Running Out Of Air

by I-A-M

Which Way-

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Wallflower Blush

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My head hurts.

Actually, it’s not just my head. My whole face hurts.

When did that happen? And… where am I? My whole body feels heavy, and my eyes won’t quite open. My body has been aching like crazy for the past few days but when I woke up this morning in Sunset’s apartment it was worse than ever.

I try to open my mouth to ask, and I try to open my eyes with it, but I’m just so tired. I barely manage to crack my eyelids open and make a quiet hum of wordless noise that turns into a sharp grunt of discomfort as light spears into my eyes.

“Wallie?!”

I flinch at Sunset’s shout. She sounds equal parts scared and relieved, but I can’t put my finger on why. What’s wrong? What’s… Is something wrong with me?

“Miss Shimmer, I’m sorry but I need you to move.” I don’t recognise that voice, a woman’s voice, but it sounds soft.

Motion is coming from all around me. I still can’t account for where I am. I’m laying down, I know that much. Except I was sitting. Just a little while ago I was sitting in the office at the social services building with Sunset. We were talking to Sticky Note about… something. He was asking me questions. Lots of questions. After a while, I was just answering them on automatic.

I feel like it took a long time, but I don’t think it did.

What—

—“Okay, I think that’s all I need for now,” Sticky Note says in that colourless voice of his. He’s not mean, exactly, but I see why Sunset likes him. They’re both very stubborn.

It’s a little aggravating actually.

That’s right. I was being asked questions. Then we finished and Sunset said—

—“Thanks Sticky.” Sunset smiles as she stands. “We’ll get out of your hair, and I’ll give you a call later with an update.”

“Good,” Note says with a bob of his head before turning to me. “And Miss Blush, I’d advise getting checked out at the Urgent Care down the street. I’ll need something up-to-date medically-speaking.”

I don’t like doctors. I don’t like hospitals. Even if Urgent Care isn’t a hospital, it’s close enough, and I don’t like it. But I knew Sunset would make me go anyway.

I nod as I start to stand, but something’s wrong. My head has been pounding since I woke up, and I hoped it would go away by now but it hasn’t. My head hurts. Everything hurts. My chest, my stomach, my arms and legs… everything…

My memories start to get fuzzy. They go from real memories to something more like impressions viewed through the glass window of an aquarium. Everything is distorted and feels dreamlike and I remember I—

—stand, or I try to, but my vision swims and swings wildly.

“Wallie? Are you okay?”

Sunset is talking but I can’t seem to focus on her. She was right next to me wasn’t she? My eyes aren’t obeying me, and neither are my limbs. I open my mouth to say something, to answer her, but I—

“WALLIE!”

—fall.

I’m on the ground. Why am I on the ground? My face hurts. I can’t focus.

I can’t—

“Miss Blush are you back with us?”

My vision clears grudgingly, and I open my eyes. There’s a young woman in the blue scrubs of a nurse leaning over me with her brow furrowed with concern.

“Why does my face hurt?” I say, but the words come out thick and clumsy, so it sounds more like: ‘why dove m’fafe hurt.’

The nurse’s smile is a little tight but she looks relieved.

“That would be the broken nose, dear,” she says calmly. “But you’re alright, okay? Just try not to move, I’m going to get the doctor.”

The nurse leaves my field of vision, and she’s quickly replaced by Sunset’s tear-streaked and worried face as she moves in beside me and settles down.

“H-Hey, Wallie,” she says softly. “You uh… you scared the hell outta me.”

“Wuf ‘appen?” I still can’t focus very well. Doing anything feels like a massive drain, even just moving my eyes.

Sunset grimaces. “What happened?”

I nod as Sunset trails off and her expression turns down. I know that look because it’s one I see in the mirror all too often. It’s anger turned inwards. Self-hatred.

Guilt.

“You… you fell,” Sunset says finally. “We were at Sticky’s office wrapping up, you stood up, and then you just… you just fell.”

I fell? I narrow my eyes as I consider that. I can’t remember actually falling. One minute I was standing and the world was flailing drunkenly around me, and the next I was on the ground.

Face down on the ground.

“I… fell on m’fafe?” I mumble. I lick my lips and taste blood and something waxy. Some kind of sealant maybe? I guess I split my lip or something.

