Chapter 159: Chapter 159: Between Waking and Sleeping
*Runze’s POV*
The dark isn’t cold anymore.
It feels warm now, heavy and thick, like floating at the bottom of a deep, quiet pool where the rest of the world can’t reach me.
Somewhere far above the water, a dull sound keeps repeating.
*Beep.*
*Beep.*
*Beep.*
The noise drifts into my mind, stays for a few seconds, and then fades back into nothingness.
Then come the voices. They are quiet, muffled whispers passing right above my head, sounding distant and detached from reality.
"...his blood pressure is stabilizing."
"...keep the monitors on low..."
"...don’t wake him unless you absolutely have to."
The words blur together, slipping away before I can fully understand what they mean. Everything in my body feels weighted down. My eyelids won’t move, sealed shut by a deep fatigue. My arms feel like lead against the sheets. Even pulling air into my lungs feels like an immense amount of work, a slow chore I can barely find the energy to sustain.
So I let myself sink back into the warmth, letting the voices fade out completely.
***
When I open my eyes again, the room looks different.
The bright, harsh overhead fluorescent lights are turned off, leaving the space in a soft, protective gloom. Only the dim, green glow from the heart monitor and a faint light leaking from the hallway cut through the quiet room, throwing long, still shadows across the floor.
I don’t know what time it is. I don’t know how many hours have passed while I have been asleep, or whether it is day or night outside the covered glass panes.
I blink slowly, trying to clear the thick, heavy fog from my vision.
A heavy, steady warmth rests against the top of my right hand. I look down as much as my stiff neck will allow, the small movement causing a dull throb at the base of my skull.
It is Bael.
His large fingers are still loosely wrapped around mine, anchoring his weight to the edge of the mattress. But he isn’t looking at me this time. His eyes are closed, his long lashes still.
He is asleep.
I stay perfectly still, not wanting to disturb him, just staring at him in the dim light. His head rests awkwardly against the stiff edge of the hospital bed, one of his arms folded beneath his forehead to act as a rough pillow against the metal rail.
His dark hair is a complete mess, sticking up in uneven directions where he has clearly run his fingers through it out of sheer stress. Heavy shadows hang low beneath his closed eyes. His white shirt is rumpled, the crisp fabric creased across his chest. The collar is loose and unbuttoned, and the cuffs are still rolled up unevenly past his forearms.
I frown slightly, my chest tightening. I am almost certain it is the exact same shirt he has been wearing since before I closed my eyes...perhaps even the same one from the day of the crash.
A rough shadow of stubble covers his jawline, a stark contrast to his usually clean-shaven face. He looks completely broken down by exhaustion—like a man whose body has entirely forgotten how to rest until his mind finally forces him to break. He looks vulnerable in a way he never allows himself to look when he is awake.
The sight of him looking so undone sits strangely inside my chest. It leaves a dull, heavy ache behind my ribs, a mixture of profound relief and quiet guilt.
Before I can dwell on it any longer, the door clicks and swings open a fraction of an inch. A nurse steps quietly into the room, carrying a small plastic tray in her hands.
The moment she looks toward the bed, she notices my open eyes.
"Oh," she whispers, pausing mid-step.
A small, kind smile spreads across her face. She takes short, careful steps over the hard floor, ensuring her rubber shoes don’t make a single sound to disturb the sleeping man.
"You’re awake again," she murmurs, her voice barely a thread of sound in the quiet space.
Almost instinctively, her eyes drift down to Bael’s sleeping form bent over the mattress. Her smile softens even more, a look of quiet, professional relief crossing her face.
She walks to the side of the bed, checking the digital numbers on the monitor before looking back down at me. "How are you feeling right now?"
I want to tell her that my body feels stiff, that my limbs feel hollow, and that my head still carries a dull throb. But when I part my lips, only one word manages to force its way out of my dry throat.
"...Thirsty."
The word comes out incredibly rough, a dry, scraping sound that I barely recognize as my own voice.
"That’s expected," she whispers back knowingly, her tone gentle.
