ioduanlogs | I don't want to be like someone waiting

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I don't want to be like someone waiting

Characters: X and Zephyr
Date: Let's say December 1st
Location: The clinic where X has been in a coma all of November
Situation: X wakes up! And proceeds to panic badly for a good few minutes. Fun for all.
Warnings/Rating: None yet, will edit as necessary.

It's a great deal longer than X usually spends sleeping.

It's also not how he usually falls asleep. One minute, he was cooking, albeit haltingly, with some fresh food he'd picked up just down the street from the new place he and Zephyr were renting together; the next, he collapsed, dead to the world, some fruit rolling from his hands across the floor and under the table.

In the month since, he didn't move a muscle, and barely even twitched when he was touched or moved.

That changed one cold morning when, with very little warning, X woke up. His awareness snapped into place first, hard and fast enough that for several seconds he just lay there, blinking, staring up at the unfamiliar ceiling above him and wondering idly what new place he'd found himself in now. Then he realised he'd been sleeping, and he shot upright instantly, his heart hammering in his ears, staring around wildly. "Who --!?"

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"Just --!?"

If X's mind wasn't still booting up all its drivers and browser history, he might have taken a few seconds to think and realised that he didn't have any extra memories that weren't his, and he wasn't even remotely confused about who he was. But in the chaotic panic of waking up when he didn't remember falling asleep, paranoia dragged his good sense down several notches and left him on the verge of hyperventilating.

"Did I read you?" he asked, much louder than he usually asked questions related to his reading. "Did we get --? Was there poison in the food? Are you okay? Did I read you?" All of this in a single breath, the words whipping themselves up into a frenzy. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry -- how long has it been? Where are we? Did I read you?"

Someone please calm him down before he hurts himself.

"No poison, pretty sure." Zephyr's form would suffer injury just like any human's, even if he technically might not be. "No one here who'd care enough to poison us, I think." He was about to say something more, then frowned over at X's immediate panic.

It wasn't like it wasn't a legitimate concern, it was just... well.

Zephyr plopped himself down on the edge of the bed, dropped a heavy hand on X's shoulder. "Breath, bud, c'mon. Aren't you the one who would have the answer to that question? I was worried that's why you collapsed or something. You've been asleep for ... something like a month now."

No one here who'd care enough to poison us, X remembered. The words repeated themselves over and over in his head while he stared, wide-eyed and frazzled, at Zephyr. No one here who'd care enough to poison us. This wasn't Actacea. Old habits died hard, but this wasn't Actacea.

"I..." X started, with the vague idea that he'd known exactly what to say just a second ago, but it left his head the moment he reached for it. "I... I think I'm okay."

He thought hard for a few seconds longer, then nodded firmly. "I'm okay," he said. "I don't remember anything about you. I mean, I do, just... not from your perspective. Not thousands of years, thank Asri." X paused, and some of the frazzle returned. "Sorry, did you say a month?"

"As long as you're not comatose or amnesiac." Zephyr seemed to remember only belatedly that he had a hand on X, and now didn't know what to do with it; he patted X's shoulder a couple of times for good measure, and put his hand back in his lap. "That's, uh. That's good. I'm glad you're okay."

...Maybe he shouldn't have led with the month part, though. He nodded. "Give or take. Apparently this, uh, happens sometimes with Dreamfolk? I think? You weren't dreaming or anything, were you?"

Look, weird things tended to happen in this place.

Why anyone trusted the Dreaming, no matter how minor that trust, was completely beyond X. If this was something that happened regularly with Dreamfolk, then something had to be wrong.

"No," he said, sounding uncertain and still a frightened, but more in control than he had been just seconds before. "I don't think so. The last thing I remember is... I'd just gotten back from getting food."

A thought occurred to him, and his heart sank. "You've had to pay for the whole month yourself. I'm sorry. I'll try to make that up to you."

Because clearly this was the most important thing to address, now that the immediate panic had faded.

With a gentle kind of affection, Zephyr flicked X upside the head.

"I'd say you're in charge of food from now on, but I really don't want you falling into a coma again," he said, trying for levity and more or less getting there for his own part. "Seriously, though, don't worry about it. I was afraid I'd--"

Crushed his closest friend under the weight of millennia of blood. The usual.

"--well." Zephyr cleared his throat. "I'm glad you're okay."