I angle my eyes down, and that effort costs me absurdly. My vision is covered by something large and white, like gauze.

Actually, I think it is gauze.

“M’nose,” I say as I eye the lump of white. “Wuf wrong wif… m’nose?”

“It’s uh… broken,” Sunset says sheepishly. That should probably alarm me but I don’t think I have the energy to be alarmed at the moment. “They already set it but- Hey! Wallie, you’ve gotta stay still okay?”

I tried to lift my arm but Sunset clapped her hand down on it. Even just lifting my own arm’s weight was barely doable, so Sunset is able to keep my arm pinned pretty much without effort.

“Wallie, stop! You’ll jostle the IV!” Sunset says, worrying pitching her voice higher, but that last word sends an unpleasant jolt through my heart.

IV?

Even with barely any energy left to me, I force my head to turn. Sunset has a hand on my right arm and there’s a bit of gauze over something protruding from my forearm.

There’s a needle in my arm.

THERE’S A NEEDLE IN MY ARM.

My breathing starts to turn ragged and staccato as I try to move, but Sunset is keeping me pinned. My vision tightens to a pinprick around the IV. I struggle against her, but that barely means anything. I’m all but paralysed. My body just isn’t obeying me anymore and between that and the needle in my arm, I feel like I’m about to lose my mind!

“Wallie calm down!” Sunset cries, moving close and almost laying on top of me as she wraps her arms around me and pulls my head close to bury against the crook of her neck. “It’s okay! It’s just an IV! It’s okay! You’re okay! I’ve got you, alright? You’re fine!”

The rapid starts of my breathing begin to slow down as the scent of lilacs and cherries, the scent of Sunset, fills my lungs. Something about that scent is calming to me. It smells like something soft and airy and unworried with the world around it. I start to breathe more slowly, and as I do my eyes start getting heavy again.

I’m so tired.

I’m so, so tired.

“I’ve got you, Wallie,” Sunset’s voice trickles through my fading consciousness. I think I should be a lot more scared than I am, but Sunset’s here.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got you.”

Yeah. I can sleep. I… I’ll be just fine.

Sunset’s here.

---

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My consciousness is like a piece of perforated driftwood on a river. Every so often it surfaces, but it’s more a lurch and a wobble than anything graceful, and inevitably it gets swallowed by the rapids again before launching back into the air briefly only to plunge back down again.

I don’t really remember anything from the short, stunted periods of waking, but there’s one common thread through it all.

Sunset.

Every time I wake up, she’s there. I don’t always see her, but I know she’s there because her hand is holding mine. Once or twice I try to squeeze her hand as I’m waking up, but I never keep a grip on reality long enough to see if she notices before drifting back down.

It’s funny. Even as I fall back into the awkward slurry of dreams and blackness, I’m certain that the next time I wake up she’ll be gone, but she never is. I’m so sure of it, too. So sure that the next time I open my eyes, Sunset will have left, and I wouldn’t blame her in the slightest.

So even though she’s been there every time I’ve opened my eyes, when I finally do wake up enough to claw my way out of the cloying stupor of sleep and stay that way, the first thing I say when I turn my head and see idly scrolling on her phone with one hand is:

“You’re still here.”

It’s not really a question, just a confused statement.

She’s still here.

Sunset looks up at me with a start, and I realise at that moment just how tired she looks. Her hair is ragged, and there are bags under her eyes. There’s a small folding table beside my bed that’s littered with papers and notes; schoolwork, I think, and Sunset’s backpack is sitting beneath it propped against one of the legs.

“Wallie!” Sunset says my name like a sigh of relief. “Oh man, I was uh… I was really starting to lose it a little there.”

I frown, then wince as the expression pulls at something and sends a twinge of pain across my face.

“Here, hold on,” Sunset says softly before reaching for a small paper cup and grabbing a straw from a nearby table before holding it up to me. “Drink, it’ll help.”

Nodding sullenly, I let raise the cup to my lips and start to sip. It doesn’t go down well, and I go into a coughing fit almost immediately. Pain wracks through my chest, and the movement seems to wake up all the little aches and pains that have settled into my limbs since I’ve been laying here.

Sunset waits patiently for me to finish coughing and catch my breath, then holds up the cup again. I take another, slightly more successful, sip of water, and let out a slow breath as I lay back against the pillows.

