(no subject)
title: untitled
author: elizabethfaye09
rating: pg-13
disclaimer: i own none of the characters mentioned. none of this is mine.
summary: "and i can't stand the pain, and i can't make it go away..."
warnings: um pretty damn depressing/angsty. character death!
author's notes: this came out of nowhere a couple of weeks ago. the title/lyrics at the beginning belong to simple plan's song "untitled (how could this happen to me)" it's pretty depressing. i've been kind of stuck lately on the fact that soon it will be 6 months since my sister died and i think i'm just....writing it out? idk, idk. hope you enjoy though :)
betas: these lovely people are....well lovely! dirtysdead and fasciculations
And I can’t stand the pain
And I can’t make it go away
No I can’t stand the pain
How could this happen to me
A heavy drop of rain hits first his cheek. Another falls, landing in his eye and soon after its pouring.
The first thing Adam’s aware of is the hard ground, the rain pooling around him and soaking his clothes as he lies there. It’s cold and he’s shaking but he doesn’t really remember where he is. Until he opens his eyes and looks. His car-his pretty black Mustang-is in a mangled heap just a few inches in front of him, smoke rising from the hood where it’s plastered to the guard rail, headlights still shining. He looks around and sees metal and glass strewn about the road.
Kris.
He’s frantic. As he pushes himself to his feet the pain comes fast and hard. It leaves him gasping and falling back to the cold ground. But he has to find Kris. So, pushing the pain aside, Adam stumbles to his feet. He glances down, sees a river of rain water and blood dripping off his fingers, and his stomach rolls. His whole body hurts, yet he’s not worried about that right now. He has to find Kris. But he needs to call emergency services first. He shoves his hand into his pocket and finds his cell phone to quickly call 911.
Someone tells him an ambulance is on the way, that he needs to stay on the line, but Adam hangs up anyway and tosses the phone aside; they’ll come without him staying on the phone. “Kris.” When he speaks it comes out hoarse and rough, like sandpaper grating on his vocal cords, so he clears his throat a few times and tries again. “Kris!”
A groan comes from somewhere in the darkness. Adam looks around, squinting against the pounding rain blurring his vision, and sees the other driver a few feet away. He is sitting on the side of the road, head in his hands, coughing violently. Adam can’t find it in himself to care. The other car is barely even dented as it rests in the middle of the road but one of the tires is blown and the windshield is cracked. He still doesn’t care.
“Help me,” the guy coughs then hunches over and vomits in the grass.
No, Adam thinks and rounds his car to search for Kris. Kris who’s probably lying somewhere scared and cold and in the dark. If anything that thought has Adam falling headfirst into panic mode. He can’t lose Kris, he just can’t.
Adam barely remembers what happened. They were driving home from dinner with his parents, some fancy restaurant that just opened last week, when it happened. Adam has always liked taking the back roads because there’s never anybody using them at night. So he took one tonight and he so desperately wishes now that he could take it back. He remembers Kris suddenly shouting at him to look out and before Adam could react the other driver had slammed into them. He doesn’t remember hitting the guard rail, or how he ended up out of his seat and on the hard ground, or what happened to Kris.
Then, as he’s searching the edge of the hill dipping into the woods, he sees Kris. “Kris!” No matter how much it hurts Adam keeps going until he’s by Kris’s side, on his hands and knees. “Kris, are you okay?” But Kris doesn’t say anything; he doesn’t even groan or make any kind of noise. Adam’s heart lurches in his chest and it’s so painful that he can’t think straight. He can’t be, he can’t be!
He carefully puts Kris’s head in his lap, careful not to jostle him too much, and splays a hand on his chest. The blood that trickles out the corner of Kris’s mouth leaves Adam feeling like he’s going to faint. “Come on, Kris, wake up!” Adam pulls Kris’s eyelid up, like he’s seen in the movies a million times, but he can barely make out the pupil. He knows he has to check for a pulse but he can’t bring himself to do it just yet. He can’t.
