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Despite the fact that William hadn’t slept more than a couple hours in the last day and a half, despite all the adrenaline and the fucking awful fear that’s been thrumming through his veins ever since that afternoon, he couldn’t sleep.
Maybe it’s just because he was sitting vigil at Isaac’s bedside, in an insanely uncomfortable hospital chair. Maybe it’s the fact he’s still wearing the clothes that everything happened in. Once the excitement of defeating the Shtriga had worn off, they’d had to rush Isaac and Janice to the hospital. He hadn’t wanted to return to his empty house even afterwards, not just to change. Not if it meant leaving Isaac’s bedside.
The strip of fabric he’d haphazardly torn from the bottom of his graphic tee brought a cold draft against his stomach. His arms, scratched up from Norah’s nails, felt uncomfortably bare without the protection of his hoodie. His last remaining layer still smelled of lighter fluid, with blood and dirt staining the once black and white design.
He could barely look at his hands.
Not with the dirt from running away from that thing buried deep within the crevices of his skin and the tips of his nails. He’d washed them over and over again, and it just would not come off. Everything about his appearance was just a blatant reminder of all that shit.
Maybe it was the paranoia that he just couldn’t fucking shake, no matter how many times he told himself there was nothing there. That there wasn’t some creature standing on the other side of the curtain. That all the movement and the noise of the hospital wasn’t monsters, it was just doctors and patients.
There was no more priest to yank back the curtain and fill them with acid, there were no bugs to consume them. Neither he, Isaac, nor Norah would have to be filled with cockroaches, or vomited into, or pushed to their absolute limits. There was no reason for him to be in such a constant, awful state of hypervigilance.
The feeling created a unique sense of exhaustion, the kind that you couldn’t do anything about but still hung heavy over your head. He felt like he was vibrating out of his skin with fear, and yet at the same time that he couldn’t move with how weighed down his limbs felt.
“Will?”
Norah’s voice startled him. He flailed, elbow smacking painfully on the solid plastic chair arms. It wasn’t like he’d forgotten she was there– she’d been perched in an identical chair on Isaac’s other side all day, same as him.
He looked up at her, eyes wide. Her skirt was wrapped tight around her knees, stained with grass, dirt, and blood, same as his own clothes. He eyed the bandage tightly adhered to her forehead. It’d gone faintly pink sometime in the last few hours, and the sight of it made nausea stir in William’s gut. What if he and Isaac hadn’t grabbed her in time? What if she’d gotten out of their hold? What might she have done?
“You think he’s… gonna be okay?”
William pushed away the persistent what-ifs. They did grab her in time. She didn’t escape their attempts at restraining her until the river incident, and even then he caught up to her before anything could happen. She was fine. She would recover, just as he and Isaac would.
She was fine, despite those close calls. He’d done everything he could, and they came out of it alive. That’s all that mattered. If only his endless inner monologue could get with the program.
When he opened his mouth, his voice came out rough. His throat felt raw, regardless of the fact he’d not spoken in the last several hours since Isaac finally fell asleep. “He has to be,” he said, trying to force confidence into his shaking words, “They all do. We stopped it, so they’re gonna be…” he swallowed thickly, saliva catching on the lump in his throat. He shook his head, “Everyone’s gonna get better.”
Norah nodded, curling further in on herself. Her fingers were drawing little patterns on her skirt, pushing up dried dirt and sending it to the plastic surface of her chair and the floor below, “You’re right,” she agreed. She sounded about as convinced of it as he did.
The mass of hospital blankets that made up Isaac’s sleeping form shifted, and they both went stiff. A primal sort of fear struck William, as if he expected Isaac to sit up and attack them. His already shallow breathing cut to silence, wide eyes darting to the older teen.
And then Isaac’s head peaked out from below his mountain, looking sleepy and disoriented. He squinted at them, “Have you guys slept yet?” he croaked out, groggily. A jaw breaking yawn followed close behind his words.
William looked to Norah, and found her meeting his eyes with the same loaded expression. The answer wasn’t technically no. They’d both dozed off a couple times since they were checked in, but it accounted for a total of maybe twenty minutes given that they would startle awake moments after their bodies finally gave in.
The youngest of the three wrapped his arms around himself. He almost wished he’d run home, if only to grab a new hoodie. He felt vulnerable without it, like Isaac’s eyes were piercing directly through his skin without the thin fabric in the way.
(Not to mention the way Norah’s eyes kept lingering on the long, dragging scratch marks up his forearms. Neither of them had commented on it. They’d already scabbed over, and despite their tenderness, William was best off out of the three of them. He didn’t need any pity over it.
He’d almost said something to her, once. Just to remind her that it wasn’t her fault, that she’d been through a lot and had been desperate to get away from him. That she’d just pushed up his sleeves and, when shoving at his arms, her nails caught his skin. Then he’d shut his mouth and let the matter die.)
Isaac groaned at their silent response. Norah winced at his reaction, “Sorry…” she murmured,
“We got… some sleep…?”
“You’re a bad liar, Norah,” Isaac quipped. He was wiggling around beneath the blankets, smoothing out the pile around him until he was almost perfectly centered, “C’mere,” he said, one hand coming out to wave them over. William looked up from the hem of his ripped shirt that he’d focused his attention on to avoid Isaac’s gaze, blinking with confusion. From the corner of his eye, he saw Norah, just as lost, “Come on, come lay down. I wanna go back t’sleep.”
“You… want us to sleep with you?” Norah asked slowly. William couldn’t keep the smirk off his lips at the phrasing– any other day, he would’ve laughed outright, but he didn’t have that kind of energy in him, “Aren’t you in pain?”
Isaac made a noise of vague disagreement. The kind of response that meant yeah, but don’t worry about me, not a genuine no. “Y’won’t make it worse,” he tucked his arm back beneath the blankets, “You guys need some sleep. I know I wouldn’t be getting any rest in those chairs, so…”
William couldn’t argue with that. Not to mention, sleeping in the same bed as the two people he was terrified were going to get hurt and simultaneously felt safest with probably couldn’t hurt, either…
With slow, awkward movements, he stood from his chair, shuffling over to the edge of the bed. He looked up at Norah, opposite him. It wasn’t like this was the first time they’d shared a bed, they’d been having sleepovers on the pullout couch in his basement for more of their lives than they hadn’t been. This just felt… different.
They were in a hospital. Isaac had just come so close to dying. It was different. They weren’t just little kids cozying up on the comfiest surface together, kicking at each other for blankets and pillows and teasing each other for snoring.
Norah moved first. She squeezed in beside Isaac. From where he stood, it looked like she was half falling off the bed until she shimmied around and pulled up the guard rail from below, blocking her in. Isaac grabbed one of his blankets and the two of them worked to place it behind her, saving her back from being pressed up against the metal bars.
William took that as his sign to join them. It was as tight as he thought it would be, but despite that, with the three of them beneath the cream colored blankets together, pressed close, he was comfortable. He reached his arm around to be laying on Isaac’s stomach, hand held out in Norah’s direction. Without saying anything, she took his hand in hers, both of them clammy with cold sweat.
It was… nice. It was really nice.
Things were gonna be okay.