned shortly with a nurse in tow, a shy and mousy-looking young woman only perhaps a few years older than the boys themselves, and she immediately began asking questions so fast Edmund's head started to spin. He squeezed his eyes shut, lifting his good hand to pinch the bridge of his nose:
“Hold on,” he muttered, “can you please ask the questions one at a time?”
Rob chuckled, and the nurse half-snorted and half-laughed:
“Yeah, kid. How are you feeling?”
“Alive. Hurting all over. The first one's good, the second not so much.”
“I figured. What's your pain like, on a scale of 1 to 10?”
“Probably about an 8,” he managed, wheezing a little.
“Ouch,” she winced sympathetically, “I'll definitely see what we can do for that.”
He gave her a wan, grateful smile as she turned and left the room.
Rob had resumed his place by the bedside, gripping Edmund's hand as if he meant never to let go:
“Do you even know how badly you scared me, Edmund? I thought you were going to die!”
Edmund had the sense to respond with a sheepish look:
“Sorry, Rob. I didn't realize you'd been so afraid.”
“Of course I was afraid, Edmund! I lo – er, I care very much about your well-being!”
Did he just almost say he... loves me? Must be my imagination, though.
“I – care very much about your well-being as well, Rob. I'm glad you're alright.”
The other boy flushed a dark red from his cheeks to the tips of his ears. They sat in a vaguely uncomfortable silence for several moments. Finally, Rob cleared his throat and spoke up:
“Please... don't tell anyone about what you might have heard me almost say.”
Edmund, who had almost managed to doze off, jolted awake:
“Wait, what? Did you actually – ?”
“Almost say I love you? Yeah. Yeah, I did, because I do, Edmund. I love you, so much that I don't even know what I would have done if you had died in that crash.”
Edmund stared blankly, jaw slack, still in shock at the confession that seemed to have fallen so easily from his friend's lips. Rob blushed again, hot, shameful tears standing in his eyes, and looked away, wiping his cheeks fiercely:
“And if you don't feel the same, that's fine. I only said this because in light of the crash, I realized that you never know when you might be talking to someone for the last time, and – I just...”
Edmund grabbed his friend's hand, squeezing it gently:
“Listen, Rob, it's not that I don't feel the same way. It just came as a bit of a surprise to me that you do. I can think of better places this could have happened, and better times, but like you said, this kind of crash makes you realize that you need to tell the people around you what you feel before it's too late. And I love you too, Rob.”
“R – really?”
“Really. I was afraid you didn't feel the same and that I'd just embarrass myself by telling you. It didn't seem like the best possible time was ever going to come, so I just kept my mouth shut for fear of sounding like a weirdo.”
Rob laughed, a teary half-hiccuping sound:
“You're a weirdo anyway, Edmund,” he muttered, rubbing his thumb across the back of his friend's hand, “but you're my weirdo now. And to me, that's the most wonderful thing to come out of this awful time.”
When the nurse came back with the pain medication, it was to the two boys openly laughing and crying at once, foreheads pressed far too close together to be anything but an almost-kiss. She cleared her throat awkwardly, averting her gaze, and they both looked up in embarrassment. She finished her duties and hurried out of the room.
The medicine she'd administered was one that did indeed curb the pain, but it also left Edmund feeling very drowsy, and he dozed off shortly afterward, still gripping Rob's hand tightly. With any luck, there would be more time to talk later.