“What happened?” I croak.

“You fainted,” Sunset answers quietly as she sets the cup down. “Back in Sticky Note’s office, you stood up and your body just… it just gave out.”

“Why?”

“Malnutrition, mostly,” Sunset replies in a voice tight with strain. “The rest was just the punishment that your body took from living on the streets, combined with the mother of all adrenaline crashes, I guess.” She sighs and lets out a grim chuckle. “At this point, a list of reasons that aren’t to blame might be shorter.”

“Oh.” I guess that makes sense. “But I… I ate.”

“According to the nurse, it’s not about eating,” Sunset replies grimly. “Your system can’t digest the food you’re putting in it, so you don’t get any nutrients, hence the uh…”

She trails off as she’s gesturing to my arm, and freeze in the middle of the motion. I look down at where she’s pointed and see it again. The little gauze pad taped over a line that’s feeding into my arm.

My chest immediately starts to tighten.

There’s a needle in my—

My world is eclipsed in the scent of lilacs and cherries, underpinned by the faint smell of sweat. My face is buried in the crook of Sunset’s neck and I stay there as I shiver and try to get a hold of my nerves.

I know, intellectually, that there is nothing wrong with needles. I know that they’ve been used for centuries, successfully, and pretty much harmlessly. It’s just a tiny needle, a little pain, and that’s it.

I know all of that intellectually.

But that’s why phobias are defined as ‘irrational fears’. There’s no rational reason that a needle should make me lose my crap this badly but they do. They always have. I’ve never been able to get a shot without passing out or breaking down. I’ve never had an IV in me either, so the knowledge that there’s just a needle sitting in my arm is like having a warning klaxon going off in my brain at all times.

It’s easier to stay calm when Sunset’s here though because she’s calm. Because Sunset is competent, and I’m a mess, so if she’s here, and she’s alright with it, I can trick my brain into being kinda, semi-, sorta alright with it.

“It’s okay,” Sunset murmurs. “I’m right here, just don’t think about it, alright?”

I nod slowly, trying to ignore the weird feelings in my arm.

“Ye...yeah, okay,” I mumble.

Sunset shifts away from me, letting me go back to laying down, and she rests her hand in mine. I squeeze her hand to try and distract myself from what I know is just a little ways up past my wrist.

“So uh, malnutrition,” Sunset continues awkwardly. “I guess I should tell you, you’ve been out of it for about two days.”

‘D-Days?” I stare at her, then look over at the notes and books before looking back at Sunset. “Have… have you-? You’ve gone home, r-right?”

The incredibly stiff and sheepish smile that forms on Sunset’s face at my question is pretty much all the answer I need.

“Rainbow and Pinkie have been bringing me food and stuff,” Sunset says with an ungainly laugh. “And uh, Applejack and Rarity have been swapping out in collecting all my classwork, and then bringing it in the next day.”

“Two… Two days?” I say again.

“Well, I wasn’t going to just leave you!” Sunset counters, her back stiffening. “I said I’d take care of you and I am, and besides… don’t you remember?”

“Remember what?” I wheeze through dry lips and an increasingly drier throat.

Sunset’s cheeks redden as she mumbles something, leaning back in her chair and staring up at the ceiling with almost childish petulance.

“What… What did you say?” I ask, leaning forward as much as I can, which isn’t all that much.

“I said,” Sunset replies slowly, and without looking down, “where you sleep, I sleep… remember?”

For a long moment, I just stare at her. I’ve always known deep down that Sunset was the type of person who went to extremes very easily. Maybe dangerously so. I mean, anyone who knows her past knows that’s pretty much par for the course. This is someone whose reaction to having her teacher put their foot— well, hoof— down, about something was to flee to another dimension and plan a coup.

She’s kind of dramatic, is what I’m trying to say.

Being on the receiving end of that, however, is a little unsettling. On the one hand, yes, she did say ‘where you sleep, I sleep’ several times, making it clear she was doing it for my own good. With that being said…

“That’s crazy,” I say finally.

“I am aware!” Sunset says brusquely, still leaning back and staring determinedly up at the ceiling with her arms crossed and her cheeks red. “But when I commit, I friggin’ commit, okay? I can’t help it.”

