Hawks Are Meant to Fly
Jonny’s “Nightmare”
Jonathan stares horrified, as Patrick doesn't even see the man come up beside him. It’s just another normal day, him heading over to his best friend’s condo to go hang out. Usually, he would’ve driven, but it was a nice day and he felt like walking. They lived close enough that it was only about a 15 minute walk, hat pulled low over his eyes, sunglasses on. He had heard the soft footsteps next to him, but hadn’t thought anything of it. This was Chicago, there was always someone around.
He pushes the buzzer for Jonathan’s condo and waits as it rings.
“Give me your wallet.” Patrick freezes when the voice comes right next to his ear. “And your phone too. Give me everything.” He’s abruptly aware of the sharp point of a knife pressed against his back, nestled in the back of his ribs. Swallowing hard, he digs in his jeans, fumbling for his wallet.
“Kaner, is that you?” Jonathan’s voice echoes from the intercom. Patrick shakily hands over his wallet as the knife gets pressed harder into his back. “You there?” He can feel the point slit through his t-shirt and through the first layers of skin.
It takes him a couple tries to get anything to come out of his mouth. “Y-Yeah. Can you buzz me in? Please?” He’s trying to sound as calm as possible so the man behind him doesn’t get paranoid.
“Ummm… okay? Just come on in, doors unlocked, okay?” Patrick moves slowly, putting his hand on the door, waiting for it to unlock. If he can get in quick enough, he has the chance to lock the man out, or be able to catch him off guard enough to fight him.
With his other hand, he hands back his phone. “Please,” he says, “just let me go, you have my wallet and my phone. Don’t you know, I’m-“
“I don’t give a fuck who you are.” And then the blinding white pain hits. The scream gets caught in his throat as the knife is thrust firmly in between his ribs, through his back. Patrick holds onto the door for dear life as the man rips the metal out, taking off with his things. The pain shoots through his chest like a hot iron, worse than anything he’s ever felt before. No hit could ever compare to this. His knees buckle under the immense agony pulsing through his entire body.
Pulling himself upright, Patrick finally hears the long buzz, allowing him to pull the door open, groaning. He props it open for a second to get his bearings. Looking around at the surprisingly empty street, he knows that his only chance is to get upstairs and get to Jonathan. Struggling to stay upright and struggling to keep air in his lungs, Patrick stumbles over to the elevator.
With shaking hands, he fumbles to press the button labeled 4. Patrick grips at his side, feeling the sticky blood drenching his black t-shirt. Pulling his hand away, hissing at the blinding pain, he listens to the drip, drip, drip of blood hitting the metal floor.
The disconcerting hiss of air through the laceration in his back scares him the most. It’s like a steady beat of breath in and then the gurgled exhale as blood fills the cavity in his chest.
The elevator dings and the doors slide open. Dizzily, he tries to keep his vision in check long enough to see which condo is actually Jonathan’s. Pushing the door open with the last bit of strength he has, Patrick feels Jonny’s name trickle out of his mouth before he hits the hard wood floor.
The track lighting on the ceiling threatens to blind him as he stares up at them. He smiles painfully at Jonathan as he comes racing over. “Pat?!” he screams, voice a harsh cacophony in his already ringing ears. “Peeks, stay with me, I’ll call an ambulance!” Patrick grips his arm, keeping him by his side. “I won’t leave, I promise,” Jonathan says, pulling out his phone. He dials quickly and puts the phone on speaker, setting it own to keep a tight hold on Patrick’s hand.
“9-1-1, what’s your emergency?”
“My friend, he collapsed in my apartment. He just got here. There’s blood… everywhere. It’s fucking coming out of his mouth! I don’t know what happened!,” Jonathan shouts, eyes wide and terrified. “I need someone here now! There’s so much blood!”
“St-Stabbed…” Patrick manages to choke out, blood bubbling down the sides of his cheeks. The overhead lights are spinning now and Jonathan’s face begins to blur. He catches bits and pieces of his Captain’s voice, like him giving the operator his address and telling them that he’d been stabbed. Patrick coughs harshly, blood splattering everywhere as he struggles to refill his lungs. His head pounds in time with his heart, heavy and slowly erratic.
