Did I say something stupid?
|| Chapter Twenty-Eight ||
The lights at the hospital made everything look too clean and white.
They reflected off the walls sharply, bouncing from the floor, the desk, the glass panels, and every polished surface until Sebastian had to squint while his eyes adjusted.
The whole place was too bright, and it made Sebastian feel too exposed.
Nothing in the building seemed to care that his hands were shaking.
Sebastian sat in one of the chairs near the wall, elbows on his knees, hands gripped so tightly together that his knuckles had started to whiten. He had been waiting for the nurse to come back and tell him whether he could go in and see Marcos.
After the collision, Marcos had been taken off the field quickly.
That was the part Sebastian kept seeing.
Not anything else that happened in the match.
Not the final score. Not the final siren or the Bendigo players celebrating while the Mustangs stood around with the season ending under their boots.
Just Marcos hitting the ground. The way the sound of the crowd had shifted before anyone actually knew what had happened.
Once the game had ended, the Mustangs had clambered to find out what had happened and if Marcos was okay.
No one had enough information. Staff spoke to other staff in hushed voices, passing through the venue with more purpose than usual.
Players stood half-changed in the rooms with tape still on and grass still stuck to their socks.
Parker kept asking the same question in different ways until Harry told him to sit down.
Jacob disappeared with one of the medical staff at one point, then came back with his face drawn tighter.
All they were told was that Marcos hadn’t woken up yet.
Sebastian had asked what hospital he had gone to, and as soon as he was presentable enough, he had come straight here.
His hair was still damp from the shower at the ground, and his clothes sat wrong against his skin as though he shouldn’t be allowed comfort until he knew Marcos was okay.
His knee ached from a hit in the second quarter, and there was a bruise forming across his forearm. None of that mattered enough to notice properly.
The nurse had told Sebastian that Marcos was stable, but not awake, and that his family had already come by and were in the cafeteria now.
Sebastian had considered going there as well.
He had pictured Marcos’ family in the random shape they took in Sebastian’s head all gathered together barely eating the food in front of them while they waited for news.
Sebastian didn’t belong near any of that. So he didn’t go.
He had asked if he could see Marcos instead, and the nurse had told him to wait.
So, he waited.
The sound of the hospital moved around him. Phones ringing and the distant squeaking of wheels over the floor. Someone being called over the speakers above him for something that made no sense to Sebastian. Voices lowered out of respect or habit, all of them blurring into the same careful tone.
He had kept his gaze sweeping the room at first, taking in everything that was happening, trying to give his mind something to hold besides the image of Marcos on the ground.
A woman crying quietly near the far chairs.
A nurse at the desk typing without looking down.
A man in a hoodie pacing with both hands locked behind his neck.
Eventually, the white light started getting to be too much. His eyes dropped to the ground instead, unfocused on the polished floor between his shoes, while his mind tried to stay fixed on the fact that Marcos was stable.
Sebastian pressed his thumbs harder against each other until one joint cracked.
“He’s awake. We’re going to notify his family.”
The nurse’s voice cut through Sebastian’s thoughts, and he glanced up.
She looked as though she’d worked through the whole night before and was somehow still here working as the next one was about to begin.
Sebastian gave a quick nod, his lips pulled tight and his jaw clenched. He watched the nurse walk away and his eyes flicked toward the hall.
He knew what room Marcos was in. The nurse had pointed it out earlier. He also knew it would take Marcos’ family a little bit of time to get up from the cafeteria.
Not long. But maybe enough.
Sebastian took a deep breath and got to his feet.
His legs felt unsteady for the first few steps, then too fast once they got moving. He walked quickly down the hall, past the desk, past a half-open supply room, past a trolley pushed close to the wall with folded blankets stacked on top.
The room number came up quickly, and Sebastian stopped outside the door.
He smoothed one hand down the front of his shirt, then ran a hand through his hair before shaking his head at himself. Marcos wasn’t going to care what he looked like. He was probably in pain or confused and concussed from how hard he hit his head.
Sebastian took a deep breath and pushed the door open.
The room was smaller than he expected.
A bed sat in the centre, angled slightly toward the door, with machines and stands gathered around it in a way that made Marcos look too still.