“Wake up, Kris, wake up,” he mutters as he gently presses his hand against Kris’s chest and waits. “Wake up, tell me you’re okay, tell me you’re okay.” There’s still no response. Adam presses a thumb into Kris’s neck, his other hand sliding to Kris’s wrist, and he waits and feels and waits some more. When nothing flutters under his touch, when nothing beats and pulses, he squeezes his eyes shut and chokes on a sob.
The rain continues to fall fast and hard but Adam takes no notice. He doesn’t know how long he kneels there with Kris in his lap not moving, not….breathing. But he’s desperate; he can’t just lose someone like this. Not someone like Kris who’s so sweet and nice and anything unlike he seems. “Please wake up, please Kris, please.” He rocks Kris back and forth, holds on a little too tightly while he does so.
Adam can hear the sirens of the ambulance in the distance. He can hear a voice over a loud-speaker shouting their names from the top of the hill. Yet he takes no notice. He just sits there rocking from side to side, mumbling broken whispers of “Wake up, wake up, wake up,” in Kris’s ear. If a few tears fall he doesn’t notice.
What seems like hours later, but is really only a few minutes, an EMT is grabbing Adam’s elbow and trying to pull him off the ground. He jumps and, reluctantly, goes with them. Two more are behind him with their kits and flashlights to examine Kris. Adam closes his eyes and allows himself to be hauled up the hill and onto a waiting stretcher. There’s a chorus of gasps and cries. Adam glances, sees a crowd of onlookers behind yellow police tape to hold them back, and then slumps onto the stretcher.
“You will be okay,” an EMT promises and Adam really tries to believe them. Right now he’s numb all over.
“Where’s Kris?” Adam murmurs as he’s being hooked up to an IV and other machines he can’t place.
The EMT goes silent. “You’ll be fine,” he answers quietly.
Adam is vaguely aware of the shouting from the sudden crown and the policemen and the paramedics. His head is pounding with an oncoming headache and his body is becoming painfully aware of its own condition. The numbness is slipping away and he’s afraid. He doesn’t want to feel. He wants to be numb forever if this is the kind of life he’s going to have. A life without Kris.
“Let go of me!”
Adam sits up, not caring about the IV needle coming out of his hand. Two policemen are attempting to give the other driver a breathalyzer. Adam sits there and stares. Then…then there’s the other stretcher and Kris being placed on it. The paramedics are frantic over his body, pumping air into his slack mouth through a clear bulb.
“What’re you doing?” Adam calls out. The EMT that had been tending to him runs over and tries to get him to lie back down. “No! What’s happening?”
“He barely has a pulse but they’re working on it.”
“…What?” Eyes wide, Adam scrambles off the stretcher, yanking machine hook-ups off and throwing them aside. The paramedics rush by to the second van. The crowd watching grows louder at the sight and Adam wishes they would just go away. How did they find out so fast anyway?
“Mr. Lambert get back!” A paramedic shouts. A policeman comes over and guides Adam back, but Adam refuses.
“I have to see,” he mutters and ducks under the arm holding him.
But before he can make it to the van machines go haywire and start beeping loudly. The paramedics are shouting and the crowd is getting louder and louder. Adam’s vision goes blurry for a moment and then he’s dropping to the ground, unconscious.
***
When Adam comes to he’s in a hospital bed surrounded by too much white and the scents of antiseptic and cleaners. His head is pounding, his vision is swimming, and he feels like he’s going to throw up.
“Oh Adam, you’re finally awake!”
Adam turns his head to see his mom rushing over. She takes his hand tightly in hers and runs her free hand through his unruly hair. “Mom, whe-“
“I’m so glad you’re alright, baby,” she whispers, pressing a kiss to his forehead. “Do you need anything?”
Adam clears his scratchy throat before trying again. She keeps fussing over him, running her hand over his hair, checking over every inch of him. “Mom,” he says loudly. She stops and her eyes fill with tears. “Mom?”
“Oh honey, they tried everything they could.”
Everything seems to freeze in time. His heart beats fast in his chest and his breathing quickens as tears and pain threaten to take over. “What? But I thought…I thought he-“ It suddenly hurts to breathe.