“Patrick, you need to stay with me,” he hears Jonathan say insistently. “They’re almost here. They’re going to help you. They’re going to save you.”
Blinking back pained tears and sweat, Patrick can see the blood drenched across his Captain’s chest and arms, and sprayed across his face. He can see the fearful desperation and the shaking of his body. He can see the tears and terror in his eyes, scared of losing Patrick like this. “G-G-Gonna… m-miss you…” he manages, each word less intelligible than the one before. “Tell… f-family… l-love th-them…”
Jonathan’s eyes are wide and horrified as he grabs at Patrick’s face and hands. “No, shut the fuck up. You’re not going to die. I’m not telling anybody anything because you’re going to do it yourself. You’re not dying. Not now. Not here.”
Swallowing back more blood, Patrick struggles to keep his eyes open. He coughs out thick pools, words drowning in them. He mumbles, lungs finally full of heavy liquid, “L-Love you… Tazer… S-Sorry…” The energy he had was gone and, for a moment, he could’ve sworn Jonathan loved him too. His eyes slip closed and his world slips into darkness.
When he opens his eyes again, Patrick’s pretty sure he’s in heaven. Jonathan can see him, well his dream viewer self can.
Everything was too bright and smelled of harsh chemicals. If this was what heaven was, Patrick’s not sure he really wants to be here. But as his eyesight adjusts, he realizes that this isn’t heaven at all, just a very blinding, very stark hospital room. His body feels like it’s on fire as he pushes himself up in bed with a groan. He nearly jumps out of his skin when he hears “Patrick!” gasped in tearful joy.
His mom stops pacing the side of the room and kisses his face over and over again, tears spilling down her cheeks. “I’m so glad you’re alive,” she sobs, holding him tight. HIs own tears of relief fall as Patrick lets himself be rocked by his mom. She kisses his forehead and says, “Let me get your dad and the girls. I’ll be right back.”
As she rushes out, Patrick notices a large figure tucked awkwardly in one of the chairs by his bed. There was Jonathan, his 6’2” frame curled haphazardly in the cheap wood. Patrick doesn’t miss the fact that he hasn’t changed, still dressed in the blood-soaked tank and shorts. IT takes almost too much energy to reach his arm out and tug on the front, but Patrick smiles gently when Jonathan jerks out of sleep, looking around wildly. “Peeks,” he whispers breathlessly, “you’re alive.”
The mask attached to his face, keeping him breathing with a steady pumping hiss, makes it hard to talk but he manages a quiet, “I thought… I was dead.”
Jonathan holds on to his hand for dear life, keeping the promise he had made early to not leave him. There’s still terror in his eyes as he leans his forehead on Patrick’s arm. “You were,” he chokes out, voice cracking at the end. “Your heart stopped beating at my place.
They spent 5 minutes trying to get you back and stable enough to move. You crashed again in the ambulance. I watched you die twice, Peeks, you have no idea what that’s like. And then the coma…”
“Coma?”
Jonathan’s body shudders as he raises his head, eyes bloodshot with tears. For 42 hours. Your body couldn’t handle it. You needed a blood transfusion. It was terrifying. I couldn’t sleep.” He looks at the floor mumbling. “I didn’t want to believe you were going to die, but everyone said you would.”
HIs mask loses suction slightly as tear wet his cheeks. Patrick grips Jonathan’s hand as tightly as he can, coming back to reality. “I’m glad,” he whispers, “that you didn’t give up.”
The door bursts open and in pour his doctors, nurses, parents, and sisters. Patrick has never been so glad to see his sisters and lets them pour their happy tears across his body. Even his dad cries, emotions running high. He has to detach from his family to let the doctors check him over, but Jonathan remains by his side, hand clasped firmly in both of his.
Once his doctor clears him, she asks, “Would you like to see your other visitors? They’ve been asking about you non-stop.”
Patrick looks between Jonathan and his family, asking hopefully, “The guys? They here?”
