Pewter and Porcelain

Disbelief. Denial. Disappointment. Demented.

**

I clicked my nails against the hardened wood edge of the table. Grooves had 
formed in
the past forty minutes or so, and I was getting bored. Very bored. And at 
the same time,
very anxious.

I looked over to Ash. Although he is incredibly unperceptive, he is also 
very good at
handling situations like the one we're in now. I threw my magazine at him, 
waking him
out of his quasi-nap.

"They're taking their sweet time about it."

He nodded sleepily, standing shakily to his feet. Taking a few stiff steps, 
he looked in
through the glass doors. Although the windows had fogged slightly, and the 
men in blue
were blocking our view of him, you knew exactly what was behind them, when 
the fog
would clear.

He took his seat back, and I could hear each vertebrae clicking back into 
place. I winced,
and leant my head against the wall.

"What do you reckon they're doing now?" he asked. I could almost hear his 
voice
wavering.

"I have no idea. I think they're just trying to keep his airway clear."

"Oh… how do you do that?"

"Don't ask things like that… I don't want to think about it."

He closed his eyes, clenching his jaw tightly. The muscles in his neck 
flexed, and he
opened his eyes with a deep sigh.
"Can you blame her for running?" he asked me, avoiding eye contact.

"I … I don't think I can."

The door opened, and a head poked out the door.

"You want to come and see him while you still can? Support goes off in half 
an hour. We
still haven't gotten to contact his family yet."

Ash said nothing, sitting there and staring at the ground. I stood weakly, 
obviously too
quickly. He touched my arm, guiding me into the room.

The men in blue had long since left the theatre. It had returned to the 
sterility once more,
the only thing in the room that showed signs of life was the drip, yellow 
fluid slowly
filling into his veins.

Pulling up a chair beside him, I leant my head on his chest. He gasped 
strongly, coughing
violently. I sprung back, and set my hand on his forehead. Smoothing his 
dark hair back,
I kissed his cheek. Once he had a deep brown tan, now it's almost 
transparent.

"Hi there… how are you feeling?"

He closed his eyes, gulping. "Yeah, all right I guess."

"That's good. What did the doctors say?"

"Another operation, and I'll be good as new."

A pit formed at the bottom of my stomach. He wasn't told. I blinked 
furiously, biting my
lip back. I swallowed that pit back down, and squeezed his hand.

"Ash and I are so looking forward to having you back with us! It'll be 
great, eh!"

He nodded slightly, closing his eyes. "Where's Ash?"

"He's… taking a nap outside. He's been up all night long."

"Take him home. Don't worry about me."

"Why would we be worried? You're fine!"

"And where is she?"

I pressed another kiss to his cheek and smoothed his hair back away from his 
face. A
clump of his forehead came away with my hand, and I tried to cover my 
shock..

I had never seen any person ever this sick in my entire life. I had never 
been that sick in
my entire life. Had I questioned why he'd acted differently since he 
returned to us, things
wouldn't have been this way. His hair was dropping out in clumps, his skin 
had lost its
usual healthy glow, and they needed to put a tube down his throat to make 
sure he could
breathe.

When Brock returned from the Island, I had sneaky suspicions at what had 
gone on there.
He wouldn't talk about the issue, and was ignoring anybody's attempts to get 
a straight
answer out of him. But it was his … attitude… that had changed most. Every 
single girl
was flirted with. Every chance was taken. All along, his body was slowly 
poisoning itself.
He was slowly being eaten away. He was seventeen.

He was seventeen. He was only a fucking baby. But he'd never had a chance to 
be a
child. And now he had deteriorated so badly – no kidneys, no liver. He'd 
been almost
completely lobotomised. He wasn't strong enough to move his head.

But the worst of it was that he knew what was happening. He ran when he 
found out. He
ran when he saw. And he knew that his life, his short, horrible life would 
end.

He closed his eyes again. He wasn't getting enough sleep. It's terrible to 
have to say that
when you average 22 hours a day.

"I'll be back in a minute, Rocko. You want anything?"

"I… I want Wilhe…"

"She's coming in soon. I promise." Letting go of his hand, I backed out 
slowly. I shut the
door of the theatre. And when I was sure that he couldn't see me, I ran – as 
fast as I
could, out of the hospital and into the bathrooms.

**

"Post operative scans still show a lot of weakness within the myocardial 
chambers. We
may have to switch it off soon."

I bit down on my lip. "Why can't you help him?"

The doctor sat me down, pointing to a patch of grey in the scan. "See that? 
That's
basically the only uncontaminated piece of flesh in his whole body. He's 
rotting away,
Ash. Letting him live longer would only be cruel to him."

