I fiddled with the frayed ends of the metallic stitches and tugged at the knots. The were threaded into and through the skin of my ankle and then wrapped around the heel of my foot, holding it onto my leg. The memory of that accident was just as vivid as if it had just happened to me yesterday. The heat from the explosion eating through the flesh of my join and the concussion of the blast, knocking me into the wall behind and snapping the bone of my ankle clean in two.

Next, my the perfectly good thumb of my right hand traced over the useless, flopping digits of my left one. My first two fingers, mutilated in an attempt to help a frightened friend. She’d shattered the frail as twig bones, trying to scare me away.

Sighing dejectedly, I grabbed a large roll of silky white bandages from the bed beside me and set them in my palm, growling out a low line of curses as I realized that I’d forgotten the tape for my broken fingers. Seriously, I wondered if I could survive after having my brains blown out, it wasn’t as if I used them anyways. Never really had.

Growing more and more aggravated by the moment, I finally got up to go get the tape. Feeling the blood from the bruise spanning my chest and stomach slosh around nauseatingly, I scratched at my forearm absently and headed off down the hallway.

I played with the roll of bandages in my better (bad) hand. Seeing as how it was hard enough to walk, going back to get those horrid cloth things would be a pain in the ass. So, I just decided to carry them along with me.

Finally reaching the small bathroom of the hallway- which took an ungodly amount of time seeing as how it was only a dozen feet away, but was a painfully slow walk because of my limp -I sighed and shoved the door open. The bandages cushioned the filmy skin of my palm from banging into the door and splitting like I’d done far too many times before. I wanted to just punch the wooden thing, but figured going in would be more productive.

Taking a few long, aggravating minutes, I taped up my shattered fingers, holding the bones together tightly. I then attempted to resist the urge to grab and down an entire bottle of painkillers. My distraction? More bandaging. Wrapping both or my arms tightly in the thick gauze, I bound them tight enough that if I had circulation, it’d have been cut off. It resulted in a pretty decent distraction.

All that blood…
All their screams…

Then suddenly, it happened. Screams, blaring like car horns into my ears. Clawed hands with palms sweating solid icicles, closed around my clenched, breathless throat. A cacophony of noise and feelings bombarding me from all sides. Their blood, spilling to the floor and fading into rusted iron knives.

Scrambling all around me, they changed targets. One had my throat, a second had my hands, the third’s bloodied talons grabbed for my clothes, and the fourth: my ankles. I couldn’t run and their banshee screeches were making my ears bleed. Quite literally. I could feel my own cool blood tainting my cheeks.

As my mind attempted to shut them out, I tried convince the faces that they weren’t real. To wish them away. To pray them away. As I made one final attempt, one of them knocked me sideways and my shaggily coated, thin excuse for a skull came crashing into the creamy porcelain sink. Blood stained the ceramics a deep red, and it was all I could see for a short time. Red as a sunset. As iron. As roses. As his hair…

It didn’t matter to them, though. To them, I was only squandering their time with my crying, screaming and sobbing. Belligerence would not be tolerated- not by them. Not by those people whom I’d wronged more than any others. They just kept on scratching, tearing, and screaming, no matter what I did.

Biting. Breaking. Begging. Bleeding. Everywhere.

I can’t take it. They won’t let me go. I’m sorry. I can’t make them go. Where is it? I can’t find it. I need it…

Finally, I hit the jackpot; well, my jackpot. My angel was in my sight. Adorning the edge of the countertop and gleaming like a two carat diamond in the meager excuse for a light. The second most beautiful thing I’d seen in my entire lifetime and the after period that didn’t quite have a name.

Grappling fruitlessly through the spontaneously thick air, I shoved the nearest, pathetic excuse for a man from my path. From that path that led me to the thing that was very rapidly becoming my lifeline and weak tie to the remains of my sanity. The next one who got into my way tried to catch a hold of my savior before I could get there. He couldn’t though. I slipped on a patch of blood- my blood -and skidded to a halt there first. My good fingers closed around it and I allowed a small sigh of relief to escape from my cracked, bleeding lips.

My needle. My savior.

Not even a tourniquet was worth the wait. I just took the time to yank aside the hindrance that my glove had become, and pulled my sleeve up to almost my shoulder. Watching strips of skin peel away and fall to the floor, I jammed the needle into my arm hard enough to make a dime sized hole appear around it. I should have screamed, but I didn’t feel it. I couldn’t. I was too numbed by my overwhelming need for drugs.

Allotting myself only enough time for one, large, unnecessary sigh of relief. Then, I took another short gap of time to jam my pocketknife into the leg of one of the men.

Finally, I placed my thumb onto the top of the needle and was about to press it down and give myself the much needed relief, when the door slammed open and my hands were yanked away from my arm. Along with my needle. My one chance at a scrap of sanity few away from me as the needle hit the floor, and I screamed in absolute horror.

Turning around, butcher’s blade in my hand, I was about to gut and torture slowly whoever had taken away my chance at an escape from the screaming and scratching.

All I could see through my permanently hazy vision, was tanned skin, and bright red hair.

