At first all he could was white, and his first instincts were to cover his ears and eyes. Everything was so loud and so white, harsh and too much. People were rushing, pacing and running, and Jake looked around, seeing the emergency room window and the well worn chairs and heard the doctors and the sirens and the couch and mutter of other people waiting.
Jack was trying to hold onto the wall near a door, they were in a hall lined with empty gurneys, and Jake heard but never saw Claire and Jon behind him. She sounded like she was crying, and Jack looked like he was crying, Jake could see the tearstains on his face as the lights flashed off the metal of the gurneys. Something was happening behind that door, but he couldn’t remember what. He felt cold, and there was something thick and sticky on his hands but he couldn’t see them. He could hear things frantically crashing behind the door, could hear someone yelling, but couldn’t make out what was being said. He was afraid to step closer.
He wanted to turn to ask Claire what was wrong, where was Avery, but couldn’t see her. Jack kept staring at the floor, tears falling from his face. Jake stopped moving his fingers, because every time he did it made him feel sick.
It was only another couple of minutes before things suddenly went completely still and silent, even though it felt like forever. The door banged open and someone came out, saying too much blood, too late, best we could, yelling it, loud enough that Jake winced as he desperately tried to wipe of the sticky stuff off his hands, onto his jeans or his tshirt, but it wouldn’t come off. Jack was still standing completely still against the wall, head bowed, his tears the only part of him moving. Jake stared through the now open door, into a room that looked red.
But it wasn’t red all over. The red was blood. Avery’s blood, because Avery was in a gurney in the middle of the room, unmoving. There were carts and cords and empty bags and needles and scissors and scalpels, Avery’s arm hanging over the edge of the gurney, blood dripping off his fingers. The blood was on the floor and the cart and Avery, all over his throat and chest, on towels and smocks on the floor.
Jake felt like all of his blood was being drained from him forcibly, while still awake and still able to feel it. It was dark and bright at the same time, all over Avery’s pale skin and pooled under him, soaked into his hair, lifeless and everywhere. He saw the scalpel again on the cart and wanted to cut himself open and give Avery his own blood, give it all, warm and still alive because he could feel it draining away and no it had to go to Avery, so he would wake up. So he would wake up.
There was blood dripping off his fingers.
Jake woke up choking.
He woke up wiping his hands on the sheets, or trying to, his face wet, his throat closed, his heart pounding. Where was Avery. Jake rolled over, scrambled over, on his knees without knowing how, hands all over the other boy. He was on his side, half on Jack, and Jake just touched him, not knowing for once that he’d wake him up, in fact wanting to wake him up, because he needed to be awake. He needed to be alive. He wasn’t cut open, there was no blood, and Jake’s hands were on his chest and his fingers brushing over his throat as Avery opened his eyes and yawned and murmured.