"Why?"

"Many reasons. At the moment, he's in a tremendous amount of pain. No amount 
of
morphine is going to block it. And for another thing, just giving him the 
time to
remember what happened will hurt him badly. I think his suffering should 
end."

"But… I don't want him to go."

"You don't have a say in this, Ash. He'll die anyway. If we do it our way, 
he won't feel
anything."

I stood up, stretching my shoulders. From around the corner, a glimpse of 
green hair
swirled, and when my eyes fell in that direction, it moved distinctly out of 
eyesight.

Walking away from the doctor, I turned the corner. To find her sitting 
there, a book
tucked firmly under her arms.

"I didn't expect you to come back."

She avoided my eyes, and spoke into the ground.

"He needs me more than I don't need him." She set her book on the chair, and 
walked
into the theatre.


**

My eyes feel like they're cemented to my skin. I'm so tired. So very tired. 
It's so horrible
to know that you can close your eyes, and not know if you're asleep or dead. 
Some days,
I wish dead.

Every time I close them, I see the same things. The quicksilver literally 
coursing through
my veins, burning away at the lining of my vessels. My organs spongy and 
torn. Some of
them missing. Then I see it – it's so horrible, it's at the stage where I 
can't tell if it is or
isn't real. It's where I'm being smothered, where the blood explodes inside 
my eyes,
where my ears burst, where the skin on my fingertips gets roughly sloughed 
away, even
with the slightest touch of a feather. And where a kiss can square take my 
lips away.

Then I do wake up. And I can't let it out of me by crying or screaming, or 
clasping onto
someone's hand. Because I have no tear ducts. My hands aren't strong enough 
to touch
anything. And my throat is scraped raw from the poison.

Sometimes I wished the dream would not be a dream. That she will come back 
to me, and
kiss me until I suffocate, and my eyes will collapse like the heavens, and 
my ears shut out
the violent sounds of night, and the dying patients in my ward.

There are four of us in the ward. Ward T. T for terminal. There's Le Chien. 
Once upon a
time, he was the most influential man in France's organised crime history. 
He once cut up
a three year old who accidentally discovered his cocaine in a children's 
playground
outside Rouen. He confided this in me many times, almost bragging and 
boasting. But he
has nothing to brag about. He has paresis – that's what happens when 
syphilis gets to the
brain. He won't live much longer than I will.

Then there is Jake. Jake has a wife, and two children. He's dying of AIDS. 
But he hasn't
told his wife about how he got it. His father used to hold him down to the 
bed when he
was a little boy, and would say 'Scream into the pillow so that bitch won't 
hear you.'

And lastly, there's Scheint. He moved to the country in the fifties, to 
start his life anew.
He used to work the furnaces at Auschwitz. And he won't forget it now.
The door opened slightly. I only know it did, because the light seared 
itself through my
eyelids. Footsteps approaching my bed. Something ever so light lowering 
itself next to
me.

"You feeling any better?" I whispered into her ear, and her head fell into 
the crook
between my neck and shoulder. Her sobbing made the bed shake, and I couldn't 
do
anything to stop her crying. I tried pursing my lips, making them touch her 
ear. I can't.
Too much effort. She pulled her head up, locking her eyes into mine.

"Don't ever think you have to be sorry. Don't you DARE ever feel bad about 
this. Don't
apologise, cower, or die without a fight." She said between sobs. "You want 
me to find
the cocksucker, I will. I will poison HER food, I'll drown her in a vat of 
acid, I'll hang
her with barbed wire, I'll…" she broke down again.

"Don't. Don't take this further. I don't need avenging. I need painkillers, 
and someone to
stay with me to the end. Don't think it's some hideous injustice that needs 
ending. It was
just me."

"Just… you…" She was sitting up now, her entire body trembling with anger. 
"No, it's
not just you. It's Ash. He's losing the best friend, and only brother he's 
ever had. It's
Misty. You were her confidante and idol. It's your family. You were their 
world. It's
your father, your enemies, your teachers, and most of all it's me. I won't 
want anybody
else, I won't want to go home, and I won't want to ever make another friend 
like you. I
won't even want to have children knowing that they aren't yours."

She grew silent again. She stood shakily, and started towards the door.

"Wilhe… come here."

She stopped, and stood her ground, not turning to face me.

"No, I can't. It makes me sick to see you the way you are."

"Then don't look. But it doesn't mean that I can't see you. Close your eyes, 
and turn
around."

She did as I instructed.