A chair had been pulled close on one side, probably by one of his family members.
A plastic cup sat on the side table beside a wrapped straw, a packet of tissues, and a folded hospital blanket.
The blinds were half-drawn, cutting the fading daylight into pale strips across the wall.
Marcos lay propped against the pillows. A thick bandage wrapped around his head, covering his eyes completely.
More gauze sat near his temple, where the swelling changed the shape of his face.
His right arm was secured against his body, shoulder immobilised, and plaster covered his third and fourth fingers on his right hand.
Sebastian took in the sight, his gut pulling down, trying to take him with it.
Marcos was too large for the bed. His feet sat too close to the end, and his shoulders took up too much space under the blanket. His uninjured hand lay loose near his hip, palm half-open, fingers moving slightly as if searching for something even while the rest of him stayed heavy with medication.
Sebastian stepped toward the bed, his eyes not leaving Marcos. “Hey.”
Marcos’ head shifted a little, and a grin slipped onto his face.
“Hi,” Marcos replied, dragging the word out for several seconds as his voice wavered and cracked. His right hand, with plaster covering his fingers, rose and reached toward nothing as Sebastian came to stand on the left side of his bed.
“You’re awake,” Sebastian said, unsure of what else to say.
Marcos hummed, then fell silent.
For a moment, Sebastian thought he had already drifted off again.
His head turned against the pillow, then a low groan came out of him, long and full of something Sebastian couldn’t place.
Pain or confusion. The general complaint of someone whose body had been dragged through hell and then was handed too many drugs to stay coherent.
“Seb.” His voice came out low and sharper, then became more frantic. “Seb. Voy a suicidarme. I think I’ve gone blind.”
Sebastian stifled a laugh, reaching out and grabbing Marcos’ uninjured hand, gently squeezing it and rubbing his thumb along it. “You have a bandage over your eyes.”
Marcos’ breathing caught, then he let all the air out of his lungs in a heavy sigh. “Oh. Well, that’s good.”
Sebastian grinned. “You handled the thought of being blind pretty well.”
“Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah.” Marcos shook his head each time he said it. “I would’ve cried.”
He lifted Sebastian’s hand up and waved it slowly in the air, and Sebastian watched him, letting his arm be moved around to Marcos’ content.
The movement was ridiculous. Slow and uncoordinated. Sebastian let it happen because Marcos’ hand was warm, because his fingers still had some strength in them, because he was awake.
“How many drugs are you on right now?” Sebastian asked, and Marcos chuckled.
“None. No drugs here. I’m clean. You can’t tell my mum I’ve taken drugs. It was only once.” Marcos laughed at himself again. “No, it wasn’t. I did so many drugs.”
“Okay.” Sebastian struggled to keep himself together. “Your family are on their way up to see you, so maybe don’t talk too much.”
“I won’t be able to hear them anyway.”
“Why?”
“I can’t see, Seb.” Marcos shook his head again, then gasped. “No. Bao.”
Sebastian’s Vietnamese name fell from his lips continuously until Marcos ran out of breath.
Sebastian stood very still, biting the inside of his cheek, his heart forgetting how to beat properly. “I’ll let that one slide.”
“Oh, oh, Seb.”
Sebastian raised his eyebrow, his hand still being waved around by Marcos. “Yeah?”
“Did we win?”
The question hit harder than Sebastian expected.
Maybe because Marcos sounded so hopeful. Maybe because the game had become unimportant the second Marcos hit the ground.
Sebastian let out a breath through his nose. “We didn’t. Lost by sixteen.”
“Oh. Oh, no.” Marcos went quiet, his arm stilling.
Sebastian watched his face, or what he could see of it beneath the bandage. The grin slipped away, and his mouth parted slightly, then closed. Then his arm started moving again. “Why can’t I see?”
“Do you mean why is the bandage on?”
“Whatever tickles your nipple.”
Sebastian laughed. “Uh, you got hit in the head. Nurses said you popped some blood vessels.”
“I have ships in my eyes?”
“It’s wild that’s where your mind went.”
Marcos smiled again, smaller this time, and squeezed Sebastian’s hand.