Jonathan nods, saying, “Q and Bowman were the first to show up. Sharpy, Crow, Mutt, Manchild, and Smitty are here too. Hjammer offered to fly back over from Sweden. I think Duncs and Seabs are flying in tonight. Everybody’s real worried about you.”
Running his free hand across the drainage tube in his chest, he cracks a grin before wincing out, “They should be… I’m irreplaceable…”
As his teammates are let in, Patrick has never felt so lucky. He can see the clear unease on Q’s face and the nervousness on Bowman’s. But what he’s not prepared for at all is his team. Sharpy looks absolutely distraught, nothing anyone saying making a difference. Saad and Shaw and Smitty are all smiles, just thrilled that he’s alive and okay. Crow just stands beside him, silently relieved with a huge grin on his face.
After a good hour of catching up with everyone, he tugs his mom close. She leans down as he whispers quietly, “Can I talk to Jonny? Alone?”
She immediately begins ushering people out, saying Patrick needed some rest. Sharpy gives him a tight hug before getting pushed out the door. Shawzy punches him gently in the arm and Saader ruffles his hair before they leave. His sisters kiss his cheeks before heading out with their dad, and his mom holds him tight, saying, “We’ll be right outside if you need anything.”
And it’s suddenly quiet, except for the beeps and hisses of the various machines that are hooked up to Patrick’s body. He looks over at Jonathan, studies the hunch in his shoulders and the battle going on in his head, evident through the windows of his eyes. “Tazer,” he mumbles. Jonathan looks up, eyes still worried, face weathered with anxiety. “Thanks for saving me.”
Jonathan sighs, still grasping Patrick’s hand tightly. “Do you remember what you said to me? Before you went unconscious?” Patrick has some thoughts, but most of those last moments were a blur. “You said… said you loved me.”
Patrick can feel his cheeks heating up. He had feelings for Jonathan, of course, but hadn’t really ever meant to tell him. But in his dying moments, it must’ve been a good idea at the time. “Jonny… I…”
“Was that true?” He’s not sure if Jonathan actually said it or not, it was so quiet. “Or were you just saying that because you thought you weren’t going to see me again?” The silence digs into their bones, accentuated by the painfully steady beeps and hiss.
Everything races in his head as Patrick watches his heart rate monitor. It speeds up as the nervousness spills into his voice, saying, “Both.” Jonathan’s head jerks up and Patrick can’t look him in the eye. “I didn’t want to tell you because I didn’t want to ruin our friendship. But I didn’t want to die without having you know. I had to tell you. I’m sorry if that makes this complicated.”
“I was just scared of losing you. You died in my arms, Patrick. I was so terrified of not ever seeing you again that I didn’t care what you had said. But after seeing you laying there, in a coma, I realized that maybe I wasn’t going to be able to not see you again. I couldn’t imagine living my life without you. You’ve been around as long as I remember and I finally realized, as I was sitting in the ambulance, unable to let you go, I realized that we weren’t just friends anymore. Everything’s changed.”
It’s the hardest movement, both emotionally and physically, to turn his head and meet Jonathan’s gaze. They’ve played on and off together since they were 12 and 13, and all those years reflect back at him in his Captain’s dark eyes. And Jonathan was right, seeing it all played back at him, Patrick realizes that it has changed.
He shifts in the chair slightly, muscles tensing uncomfortably. Patrick squeezes his hand back carefully as he mutters, more to himself than Patrick, “It wasn’t working out. Hadn’t been for a while.”
“So… where does that leave us?”
Jonathan’s face breaks out in a grin, a quiet, soft one that makes him feel like it’s going to be all right. “Doesn’t matter. All I know is that I’m not leaving. I promised you that and I’m going to keep it.” Patrick’s pretty sure he’s going to be okay. He’s made it this far and he’s safe and sound now, pressed between his family waiting gratefully outside for him and the warm hand held tight around his.
Jonathan blinks awake in the bed. He finds Patrick snuggled against him, smiling in his sleep. He calms his heart rate down and cocks his head, smiling. He strokes his friend’s blond curls and kisses him lightly on the forehead and then sinks back into the bed, wrapping his arms around Patrick.