“You have a life!” I croak. “You can’t just waste all your time on me!”

“It’s not a waste,” Sunset snarls, suddenly snapping forward with a blaze of intensity to her eyes. “And y’know what? Even if it was a waste, which it’s not! I damn well can if I want to! And I do!”

Tears are threatening at the edges of my eyes as I force myself to sit up. I don’t know what I’m feeling. I’m angry, I think, but I’m also overwhelmed and confused, and nothing about this situation computes.

Why doesn’t she get that I’m not worth it?!

“This is my fault!” I snap, my voice breaking as I use it with volume for the first time in days. “Everything is my fault! You can’t change that!”

Sunset scowls then stands and sets her shoulders in that stubborn way she does that tells me in no uncertain terms that she isn’t going to budge.

“I’m not trying to,” Sunset says after a moment. “I’m trying to change your future, and I’m going to.”

“So you're trying to f-fix me? Like I’m just… just a project?” My voice cracks and breaks again on the last word and I fall into a brutal coughing fit.

Halfway through it, I feel Sunset sit down next to me and put an arm hesitantly over my shoulder and pull me close. Out of some unnamed instinct, I bury my face in the crook of her shoulder again, covering my mouth and shaking until the coughing finally subsides.

“You’re not my project,” Sunset says. “You’re my friend, and you’re just… you’re precious to me, okay? I can’t really say it any better, but I’m not going to abandon you. Ever.”

Precious?

I’m not precious to her.

I’m not precious to anyone.

I’m a wallflower. I’m the literal definition of forgettable. I’m not a precious stone, I'm a piece of gravel that gets lost in any given driveway or thrown out of someone’s boot for irritating their foot.

“I don’t care if all of this is your fault,” Sunset continues, wrapping her arms around me again and pulling me closer. “Scribe knows pretty much everything wrong that happened in my life was my fault too… my point is that I don’t care, okay? Even if it is all your fault, I don’t care! Because I’m going to stay here anyway."

I sag against her, feeling my will to fight draining away. It always does when I’m up against Sunset. She’s just too strong. Her force of personality is overwhelming. I consider myself lucky she ignored me like everyone else back in her good old bad days.

“Why?” I ask in a raw voice.

Sunset just shrugs. She doesn’t answer right away, and when she does it’s in a hoarse whisper.

“Because you’re precious to me.”

Comments

[Scampy]

I love how this story has such a wide range of emotions saturating it. Like yeah it's bleak and grim and painfully real, but it's also so full of compassion and determination and a Gay Disaster Origin Story.

[fieryShaman]

Yeah. I can sleep. I… I’ll be just fine.

Sunset’s here.

Ow. My heart.

[Gay For Gadot]

My consciousness is like a piece of perforated driftwood on a river. Every so often it surfaces, but it’s more a lurch and a wobble than anything graceful, and inevitably it gets swallowed by the rapids again before launching back into the air briefly only to plunge back down again.

Great description here. This is a really nice way of illustrating a state of consciousness I like to call a "fever dream," even if that's not quite what's going on. Broken, haphazard breaks of reality in between the blackness, all of it strung together in a strange, almost contradictory sequence. You really nailed that feeling and all that comes with it at the start of this chapter.

Guess I was right in picking up the hints about Wallflower being malnourished. Good thing she's finally getting some medical help, though at the cost of a broken nose and further guilt. :/ I have to admit, the bits where Wallflower was freaking out over the IV made me think she had used heroin before, perhaps involuntarily, when on the streets. I'm glad I was wrong. A needle phobia makes a lot more sense.

Love seeing Sunset's determination from Wallflower's point of view. "Extreme" and "dramatic" are words I think that apply well to her, especially in a situation like this. Though, I can't help but feel there's something other than Sunset's feelings bubbling between them. Between Wallflower feeling undeserving and Sunset trying to give her the world, something's gonna give. There's lots of story left, but I can't help but feel it's going to come sooner rather than later.

[I-A-M]

10611477
So that remark about having used heroin before; I can see where you hit that conclusion. That said... if that squicks you out, you might want to avoid After Sunset...

[Gay For Gadot]

10611607

It doesn't, but that's good to know anyway!

[Tania tokustar]

10611607
Whata after sunset?