Suddenly, realization dawned on me like a sack of bricks to the skull, and I almost screamed again. With bad reflexes, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to stop the blade before it was in his stomach, but I did. I almost sobbed in relief, and collapsed suddenly into the burning heat of his awaiting embrace. His arms closed around me and held me close in a rope cage of flames.

“Make them leave!” I heard my rasping, unrecognizably cracked voice begging him. I could feel them trying to yank me away from him. They tried to pull me back down, and I could feel one of them put the knife into my heel. “Get them off me!” I pleaded pathetically with him, staring upwards in panic.

I knew I sounded crazy, but I didn’t care. He knew I was gone from his world at the moment, and I knew he would fix it. He had to.

I saw my own fear and desperation reflected back to me, in his eyes, just like some sick, perverted mirror. I could only look for a moment before I was too taken with the fear to keep my head up, though. “There’s nothing there, Carter!” he begged me. “Nothing at all! Look at me!”

He forced my head up by my chin and made me look him in the eye. I was embarrassed: surely he could see the physical traits of my dying vision, and the bruising on my neck where I’d hit it falling down the stairs. But, as soon as m eyes met his, It all fell away.

The screaming died down to a dull roar, and the pain faded. The withdrawal symptoms from the heroin wore off to a slight shiver. He was the only thing I the world that could do that for me. Do what I’d asked of him and make them leave me be.

“Thank you,” was all I could force out of my mouth as I buried my face into his shirt. I saw, smelled, felt, heard, nothing but him. And that was all I wanted.

I felt his lips on my neck and smiled, perfectly aware of how strange and lopsided it must look to the world. “You’re bleeding…”

Looking down, I saw the blade in my good foot and realized that he was right: I was standing in a large puddle of my own blood. He continued to speak, though, and I was fine with that. His voice was almost as gorgeous as his guitar playing. “You should get cleaned up, you’re starting to scare me.”

Right, he was homophobic as well as a hemophiliac. How ironic.

I just nodded dully in response and agreement, then allowed him to undress me. I was too preoccupied with that lovingly worried expression he had buried into his wrinkled eyebrows to actually notice anything else.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I normally never acted like this. Normally, I was solemn, stony, dark, pessimistic, and much more dominating than my boyfriend. Today, though. Today was different, and I wanted him to hold me. I had just been so scared, so panicked, so worried that I would die again and not come back this time. I just wanted the one thing I trusted was real, to hold me in his arms and never let me go.

And that he did.

He helped me to balance on my bad foot and leaned me on the counter as he undressed himself, also. Saying something about worrying about my head and wanting to make sure I didn’t faint. He pulled me into the shower after rambling for a bit, and gently pulled the knife out of my foot, washing me off. He was so gentle with me, always afraid that I would shatter like my mind had. Sometimes…most of the time, it annoyed me; but not today.

Today, I was ready to do what he wanted. What he wanted, instead of the other way around. And damn, did we “do” what he wanted.

Over, and over, and over…

Somehow, we ended up tangled on the floor in the front room, a blanket from his bed wrapped around us with me shivering anyways. I was curled up in his arms in a matter of minutes, though. Back against his chest with him using one hand to play with me hair. I wasn’t quite sure how, though, since I hadn’t brushed the mop in months. He was somehow managing to get his fingers through it though.

His other hand was occupying itself with tracing out designs on my stomach. Both of our pants were fast and irregular, despite the fact that I didn’t need to breathe.

Back in the time when I could sleep, I would have been passed out stone cold from that work out. Right now, though, I was just letting my mind fade out and my body relax into Andy’s touch.

Then, there was a knock at the door and a ring of the doorbell.

“The fuck…?” we both echoed each other, inciting a chuckle from us both. He grabbed his pants from the back of the chair and yanked them on. Heading to the door, he poked his head out so that I wouldn’t have to move. I was truly grateful for that favor, since I wasn’t sure I could at the moment.

I couldn’t see who it was, and I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but I did hear the way Andy’s voice changed and knew he wasn’t happy. Playing with my ring, I listened to his half of the conversation.

“No, Carter can’t come to the door.” That’s when his tone went sour and his hair hit his hip.

“Why?” Skeptical now.

“Why, because he’s been banged over a table a few too many times today and can’t really walk at the moment.”

I threw my shoe off the floor beside the couch, at his head. I hit him square in the back of the neck and made him wince. He really just laughed though, continuing his conversation in a response to some unheard comment. “I’ll take a message for you if you want!” No time for an answer, “No? Well, bye then!”

He slammed the door in the person’s face and came back to sit beside me.

I watched him quizzically for a few moments before finally asking him: “Who was that?”

Shrugging a bit and looking just the tiniest hint of bored, he answered in a vaguely mysterious tone. “Some middle aged blondie with the second most stunning set of green eyes I’ve ever spotted. Think he said his name was Sam.”

Staring at him, I had to shake my head a few times to make sense of what he was saying next. Though, the shock was still setting in, I managed to focus on his words. “What’s wrong?” he was questioning worriedly by the time I could pay attention.

“I-uh. Nothing.” I smiled and crawled onto his lap, pressing my lips to his. I was determined to make him forget the man he had just seen.

My father wouldn’t have approved of him anyways.