Pyroclast
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Dublin City Hospital
~ Dublin City Centre, Dublin ~
Syd Porter
~ Dublin City Centre, Dublin ~
Syd Porter
Over the course of his life, Syd had experienced death and loss in all sorts of different ways. Deaths he witnessed, deaths he missed. Shockingly quick deaths and agonisingly slow deaths. Deaths he could have prevented, deaths he caused...and even his many suicide attempts. He could write a book about all the different forms that grief can take, and yet, as his father lay dying in the hospital, he still felt completely unprepared to deal with it. It reminded him of his late wife, Skye, and her battle with cancer that eventually took her life. The utter helplessness, the agonising wait for the end. The waiting was the worst - there was so much room for denial and for overthinking, too much time to spend inside his own head, all the while knowing that his loved one was suffering. Syd could barely remember the year following Skye's death, he had been so consumed by the grief. It was complex and messy and he had hardly survived it, having made three attempts on his life that year alone. It wasn't as if he had gone through it once and now knew what to do. It was impossibly challenging then, and felt no different 23 years later.
Syd stood outside James' private hospital room with Thomas and Olivia. His jaw was clenched tight and his skin was clammy, the fresh cuts on his arms and body stinging beneath his clothes. Hospitals were a horribly public place to have a breakdown, which was hard to avoid since his nightmares tended to come to life there. He had too many painful memories in hospitals and now just the smell of them made him feel dizzy and nauseous. Thomas moved in to hug him, and Syd managed to return the gesture, albeit stiffly. He could feel himself growing distant already, his mind wanting to detach from reality and refuse to accept it. The doctors were obviously wrong - James survived everything. He was a cockroach. He could survive this. He wouldn't leave Lucy. He couldn't leave, not this time, not when it was Syd's fault.
The fresh cuts on his body pulsed. Soon they were walking in and taking their places around James' bed. Syd took a seat next to Lucy and their hands automatically linked together. Syd stared at his father; he didn't look like himself, all weak and run down, like he had aged several years in the last week alone. It was hard to believe what he was seeing, with such fresh memories in his head of the man walking around, his voice strong and his eyes focused. It was like a bad dream - one of those hospital-curated nightmares - and he would just wake up and see his father as he knew him again.
James removed his oxygen mask to ask them how they were all doing and what they had been up to. Syd's heart began to pound in his chest and he met Thomas' gaze, unsure what to say. Of course the man didn't want to hear the truth. He couldn't admit to his dying father how much distress he had been in, how much he hated himself for inviting his family to a large event, how he hadn't been going to work and he was self-harming every day. Instead, he let Thomas speak first, who managed to talk about Elena. Syd loved that his brother had found someone who made him happy, but he failed to smile. Everyone was struggling to hold themselves together and the atmosphere was unbearable. The pain of the situation surged through him and, out of sheer determination to lose not his nerve, he found himself rocking slightly in his seat from the pressure. He was then prompted to tell James about how the meeting with the Kings had gone, with Lucy reminding him of how proud she and James were. It was like she was trying to make him cry.
Drawing a shaky breath, Syd locked eyes with his father and a strange sort of smile spread across his face. "Yes," he said flatly. "Yeah, um...w-we..." He squeezed Lucy's hand so tightly that his fingertips turned white. "We formed a truce. War's over. It's all gonna be okay now." Except it wasn't, obviously, because James wasn't going to make it. "Dad?" His smile had disappeared and his eyes filled with tears as he began to shake in his seat. "I -" An apology almost left his lips but got caught in his throat, just long enough for him to rethink...did he really want to waste what could be the last moments with his father apologising for something that was too late to change? He couldn't go back in time and cancel the event, or up the security further, or uninvite his family. What happened happened, and just from the way James was looking at him now, he could tell the man didn't blame him. "I just...w-want to say thank you," he managed to get out. "For...everything." His stomach tensed and a few tears escaped his eyes. "I couldn't have asked for a better dad."
Interactions
Misty Gray James, Olivia
Bellz Lucy, Thomas