Louis Donovan (strikethose) wrote in repose, @ 2017-03-15 19:14:00 |
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Entry tags: | *narrative, louis donovan |
narrative: the capital hospital
Who: Louis (sort of) [Narrative]
What: A hospital was probably a bad idea.
When: Concurrent to this.
Warnings/Rating: None!
In the ambulance on the way to the Capital, Louis watched Sam seizing and felt something familiar.
It was almost comfortable, natural. He'd insisted to the paramedics that he ride with her to be sure she was going to be alright. They were checking him for head injuries when Sam began to seize, and he fell against the wall, giving the paramedics as much space as possible to stabilize her. They moved quickly, and they were so calm. They were so self-assured that he could believe she would be fine. That did not make it any less terrible to see.
Then the familiar feeling descended. It wasn't good, this familiarity, the nearly routine helplessness of watching Sam go through something terrible that he could do nothing to prevent or to fix. On the ride to the hospital, he was focused entirely on her. He spoke nonsensically over the paramedics' heads, soothing, trying to tell her it would be alright when she couldn't hear a thing. Later, when he could think it through, that helpless fear would be something he could grab hold of. Something his, and no one else's. A feeling that belonged to him.
They reached the hospital in five minutes, or in an hour. Sam was rushed into the building on a gurney, and they dropped him into a wheelchair, and they pushed him through the hissing automatic doors into a tunnel.
The tunnel had a light at the end, and when he found it, he was sitting on the edge of a hospital bed. Someone was trying to push him into it. He was still bleeding. They needed to clean the wounds, and he would need to stay there under observation. He was showing signs of a concussion, pupils blown wide, and - Mr. Donovan? "Can you hear me?"
The tunnel was narrowing around him again. He felt as if he was choking. It was this place, this hospital. He was lucid long enough to realize what a terrible mistake it had been to come here, to a place where so many people wanted so much so badly. It was good that there was no time to be afraid of what would come next.
Two minutes later, someone left the hospital room. He (she? it was difficult to say) was wearing a smart black suit. The coat was of the finest, softest silk, scintillating to the touch. The linen shirt was so fine that if he (she?) said that it had been washed in the tears of boy virgins, you might have believed her (him, surely). The figure was tall and lean, not unlike Louis in that way, and its skin was bone china - fine and white and poreless as a teacup. Surely it did not bleed, or have a heart that beat.
She ghosted downstairs to the room where Sam lay, and peered through the window at her. Sam was laughing at a cartoon pig, and awake.
A hand grasped his arm, and he turned to look at the individual it belonged to - a nurse, a small, obese woman with dark eyes. "Sir?" The address was vague, questioning, ready to be corrected with a sharp 'ma'am.' "Can I help you?"
The fine creature had eyes like the shimmer on an oil slick. It grasped the woman's arm with a light touch, and it pulled her closer. Three days worth of desire had been poured into Louis, without a break to stop or to breathe. Now it poured a little back out, drizzling it into her ear. It was almost visible - a heat wave, a waver in the air around her face.
"Until the girl on that bed leaves this hospital, caring for her is your highest priority."
The woman blinked, fish-like.
The tall individual let go of her arm, and stepped away from her. It lit a cigarette in the hospital hallway, drawing deeply, tilting its sharply pointed chin to the ceiling, exhaling at the ceiling tiles. The room grew a few degrees colder.
No one noticed as it left - not the strange figure it cut, not the cigarette, not the sharp click of scarlet-soled patent leather stilettos on linoleum. It fixed the cigarette in its mouth, slid into the stairwell, and disappeared from sight of onlooker or security camera.