For the first time, X considered what Zephyr must have gone through over the month, from discovering him out cold in their apartment to the moment he woke up. Of course, Zephyr wouldn't have had any idea if X somehow read him or not, and that must have left him emotionally exhausted, even leaving aside how long X spent asleep.

And, true to his character, he still didn't voice the concern out loud. X felt an exasperated sort of affection for him. Such strong feelings, but without any outlet. X longed for the days when he didn't know that was considered normal.

"Thank you," he answered, his whole bearing already softer as his mind adjusted to being awake and aware. "For... everything. For helping me. For being here." He hesitated, and smiled. "For the remarkable coincidence of being here right as I wake up, since I'm sure there's no chance you've been sitting there for a very long time."

See? He could joke too.

Zephyr appreciated the out, even if X was trying to make a joke of it. He offered a quiet laugh, something even closer to being real than the last bit of smiling he'd tried. See? He'd get there. "Oh, yeah," he said, waving his free hand. "You've just got amazing timing, really."

He couldn't quite bring himself to expound on that, much as he probably should. He was just gonna have to look all kinds of pathetic. Devin would probably out him eventually if Zephyr tried to hide it, anyway.

"...anyway, we're friends, right?" He didn't think they'd confirmed that out loud, but roommates kind of implied it. Also, he wasn't such a kid that he needed people to outright tell him they were friends. Zephyr was fine. "Of course I'm gonna help."

"I'm known for it," X agrees with a very serious nod. "My timing is sung of in musical sanctuaries."

What Zephyr says next is a sideways sidle-up to the strong feelings he couldn't give voice before. The fact that he's choosing to come even that close is surprising, and X pauses to give it the weight it deserves, even if Zephyr won't. Especially if Zephyr won't.

"Yes," he says, smiling. "We're friends. We're good friends."

This is said with all the gentle certainty of a universal truth.

... It's still a little raw, in X's throat, and the pain still scratches. He coughs, and puts a hand over his throat. "Would you get me some water, please?"

"There, you see?" Obviously it's all up to X's timing, and not a function of Zephyr having been here almost the entire time. Really.

Then X has to go and call them friends. Zephyr sits there for several moments entirely overcome, possibly panicking, and not sure what to do with any of these emotions only that he can't let them out because then there are going to be even more awkward question. When X asks for water, Zephyr lunges up at embarrassing speeds, trips over his own chair and regains his balance.

He attempts to play it off sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head. "Ahaha, yeah, sure. No problem."

He may, however, take slightly longer than average about getting water, before he comes back, and this is entirely to do with calming himself down. There's no reason to panic about having friends.

None at all.

X has seen emotional choke-holds before. He's felt emotional choke-holds before. He knows generally what causes them, if not necessarily how to unblock them, and he definitely knows what they look like when he sees them.

Zephyr has it worse than Szandor did, and that's saying something. Szandor would vanish into the surrounding air the moment someone brought up anything resembling friendship. Zephyr would do exactly the same thing, X suspects, if he were able to. What a pair they would make.

Szandor acted like this because he didn't see himself as worthy of friendship, after betraying his friends.

Zephyr's mentioned having close friends, but was otherwise reluctant to talk about them.

Hm.

"Thank you," X says gratefully when Zephyr returns with the water. He finishes half the cup without trying, gulping it down quickly, and then peers at Zephyr, trying to decide if it's something to talk about now.

It probably isn't. "What's been happening in Aifaran?" he asks instead, and his voice already sounds better than it did before. "What have I missed?"

Zephyr opts, when he returns, to settle on the bed again, right where he was. He's not going to say anything about the chair if X doesn't. "Yeah, no problem." Getting the guy a glass of water is basically the least he can do.

He pauses, thinks back over the last month, and shrugs. "Not a whole lot, honestly. The weather's gotten worse, so congratulations on waking up to hit the worst of it, I guess. A bunch of people missed you-- Devin stopped by at least once to be an asshole."

He means that Devin came by to be an asshole to Zephyr, specifically.

X laughs. It's less an audible sound and more of a sharp exhale, but it's unmistakably laughter. Devin, an asshole. Well -- to some people, certainly, a select group to which Zephyr apparently belongs. To X, though, he's been nothing but a friend. This is possibly due to the bias of knowing Devin so well, but whatever the cause, there's evidence now in the form of Devin stopping by to make sure X was alright.

He needs to send Devin a message, to let him know he's alright. Ilda, too. Valdis. The Fool. He has a lot he needs to catch up on.

"Does that mean he wasn't an asshole all the other times he visited?" X asks, amused.

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