Instead of reaching for a plastic cup or a straw, which my throat can’t handle yet, she picks up a small pink sponge swab from her tray and dips it into a tiny container of fresh water.
"No large gulps yet. For now, let’s just do this."
She leans down over and gently presses the wet sponge against my dry, cracked lips, moving it slowly from one side to the other. The sudden coolness of the moisture feels almost unbelievable against my skin, a sharp shock of life that instantly wakes up my senses.
"Better?" she asks, her eyes searching mine.
I manage to give her the smallest, weakest nod.
She adjusts the clear plastic line on my IV stand, checking the drip rate, before reaching down to pull the white blanket a little higher up on my chest to keep the chill away. Her eyes drift back to Bael, lingering on the tight, protective grip he still maintains on my fingers even while unconscious.
"He finally fell asleep about an hour ago," the nurse whispers, leaning in slightly. There is a touch of gentle amusement in her quiet tone. "We tried to get him to use the cot, but he wouldn’t budge."
My gaze follows hers, looking back down at his dark hair against the edge of my bed.
"...How long?" I breathe out, the two words costing me a great deal of effort as the air catches in my throat.
The nurse hesitates for a second, her fingers tapping against her plastic chart. "Long enough," she says softly, choosing her words carefully so as not to worry me. "He hasn’t left this room for more than a few minutes since they brought you in. He only went upstairs once to take a meeting, and even then, he practically ran back down."
She doesn’t offer any more details, and I don’t have the strength to ask for them, though my mind immediately begins to fill in the blanks of those three empty days.
She quietly finishes her rounds, clicking her pen shut with a soft snap. Just before she turns to walk back toward the heavy door, she looks between the two of us one last time, giving a quiet, reassuring nod.
The door clicks shut behind her, the latch sliding into place, and the deep, heavy silence returns to the room.
I look back down at Bael. He hasn’t shifted an inch, completely dead to the world. His breathing is deep, slow, and completely uniform, his fingers aren’t squeezing mine tightly anymore, the muscles relaxed, but his palm stays pressed flat against the back of my hand, keeping me close.
It is as if, even in the depths of his sleep, his instincts are still terrified that I will disappear the moment he lets go completely.
The steady, rhythmic *beep* of the monitor begins to work like a lullaby, matching the slow rise and fall of Bael’s broad shoulders. The heaviness returns to my limbs, thick and sweet, and I let my eyes close once more, feeling entirely safe under the shadow of his weight.
***
I must have drifted off for a long time, slipping into a deeper, much more natural rest.
The next time my eyes open, the shadows on the floor have shifted completely, stretched long and thin by the pale light coming from the corridor outside. The green glow of the monitor seems brighter now against the darkness of the room.
Bael is awake.
He doesn’t realize I am looking at him yet. He has lifted his head from the mattress and is sitting upright in the hard plastic chair, his shoulders hunched forward slightly as he leans toward me.
He isn’t doing anything at all, he is just sitting there in the absolute quiet.
Watching me.
His gray eyes are fixed on my face, tracking the slight, uneven rise of my chest beneath the blanket. He looks like someone who has been doing exactly that for hours, terrified to look away for even a single second lest the monitor change its tune.
When my eyelashes flutter and my gaze finally meets his, I see the exact moment the rigid tension leaves his body.
His shoulders drop only a fraction of an inch—a movement so small anyone else would miss it entirely, but I know the lines of his body too well to miss the change. The hard, defensive line of his jaw softens.
"You woke up," Bael whispers. His voice is incredibly quiet, thick with a deep, lingering roughness that speaks of days without proper use.
I stare back at him through the dim green glow of the machines, taking in the stubble on his jaw and the exhaustion lined deep into his skin, before I finally let out a small, dry breath.
"...You too."
For the first time in three long, terrible days, a tiny, tired breath breaks through Bael’s nose. It isn’t a full smile, and it doesn’t reach his eyes completely, but it is a laugh—brief, exhausted, and real.
Somehow, that single, quiet sound makes the cold hospital room feel completely warm.
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