“I won’t let anything happen to you, Kaner. You’re safe with me. I promise.”
He pushes the buzzer for Jonathan’s condo and waits as it rings.
“Give me your wallet.” Patrick freezes when the voice comes right next to his ear. “And your phone too. Give me everything.” He’s abruptly aware of the sharp point of a knife pressed against his back, nestled in the back of his ribs. Swallowing hard, he digs in his jeans, fumbling for his wallet.
“Kaner, is that you?” Jonathan’s voice echoes from the intercom. Patrick shakily hands over his wallet as the knife gets pressed harder into his back. “You there?” He can feel the point slit through his t-shirt and through the first layers of skin.
It takes him a couple tries to get anything to come out of his mouth. “Y-Yeah. Can you buzz me in? Please?” He’s trying to sound as calm as possible so the man behind him doesn’t get paranoid.
“Ummm… okay? Just come on in, doors unlocked, okay?” Patrick moves slowly, putting his hand on the door, waiting for it to unlock. If he can get in quick enough, he has the chance to lock the man out, or be able to catch him off guard enough to fight him.
With his other hand, he hands back his phone. “Please,” he says, “just let me go, you have my wallet and my phone. Don’t you know, I’m-“
“I don’t give a fuck who you are.” And then the blinding white pain hits. The scream gets caught in his throat as the knife is thrust firmly in between his ribs, through his back. Patrick holds onto the door for dear life as the man rips the metal out, taking off with his things. The pain shoots through his chest like a hot iron, worse than anything he’s ever felt before. No hit could ever compare to this. His knees buckle under the immense agony pulsing through his entire body.
Pulling himself upright, Patrick finally hears the long buzz, allowing him to pull the door open, groaning. He props it open for a second to get his bearings. Looking around at the surprisingly empty street, he knows that his only chance is to get upstairs and get to Jonathan. Struggling to stay upright and struggling to keep air in his lungs, Patrick stumbles over to the elevator.
With shaking hands, he fumbles to press the button labeled 4. Patrick grips at his side, feeling the sticky blood drenching his black t-shirt. Pulling his hand away, hissing at the blinding pain, he listens to the drip, drip, drip of blood hitting the metal floor.
The disconcerting hiss of air through the laceration in his back scares him the most. It’s like a steady beat of breath in and then the gurgled exhale as blood fills the cavity in his chest.
The elevator dings and the doors slide open. Dizzily, he tries to keep his vision in check long enough to see which condo is actually Jonathan’s. Pushing the door open with the last bit of strength he has, Patrick feels Jonny’s name trickle out of his mouth before he hits the hard wood floor.
The track lighting on the ceiling threatens to blind him as he stares up at them. He smiles painfully at Jonathan as he comes racing over. “Pat?!” he screams, voice a harsh cacophony in his already ringing ears. “Peeks, stay with me, I’ll call an ambulance!” Patrick grips his arm, keeping him by his side. “I won’t leave, I promise,” Jonathan says, pulling out his phone. He dials quickly and puts the phone on speaker, setting it own to keep a tight hold on Patrick’s hand.
“9-1-1, what’s your emergency?”
“My friend, he collapsed in my apartment. He just got here. There’s blood… everywhere. It’s fucking coming out of his mouth! I don’t know what happened!,” Jonathan shouts, eyes wide and terrified. “I need someone here now! There’s so much blood!”
“St-Stabbed…” Patrick manages to choke out, blood bubbling down the sides of his cheeks. The overhead lights are spinning now and Jonathan’s face begins to blur. He catches bits and pieces of his Captain’s voice, like him giving the operator his address and telling them that he’d been stabbed. Patrick coughs harshly, blood splattering everywhere as he struggles to refill his lungs. His head pounds in time with his heart, heavy and slowly erratic.
“Patrick, you need to stay with me,” he hears Jonathan say insistently. “They’re almost here. They’re going to help you. They’re going to save you.”
