Chapter Text
Henry felt nothing and everything all at once.
His eyelids fluttered open. His head throbbed. He could feel the side of his face growing sticky from blood, alongside his hands and his back and.. everything. Everything hurt.
Someone else’s hands held his shoulders. They were talking to him, but he could barely understand a word. They didn’t seem scared, though he was. He was terrified.
"..Hey, listen." The stranger cupped his face, pressing their jacket against the wound on his head. "Listen to my voice. You’re gonna be okay. Everything’s gonna be okay. Just stay with me."
Another person ran up. They seemed much more panicked, but still desperate to help.
The first man looked over to them and said something. Henry didn’t catch it. They turned back to him.
"We’re gonna help you, okay? Can you tell me your name?"
Henry tried to speak. A copper taste coated his tongue as he coughed up blood. Both people seemed startled by this.
"..I’m gonna look through your pockets and try to find something with your name on it, okay?"
Henry’s eyes drifted over to the wreckage on his right as he whispered an ‘okay’ back. The man turned him to face upward again and fumbled to open his wallet. They handed it to the other person, who was now crouched beside him as well.
"Henry," they muttered. Their voice was soft, as if they were afraid to use it. "Henry Letham."
His twenty-first birthday was today. It had just reached midnight. What a way to go out.
"Okay, Henry. I’m Richard. This is Leland. We’re gonna help you but you gotta stay with me, okay? Can you do that, Henry?"
Henry sobbed quietly and let his eyes settle on the stars above.
"..Is that hail?" He flinched. Leland shook his head, but didn’t say anything further. Richard spoke for him.
"That’s just the lights. You’re safe, okay? You’re alright."
Richard wasn’t too sure what he was doing. It wasn’t very in-character for him to try and help a dying man. I mean, fuck, he’d tried to make Justin shoot himself, but that bastard deserved it. He did. He wasn’t a good person. He should have died. Sometimes Rich wished he had as well. But he remembered the feeling of helplessness that consumed him as he lied surrounded by strangers who tried desperately to keep him awake, even after what he’d done.
"I’m sorry," Henry wept. He couldn’t hear his own voice. "..I don’t wanna go."
"I know. I know. You’re gonna be alright," Rich promised hollowly. He looked over to Leland. "Keep pressure on his head."
Leland nodded. He was doing his best. His scarred hand pressed Rich’s coat hard against the injury, and he did his best not to vomit at the sight of the poor man. He was older than him, it looked, but Leland knew the fear in his eyes all too well. He remembered bleeding out in the prison field, and how beautiful the sky looked that day.
He couldn’t help but remember Ryan as he watched carmine ichor bloom from his wounds and stain his clothes.
He inhaled shakily and looked around. Distant sirens slowly grew closer. Not close enough.
"I’m gonna check you for other injuries, okay? Is that okay? Can I take your shirt off?" Richard reached in the back pocket of his jeans.
Henry nodded shakily, turning to look at Leland. Jesus, he was just a kid. Even in his blurry vision, Henry could tell he was almost as afraid as he was. He shouldn’t have to see this. Tears welled up in Henry’s eyes. His fingers scraped against the asphalt as he felt around for Leland’s hand.
Rich held his breath and pulled out a pocket knife, gripping the fabric of Henry’s shirt and cautiously slicing it off. His trembling hands worked with practiced precision. He grimaced and set the blade aside, taking Henry’s arm in his hands.
"I’m gonna get your arms out of the sleeves, okay? Can you work with me?"
Henry held tightly to Leland’s hand and looked up at Richard. For just a second, everything came back to him. The bridge. The kiss. The suicide.
He didn’t know anybody named Richard.
"Hey, Henry? Stay with me, okay?"
"I’m sorry," he languidly interrupted. "..’t’s selfish."
Rich paused and looked to Leland for a second, who was equally confused. He lifted Henry’s arm to pull it out of the sleeve. "..It’s okay, Henry. I’m not mad at you. I just need you to stay with me, okay?"
“Okay,” he panted. “Okay.” His arm fell back down against the blood-slicked road and he whimpered, grasping Leland’s hand tighter. He was shaking almost as bad as Henry. Richard tugged the fabric up from his shoulder and cut it off of him, doing the same with the opposite arm.
Leland couldn’t help but stare at the helpless man. His body was littered with scars; circular burns dotted his inner forearms alongside messy vertical slits. He couldn’t tell which were purposeful and which weren’t.
Richard, on the other hand, disgusted himself with this entertainment. His gaze lingered for just a moment too long before he was startled around, turning to the bright lights of an ambulance, and fear flickered in his eyes as he watched a couple of police cars pull up beside it.