"Now, walk about… ooh, six steps forward? Yeah, like that."

Uneasy in her direction, she moved cautiously.

"Two more steps. Now sit on the bed."

She did, her eyes not opening.

And I just sat there, staring at her face, her neck, and her collarbones. 
Her hands and little
wrists. She hadn't eaten in quite a while. Her shoulders, and her back. Down 
her chest,
over her hips, and down to her ankles.

"I'm not creeping you out, am I?"

She flung herself at me, wrapping her arms around my torso. I didn't want to 
tell her that
I felt ribs snapping like twigs, and the fact that she'd probably just 
ruptured something.
That was all negated by the fact that I had her entire length against me 
now, her legs
nestled between mine, and every point on her body was now parallel to mine. 
Her breath
was heating up the hollow of my throat, and if it weren't for every single 
nerve in my
body screaming for relief, I would have stayed like that forever.

And there wasn't going to be anything to hold me back from that.

**

I walked out of that ward with white knuckles, a swollen face, red eyes and 
a grim
determination. I needed to throw up. Pushing the bathroom door frantically, 
I made my
way in there, slamming a door out of my way, and heaving into the porcelain. 
I felt
terrible, but at least I wasn't thinking of being sick again.

A shadow fell over me, and I turned to face Misty, her complexion probably 
as grey as
mine.

"You actually turned up."

I stood shakily. "I'm not letting him go without getting his back. If he 
dies, so does the
whore."

Misty took a hand in hers, and pulled me out of the bathroom, and into the 
corridor.
Leading me out into the balcony, the sun streamed down on me. I could feel 
it burning.

"I'm glad he saw you. He was starting to get down – really down – about his 
lot."

"He has reason, you know. It's not his fault."

"He didn't deserve it, I know. But there's nothing you can do about it now."

"Stop it, don't say things like that! There are things you can do – you can 
hunt her down,
make her feel like game. Then kill her. Then my nightmares won't be haunted 
by her
anymore."

Misty took a step towards me, putting her head on my shoulder, and wrapping 
her arms
around my waist. I let her rock me slowly. Brock used to do that to me. Oh 
god. Brock.

"You know, Wilhelmina, Brock isn't the sort of person who takes revenge all 
that
seriously. In fact, I don't think it was ever an option in his eyes. He 
forgives everyone, no
matter what they do to him. He didn't, and won't care what it was. He'd 
rather have
peace, and people that he cares about, than petty bickering and grudges."

"But I…"

"Do you think he'd want to die with horrible thoughts in his head? He won't. 
Please,
Wilhelmina. He doesn't want it taken any further. He doesn't want bloody 
vengeance, or
Ivy getting her own. He just wants to die knowing that there was nothing 
else they could
have done. What would killing her solve, or prove?"

I closed my eyes. She was right. So absolutely right. I sighed, and leant my 
head on her
shoulder.

"Do you think he'd like it if I just stayed in there until… you know… or do 
you think
he'll want time?"

"No… I think he'd be grateful for it. It would calm him down, and let him 
end it all
without feeling even more terrible than he does."

"Thanks."

"Anytime. I'm used to it by now."

"Misty?"

"Hmm?"

"When he dies… what will Ash do?"

She reinforced her hold on me. "I have no idea. I don't think he's even 
trying to think
about it. I think he'd curl up in a ball and die if he had the choice."

"Be there for him."

"Harder than it seems." I could almost here her frown in her voice. "It's 
hard trying to get
someone as stubborn and childish as him to open up to him. Trust me, I've 
tried to hard.
Brock's always been the one he confided in. I wish I would be that person."

"Have you ever… talked about it?"

"What is there to say, Wilhelmina?" She pulled away from me, my eyes drawing 
closed. I
didn't need another attack. "If I say something, it's taken out of context. 
It's denounced
as rubbish. Damn it, Wilhe, I've thought about it for too long now. I don't 
want to tell
him. I just want to let it all evaporate."

I opened my eyes again. And looked down at my hands.

Fine strands of dark brown hair were almost glued to my hands with sweat. 
They
trembled, the hair still sticking.

And I started screaming, screaming like a maniac. Screaming like I wanted to 
rip my own
throat out. Screaming as though the volume would stop him from dying. Until 
my knees
gave way, and I came crashing to the ground, Misty pulling at me. Then it 
all went blank.



Well, that was lame. Very lame. That was my first attempt at an AAML – not 
much this
time, but when Part 2 comes up, you should have something fairly un-kawaii.

Thanks to those who read and told me it sucked, thanks to those who dared me 
to write it.