Blinking back pained tears and sweat, Patrick can see the blood drenched across his Captain’s chest and arms, and sprayed across his face. He can see the fearful desperation and the shaking of his body. He can see the tears and terror in his eyes, scared of losing Patrick like this. “G-G-Gonna… m-miss you…” he manages, each word less intelligible than the one before. “Tell… f-family… l-love th-them…”
Jonathan’s eyes are wide and horrified as he grabs at Patrick’s face and hands. “No, shut the fuck up. You’re not going to die. I’m not telling anybody anything because you’re going to do it yourself. You’re not dying. Not now. Not here.”
Swallowing back more blood, Patrick struggles to keep his eyes open. He coughs out thick pools, words drowning in them. He mumbles, lungs finally full of heavy liquid, “L-Love you… Tazer… S-Sorry…” The energy he had was gone and, for a moment, he could’ve sworn Jonathan loved him too. His eyes slip closed and his world slips into darkness.
When he opens his eyes again, Patrick’s pretty sure he’s in heaven. Jonathan can see him, well his dream viewer self can.
Everything was too bright and smelled of harsh chemicals. If this was what heaven was, Patrick’s not sure he really wants to be here. But as his eyesight adjusts, he realizes that this isn’t heaven at all, just a very blinding, very stark hospital room. His body feels like it’s on fire as he pushes himself up in bed with a groan. He nearly jumps out of his skin when he hears “Patrick!” gasped in tearful joy.
His mom stops pacing the side of the room and kisses his face over and over again, tears spilling down her cheeks. “I’m so glad you’re alive,” she sobs, holding him tight. HIs own tears of relief fall as Patrick lets himself be rocked by his mom. She kisses his forehead and says, “Let me get your dad and the girls. I’ll be right back.”
As she rushes out, Patrick notices a large figure tucked awkwardly in one of the chairs by his bed. There was Jonathan, his 6’2” frame curled haphazardly in the cheap wood. Patrick doesn’t miss the fact that he hasn’t changed, still dressed in the blood-soaked tank and shorts. IT takes almost too much energy to reach his arm out and tug on the front, but Patrick smiles gently when Jonathan jerks out of sleep, looking around wildly. “Peeks,” he whispers breathlessly, “you’re alive.”
The mask attached to his face, keeping him breathing with a steady pumping hiss, makes it hard to talk but he manages a quiet, “I thought… I was dead.”
Jonathan holds on to his hand for dear life, keeping the promise he had made early to not leave him. There’s still terror in his eyes as he leans his forehead on Patrick’s arm. “You were,” he chokes out, voice cracking at the end. “Your heart stopped beating at my place.
They spent 5 minutes trying to get you back and stable enough to move. You crashed again in the ambulance. I watched you die twice, Peeks, you have no idea what that’s like. And then the coma…”
“Coma?”
Jonathan’s body shudders as he raises his head, eyes bloodshot with tears. For 42 hours. Your body couldn’t handle it. You needed a blood transfusion. It was terrifying. I couldn’t sleep.” He looks at the floor mumbling. “I didn’t want to believe you were going to die, but everyone said you would.”
HIs mask loses suction slightly as tear wet his cheeks. Patrick grips Jonathan’s hand as tightly as he can, coming back to reality. “I’m glad,” he whispers, “that you didn’t give up.”
The door bursts open and in pour his doctors, nurses, parents, and sisters. Patrick has never been so glad to see his sisters and lets them pour their happy tears across his body. Even his dad cries, emotions running high. He has to detach from his family to let the doctors check him over, but Jonathan remains by his side, hand clasped firmly in both of his.
Once his doctor clears him, she asks, “Would you like to see your other visitors? They’ve been asking about you non-stop.”
Patrick looks between Jonathan and his family, asking hopefully, “The guys? They here?”
Jonathan nods, saying, “Q and Bowman were the first to show up. Sharpy, Crow, Mutt, Manchild, and Smitty are here too. Hjammer offered to fly back over from Sweden. I think Duncs and Seabs are flying in tonight. Everybody’s real worried about you.”
