Breathe
From the first day Stephen had slotted the nondescript band over his wrist and gritted his teeth in sight of a rocky future, he had vowed to himself not to care.
A shaky vow, granted, built on a crumbling foundation of all the emotion of an emotionally battered seven year old, but still the anger remained.
Some days, when flashes of depth surfaced with gasping breath beneath his shallow exterior, he fisted his precious hands in anger, dreaming of retribution and gentle roughened fingers.
But today? Today was not a good day. He had all but torn out of bed, entangled in sweat soaked sheets as bile clawed up his throat.
Later, he would rest his cheek on cool porcelain, long limbs askew on freezing tile, and blink the hazy afterimage of burning, endless sand out of his eyes, gripped in a breathless panic he did not understand.
He’d woken up screaming, before, hands flying to his chest, choking on the taste of coppery water on a dry throat. Those days he couldn't decide whether he wanted to hug his soulmate or throttle them.
This was a new day. A bitter, nauseous day, haunted by the terrors of the night before; rooted in a shadow-ridden history he knew nothing of but the echo of pain.
In the few fleeting moments he hears imagines the voice of his other, it’s...pleasant. He'd never met the man - (it must be a man, judging from the panic stricken stream of consciousness in his secondhand nightmares) - yet he seemed to know exactly what he sounds like.
He'd heard (imagined) his sobs, his scream, his clipped steel tones of rage. And yet he'd not once heard him laugh.
With memory-stained dreams like that, he marveled how he still could, (if at all).
Stephen forced himself up from the floor, scrabbling at the counter to keep from falling in a disorganized heap as he belatedly realized his legs had gone numb.
He just wished the rest of him had done so too - he ached in ways he could never imagine. What with the constant shortness of breath, the blood-chilling sensation of something akin to poison sluggishly snaking its way through his veins. Some days he felt as if he were dying.
He doesn’t know how long he lies there, slumped against the cabinet doors, breathing.
He hadn’t known how to, before. How to catch his breath; how to breathe it.
God, it was awful. The first time it had happened, he’d been going about his work, mind flashing through an odd, disturbing sequence of images that left him in a cold sweat. They weren’t at the forefront of his mind, of course, but it still lingered, flickering to static when he had to focus elsewhere.
It all came to a head when he’d been blindsided by a large piece of equipment being rolled down the corridor, having dawdled, lost in thought. The collision left him flat on his back, breath knocked out of him as he stared blankly up at blurry faces and fluttering hands, the fluorescent lights overhead far too bright. There were voices, questions, yelling. Hands on his face, his chest. Everywhere.
He doesn’t know what triggers it. He doesn’t know why. But from one blink to the next, he’s scrambling into a corner, one arm braced behind him, the other curled over his heart.
The world fuzzes around him, and when he looks down at himself, there’s a car battery in his chest.
The voices come rushing back in discordant waves. They bark demands (threats) at him, harsh and foreign but he doesn’t understand , doesn’t know what they want but they want it now. There’s the cool kiss of a gun on his temple, sand in his eyes and oh God he’s going to die, he’s going to die in this miserable cave but it’s better this way, he’ll drown before he’ll ever make the Jericho for these monsters -
He doesn’t realize he’s babbling out loud until two hands shoot out of the murky dark and grip him by the shoulders, giving a firm shake. But whatever horror his soulmate is trapped in, that signifies danger, and he’s thrashing, arms flying with the intent of pain in a last ditch attempt of protection against an enemy that isn’t there. (Isn't alive.)
It's not until he feels the splash of water on his face (dangerdrowningwaterboardingcarbatteryshrapnelgetawaygetawayGETAWAY) that the memory fades away to reveal the concerned faces of his co-workers, one man in particular clutching at a bruise purpling rapidly under his eye.
His breaths come fast and shallow, each constricting his chest, catching on his throat with a rasp. Logically, he knows he’s safe, that he’s made a scene but he can’t bring himself to stop. He’s trembling all over, hands clasped and cradled to his chest. What in hell was that?
Stephen dimly registered the rapid tip tap of shoes on linoleum growing louder, getting closer. He doesn’t know who it is, and he doesn’t care. Everything hurts too much too focus on anything anyway.
“Stephen? Stephen, look at me.” The process of moving his gaze suddenly seemed so hard. Why couldn’t he just look at his shoes? They were very nice shoes. “Stephen, come on. You have to breathe.” Breathe. Breathe? Suddenly his chest was very tight. Oh. He should be doing that.
“Like this. In, out.” They began breathing in exaggerated motions, gesturing for him to follow. “Good, Stephen. You’re doing so well.” Gradually he felt his lungs ease, tension flowing out of shoulders he hadn’t realized were wound so tight.
An arm came into his line of vision, movements slow, palm outstretched. “Come on, let’s get you home.” Normally, he would have brushed the gesture aside, opting to stand without help. Right now was anything but normal.
Christine was pulling him to his feet, other nameless faces hovering anxiously behind him, when he felt her grip tighten and a quiet sharp gasp cut through the silence. Perplexed, he looked down at their linked hands, only to see…
Oh, hell.
His wrist was bare.
More importantly, his left wrist was bare.
Everyone craned their necks, trying to see the source of the disruption, but they were already too far away, Christine pulling him along behind her. Her hand was stationed firmly over his mark, hold gentle yet protective. He stumbled along behind her, thoughts rattling around and rearranging with every jolting step.
She pulled him into an empty room, sitting him down on the bed before taking a seat beside him. He dropped his chin on his chest, eyeing their entwined fingers in the muted dark.
Christine shifted her hold to grasp his wrist in her palm, gently tapping his mark with her index finger on the other hand.
“Stephen.”
“Mm.”
“Do you know who this is?”