Sebastian sat down in the chair beside the bed. It was too low and too hard, and he was uncomfortable the second he was in it, but he didn’t move.
He looked at the bandage over Marcos’ eyes.
The bruising near his temple and along his jaw.
The strap holding his right arm, then down to the plaster over his fingers.
He tried to match all of those things up with the version of Marcos who had stood in the centre square that morning, broad and solid and too stubborn to let Bendigo get in his head until they had done exactly that.
Sebastian’s stomach twisted.
Marcos shifted on the pillow and groaned again, his thumb moving against Sebastian’s hand. “My ears have drums in them.”
“That’s your pulse.”
“That isn’t where that belongs.”
Sebastian’s mouth pulled. “At least you can hear, despite losing your sight.”
“Oh, my God. You’re right.” Marcos laughed once, then winced. The sound cut off quickly, and his hand tightened around Sebastian’s before going loose again.
Sebastian let out a quiet breath. The worry in his chest shifted, not gone but loosened enough to let air through. He pressed his thumb along Marcos’ knuckles.
For a few minutes, they stayed like that.
The room hummed around them. Machines carrying out their quiet work, and footsteps passed beyond the door, paired with hushed voices.
“I should go,” Sebastian said, voice lower than before. “Your family will be here any second.”
Marcos groaned, and Sebastian wondered if he was still awake. His hand had fallen back to his side, loose in Sebastian’s.
“Okay,” Marcos said after a minute, his head shifting on his pillow as he groaned again.
“I’ll talk to you later, okay?” Sebastian pulled his hand away and stood up, stepping away from the bed. “We still need to play that game, remember?”
“Yeah.” A smile flickered on Marcos’ face.
Sebastian found one of his own tugging at his lips as he turned to leave, hand reaching for the door.
Then a sound came from Marcos.
It was almost a snore. A jolt from his body as a last-ditch effort to keep himself awake and fight the effects of the drugs. Then he spoke. The words were barely more than a whisper and broken as his mind drifted back to sleep.
“Bye, bye, Bao. I love you.”
Sebastian froze with his hand on the handle.
His pulse made itself known throughout his whole body, fast and heavy.
His fingers stayed locked around the metal, but he couldn’t feel the cold of it properly anymore.
The room seemed to tilt without moving. Blood rushed up the sides of his neck, into his face, behind his ears until the hospital sounds faded beneath it.
He turned slowly, and his gaze fell on Marcos.
“Marcos?” he called quietly, though the ringing in his ears made it hard to determine how loud he was being.
He didn’t get a response. Marcos’ breathing was deep and even, mouth slightly parted, head turned a little toward where Sebastian had been standing.
Sebastian waited for him to move. To mumble something else. To turn it into something else that Sebastian could deal with easier.
But there was nothing.
Marcos was asleep.
For a moment, Sebastian couldn’t make himself move. His chest had gone too tight, and each breath came in shallow, as if there wasn’t any space in his ribs to accommodate the air.
Sebastian pressed his tongue to the roof of his mouth and swallowed, but it didn’t shift the pressure in his throat. His eyes started to sting sharply, and he blinked hard before anything could spill over.
A sound rolled in the hall.
Sebastian’s body reacted before his mind did.
He pulled the handle and pushed through the door, his shoulder clipping the frame, and pain sparked down his arm, but he ignored it, moving into the hallway and letting the door close behind him.
He started walking.
His legs didn’t feel steady. Each step landed slightly harder than it should have, and his hands had started shaking again. He shoved them under his arms, gripping his own sides through his shirt.
At the corner, he stopped and leaned one shoulder against the wall, staring at the floor while the hospital moved around him. He heard the distant ding of an elevator somewhere behind him and was reminded that Marcos’ family would be coming up soon.
They would go into the room and see him asleep again, not knowing what he had just said to Sebastian.
His breath caught. He pressed the heel of his hand hard against his chest, hoping the pressure would help.
It didn’t.
“Fuck,” he muttered, his head resting against the wall as his heart pounded underneath his palm.
Sebastian had spent so long denying himself his own feelings that he hadn’t considered what they actually meant. But hearing the words come so easily from Marcos’ mouth—everything suddenly caught up and slammed into him hard.
He fucking loved Marcos Reyes.