“They tried, baby, they tried.” She’s crying with him. She wraps her arms around his shaking shoulders and he clings to her, tears staining her jacket, and she tries her hardest to soothe him into calmness.
Outside it is still raining. The perfect setting for the worst situation, Adam thinks sadly.
***
Adam is dreaming. He has to be. Otherwise Kris wouldn’t be standing in front of him, holding a hand out for Adam to take, smiling that bright smile and waiting. “Come on, Adam.” Adam smiles back and takes Kris’s hand; so soft and warm and alive.
“Where are we going?” Adam asks. Confusion sets in at the sight of Kris’s expression. So sad and so lost and so confused.
“Don’t you want to come with me?” Kris’s voice is small, tiny. Adam’s heart breaks at the sound of it.
“Where?”
Kris snatches his hand away and then…then Adam is falling. He’s falling into nothing, calling out for Kris to catch him, to take him wherever Kris wants to go. He would go anywhere with Kris. But he’s still falling. Kris is saying something that Adam can’t understand. Darkness closes in around him, swallows him whole, and, it is as he’s crashing to the ground that he finally understands.
“You didn’t try hard enough to save me.”
Adam wakes with a start. It’s been a month. The broken ribs and the dislocated shoulder, the numerous cuts and bruises, are almost healed completely. Though it still hurts every day. Everything hurts and he can’t stop it, ever.
It’s time like these that he wishes Kris would come walking through that door and smile and laugh and say hello. It won’t happen though. The funeral made that final in Adam’s mind. It made the feeling of loss that much worse, too. He’s been doing normal things, as normal as they can be all wrapped up in bandages, but it’s all mechanical. He feels as if he’s doing everything on autopilot and he has no control over his own body. He kind of likes it that way.
Being on autopilot makes him forget. It helps him get over the fact that Kris won’t be there in the mornings when he wakes, hair sticking up in odd tufts and eyes bleary with sleep. Kris won’t be there to enjoy breakfast with him. Kris won’t be there to complain about Adam’s shoes lying in the doorway where someone could trip over them and get hurt. Kris just won’t be there. And it hurts to think about it.
Adam is going through the motions. Day-to-day he lives but he doesn’t feel, he doesn’t think much. He gets up in the morning, changes the bandages, eats breakfast, grabs his things, and leaves. Rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, over and over every day. His parents have given up on getting him to go out and have some kind of fun with his friends. He tells them the same thing every time: it isn’t the same without Kris by his side.
But today Adam doesn’t get out of bed. He lays there helpless and drowning in his own emotions, and he can’t help it. It’s been a month today and Adam is afraid that today won’t be a good day; none of his days have been good days. Brad barely got a smile out of him the second week. Cassidy almost made him laugh the other day. Neil told him how it is and left him with a carton of ice cream to sulk over. His parents didn’t even try to get his spirits lifted. Allison came over one day and they sat on his couch and cried together until they were both out of tears.
Today Adam has Kris’s debut album on repeat. His voice is smooth and flowing through the speakers of the stereo system set up in the room. He looks around, his eyes landing on one of Kris’s acoustics in the corner. That sets off the tears so he buries his face into his pillow and breathes. He doesn’t like wallowing in his own tears and emotions but today calls for it.
He knows he will get through this. It will take time and it will probably drain the life out of him but he’ll do it. For now, though, he’s going to lay here and cry and not move unless he absolutely has to.
A clap of thunder sounds outside the window. Adam glances up and out where the sky is turning gray and dreary. Lightning strikes somewhere in the distance, the flash hurting his eyes slightly, and he blinks fast. He hasn’t seen much light lately. He’s probably due for some fresh air soon, too. As he listens to the sounds of the storm moving in mix with the sound of Kris’s voice over the speakers, he closes his eyes and hopes he doesn’t dream again.
And, this time, Adam doesn’t dream. This time he can see Kris as if he were right there with him, alive and well, and Adam smiles softly. He keeps his eyes closed so the image of Kris happy and there won’t fade away too fast.
Outside, the rain continues to pour.