He looked down to Henry again. Blood dripped to the asphalt from his mouth. He looked even more terrified.
Rich couldn’t stand it. He hated the look in people’s eyes when they knew they were going to die. He put his hand on Henry’s face and stroked his cheek with his thumb. “Hey. Listen to me, Henry. You’re gonna be okay. I’m.. we aren’t going anywhere. Okay?”
Leland tilted his head. Richard muttered under his breath; “I’ll make sure they let us on that damn ambulance.”
“Are you sure that’s…”
“Yes. I’m not leaving him alone.”
Leland blinked rapidly. “What if he…”
“Dies? Then I’ll be with him. You coming or not?”
He sniffled, looking down to his hand and fingering the scar on his palm. “..Yeah.”
“Good.” Rich nodded. “Okay, Henry, can you acknowledge me? Did you hear what I said?”
The wounded man spat up more scarlet. His two desperate saviors watched it roll down his chin.
“I can’t breathe,” he choked on the blood that pooled in his throat. Wind brushed against his skin. A tacky, metallic taste filled his senses as his body heaved and his swift, sharp breaths turned into pained wheezes for air. Too many voices, too many footsteps, too many sirens, too many faces, too much pain, too much blood. Far too much blood.
“Henry?” Rich put a hand on Henry’s pale chest to try and ease his convulsions, unsure if he should lift him upright, and jerked his head around to watch the paramedics running closer. He took the poor man’s shoulders and spoke in a panicked, adamant voice. “Henry, I need you to stay with me.”
Leland held Henry’s limp hand so tightly his nails began to dig into his palms. He didn’t want to have to see a man die again. “Hey,” he pleaded anxiously, the words of the EMTs being overridden by the agony he just couldn’t tear his focus from.
He closed one eye, then opened it and closed the other. The sight didn’t become any less horrible, no matter how many times he tried to change his perspective.
Right eye. People die all the time. Left eye. It’s just part of life. Right eye. He probably lived a good life. Left eye. He could still survive, too. Right eye. There were people coming to help.
“Come on. Come on, Henry,” Richard muttered. He wasn’t sure why tears were welling up in his eyes.
The artist tried to put his hand over Rich’s. All that resulted was a weak lift, no more than a couple inches off the ground. Richard looked down to it and noticed the glimmering of a ring, which he clasped Henry’s fingers around, bringing his hand to rest on his chest and placing his own atop it. He stroked the artist’s hair, watching it stick to his claret-coated hand.
Henry fought to keep his eyes open, letting his head fall to the side to stare at the gore that remained of Athena. He shuddered as warm blood trickled from his parted lips, and did his best to whisper something to her.
“..Will you marry me?” He slurred, breathless. “Will you marry me?”
Henry felt Leland let go of him. Then felt Richard take his hand back. The diamond ring pressed hard against his palm, but he held it like it would have disappeared if he didn’t. “Will you marry me?” He asked again, a new fear blooming in his chest as he heard paramedics rushing through the parked traffic and his eyelids fluttered shut.
He fought to stay awake. Everything hurt, but he didn’t have enough energy to cry or scream or thrash.
Leland grabbed his face and pulled him to look upward again. His skin was cold, but the wound on his head continued to pour into Leland’s hand. He remembered Ryan in the peaceful terror in Henry’s glossed-over eyes.
“Henry?” He mournfully called, and waited hopelessly for acknowledgement.
He turned to look at Rich, whose expression he could barely see through his own tears.
Silence lingered in the air between them. Richard pushed his hand into Henry’s chest to feel his heartbeat. He used his other to pull Leland into a hug, which he immediately returned, and he felt him cling to his shirt like a lifeline.
“You okay?” He asked. He knew neither of them were.
“..Yeah,” Leland lied in reply. Exhaustion gripped him as he watched the paramedics strap Henry into a stretcher. He remembered when they did that with Ryan, too, even though he was long gone by then.
He buried his face into Richard’s chest, who rested his chin atop his head in return, rubbing his back and humming quietly. He wasn’t too sure what he was doing, but he saw himself in Leland, and he felt a sense of obligation to protect him.
The two sat in the middle of the road as the ambulance drove off, and the cops began directing traffic again.
Rich tilted Leland’s head up. “Hey, how about we go get coffee somewhere? I’ll never sleep tonight.”
“..Okay.” He nodded. “Yeah. Me neither.”
Richard held him tighter.
“You’re gonna be alright, kid. He’s gonna be alright.”