Running his free hand across the drainage tube in his chest, he cracks a grin before wincing out, “They should be… I’m irreplaceable…”
As his teammates are let in, Patrick has never felt so lucky. He can see the clear unease on Q’s face and the nervousness on Bowman’s. But what he’s not prepared for at all is his team. Sharpy looks absolutely distraught, nothing anyone saying making a difference. Saad and Shaw and Smitty are all smiles, just thrilled that he’s alive and okay. Crow just stands beside him, silently relieved with a huge grin on his face.
After a good hour of catching up with everyone, he tugs his mom close. She leans down as he whispers quietly, “Can I talk to Jonny? Alone?”
She immediately begins ushering people out, saying Patrick needed some rest. Sharpy gives him a tight hug before getting pushed out the door. Shawzy punches him gently in the arm and Saader ruffles his hair before they leave. His sisters kiss his cheeks before heading out with their dad, and his mom holds him tight, saying, “We’ll be right outside if you need anything.”
And it’s suddenly quiet, except for the beeps and hisses of the various machines that are hooked up to Patrick’s body. He looks over at Jonathan, studies the hunch in his shoulders and the battle going on in his head, evident through the windows of his eyes. “Tazer,” he mumbles. Jonathan looks up, eyes still worried, face weathered with anxiety. “Thanks for saving me.”
Jonathan sighs, still grasping Patrick’s hand tightly. “Do you remember what you said to me? Before you went unconscious?” Patrick has some thoughts, but most of those last moments were a blur. “You said… said you loved me.”
Patrick can feel his cheeks heating up. He had feelings for Jonathan, of course, but hadn’t really ever meant to tell him. But in his dying moments, it must’ve been a good idea at the time. “Jonny… I…”
“Was that true?” He’s not sure if Jonathan actually said it or not, it was so quiet. “Or were you just saying that because you thought you weren’t going to see me again?” The silence digs into their bones, accentuated by the painfully steady beeps and hiss.
Everything races in his head as Patrick watches his heart rate monitor. It speeds up as the nervousness spills into his voice, saying, “Both.” Jonathan’s head jerks up and Patrick can’t look him in the eye. “I didn’t want to tell you because I didn’t want to ruin our friendship. But I didn’t want to die without having you know. I had to tell you. I’m sorry if that makes this complicated.”
“I was just scared of losing you. You died in my arms, Patrick. I was so terrified of not ever seeing you again that I didn’t care what you had said. But after seeing you laying there, in a coma, I realized that maybe I wasn’t going to be able to not see you again. I couldn’t imagine living my life without you. You’ve been around as long as I remember and I finally realized, as I was sitting in the ambulance, unable to let you go, I realized that we weren’t just friends anymore. Everything’s changed.”
It’s the hardest movement, both emotionally and physically, to turn his head and meet Jonathan’s gaze. They’ve played on and off together since they were 12 and 13, and all those years reflect back at him in his Captain’s dark eyes. And Jonathan was right, seeing it all played back at him, Patrick realizes that it has changed.
He shifts in the chair slightly, muscles tensing uncomfortably. Patrick squeezes his hand back carefully as he mutters, more to himself than Patrick, “It wasn’t working out. Hadn’t been for a while.”
“So… where does that leave us?”
Jonathan’s face breaks out in a grin, a quiet, soft one that makes him feel like it’s going to be all right. “Doesn’t matter. All I know is that I’m not leaving. I promised you that and I’m going to keep it.” Patrick’s pretty sure he’s going to be okay. He’s made it this far and he’s safe and sound now, pressed between his family waiting gratefully outside for him and the warm hand held tight around his.
Jonathan blinks awake in the bed. He finds Patrick snuggled against him, smiling in his sleep. He calms his heart rate down and cocks his head, smiling. He strokes his friend’s blond curls and kisses him lightly on the forehead and then sinks back into the bed, wrapping his arms around Patrick.
“I won’t let anything happen to you, Kaner. You’re safe with me. I promise.”
Notes
Next up: Time for Jonny to find out the truth about "Kessel and Kaner"...and boy is he ticked off!! *rubs hands together*
Not sexy
2/22/15