[ There are several people who'd find this various shades of funny, pathetic, or profoundly unsettling. John does not really want any of them hovering while he heaves up someone else's blood. (That's the weirdest, rudest part of it: he knows it's not his blood, isn't even the plainer redder blood he left behind in the real world. He doesn't know whose blood it is.)
There's only one person who stood by him when he was sick, or more accurately trembled and heaved at his side. Two sick dogs in the dirt together. He once tried to hold her hair, and sometimes he'd go delirious enough to laugh about that, like she was a girl at a party. There weren't any girls or any parties left, so they were the world's best and worst approximation.
She isn't here. It's just him in the bushes with some guy who throws a mean punch. ]
I have a tent.
[ That sounds breathtakingly pathetic when he says it out loud, especially when he follows it up with another heave. God curls over himself, fingers knotted in the plain and now blood-spattered fabric of his shirt, and brings up someone else's kidney. He stares down at it, some mystified fascination in his eyes. No one could tell by looking, but he can: it's still warm and thrumming with life. ]
cws continue
There's only one person who stood by him when he was sick, or more accurately trembled and heaved at his side. Two sick dogs in the dirt together. He once tried to hold her hair, and sometimes he'd go delirious enough to laugh about that, like she was a girl at a party. There weren't any girls or any parties left, so they were the world's best and worst approximation.
She isn't here. It's just him in the bushes with some guy who throws a mean punch. ]
I have a tent.
[ That sounds breathtakingly pathetic when he says it out loud, especially when he follows it up with another heave. God curls over himself, fingers knotted in the plain and now blood-spattered fabric of his shirt, and brings up someone else's kidney. He stares down at it, some mystified fascination in his eyes. No one could tell by looking, but he can: it's still warm and thrumming with life. ]