riptide_asylum | "Sneaking Out" (Sunfish, 1985)

Title: Sneaking Out
Rating: PG
Summary: Sometimes you need a little help getting home from the hospital.

Nick woke to an incomplete darkness.

He was old friends with darkness and knew the many forms it could take: the warm dark of his grandmother's living room, old Italians playing cutthroat pinochle with the lights down low so as not to wake the kid; the wet, rotting darkness of a foxhole, punctuated by gunfire and the sounds of people you'd known for a day raining down around you. The dark behind your eyes when you napped between cargo runs, comforted by the pneumatic hiss of machinery and the smell of jet fuel. The tense, too-quiet darkness of waiting all night for Cody, ushering in a cold and laughing dawn.

This was none of those.

Nick blinked muzzily. This darkness hinted at an empty room, cold and sterile, straight lines of gray visible by a bright green glow high in one wall. Nick tried to focus on the glow, decipher it, but his vision swam and the rest of the room followed. He closed his eyes. Everything hurt. His head hurt like hell, his shoulder throbbed like it was getting paid for it and from there down, things just got worse. Nick fought back a rising tide of nausea and tried to remember where he was and how he’d gotten...wherever he was.

The job had sounded simple. He remembered that much.

Myron...that lazy fuck. He figured in this somehow. Nick remembered sitting in Myron’s office listening to a thin story about a dive bar down on the pier, something about the guy who ran it owing Myron...something.

Not a dive bar, Nick remembered. His head cleared a little. DIVE, the bar. A schlock joint for the tourists, located under the pier, damn near underwater. The walls covered in scuba equipment and nets and stuffed and startled-looking neon fish. Something about the guy who owned the place owing Myron money. With Myron it was always some guy owing him money. Especially if you tended to believe the things his mouth said.

Nick had sat there in his office, listening to Myron spin this sob story about late payments and how the guy was stiffing him on something. Murray’d asked a question only Murray would ask, something about the annual compound rate of doodahs in the whatnot tree being too low and Nick had sat there in those crappy chairs Myron had, sat there with one leg crossed at his knee, his shoe barely brushing Cody’s and --

Cody.

Shit. Shit shit shit. Nick struggled to sit up, but something tugged at his arm, sharp and needlelike. Biting at him. As he reached for his assailant, he heard Cody’s voice, low and reassuring like the evening tide. He opened his eyes, searching, but the voice stopped as mysteriously as it had began, then Nick heard footsteps, light and quick. A sudden singing of metal rings sent a stab of pain through Nick’s temples, accompanied by the smell of jasmine and warm brown eyes in a pale face. Cody, he wanted to ask that face. Where’s Cody?

Then small cool hands roamed his body like anxious birds, pecking, checking, fussing. Nick tried to brush them away, tried to explain he had to get up, he had to leave, he had to find Cody.

Someone sighed and held him down. The birds were stronger than they looked.

Then everything went black.

---

“Nick! Nick!” An urgent hiss.

Nick opened his eyes. The earth moved. It slid down the wall like pudding out of a bowl, then, just to be funny, it did it again in the opposite direction. Nick closed his eyes.

“Nick!”

Cody.

Without opening his eyes, Nick reached a hand out and found it grasped warmly. Cody. “We gotta get outta here, man,” Nick said, but it came out funny, like he’d been drinking. But he hadn’t been. Just that one beer at the dive bar, then... a cold concrete floor and men with hamhock fists. Nick hung onto Cody’s hands and tried warning him again. Wegahtta geh toutaheer mam.

“Yeah I heard you the first time, buddy. I’m gonna get you outta here. Just give me a second, will ya?”

Nick forced himself to focus on Cody’s voice. That sweet, sunlit gold voice. He kept his eyes closed. “Wh'am I?”

“If I tell you, you promise not to take a swing at me?”

“Mm.”

“Redondo Medical Center. Those thugs at the bar gave you a pretty good working-over.”

Nick didn’t remember that; he remembered pushing Cody and Murray down a long hall, boxes stacked on either side, giving them each a leg up to a small, narrow window high in the wall. Murray had slipped through like an eel, but the window was barely wide enough for Cody’s shoulders. He’d pushed and Murray pulled and between them they got Cody out. Voices, shouting, coming toward them. They’d grabbed for him, but Nick had waved them away, hearing the voices getting louder, spotting them in the hallway. Then...

“Nick. Nick! Come back to me, buddy. I’ve almost got this stupid thing out...” Cody was tugging on Nick’s arm. “We gotta get outta here before that nurse comes back.”

Ah. The jasmine. The brown eyes and the birds. Nick opened his eyes and the world swam into focus.

The only light in the hospital room came from a green EXIT sign posted over the door, and from the digital displays of the machines by Nick’s side. But they were more than enough for him to see Cody frowning, concentrating, fiddling with Nick’s hand.

Nick pushed himself up to a sitting position, ignoring flashes of pain in his head and shoulder. “How long ago s'she here?”

“Maybe fifteen minutes. I didn’t hear her coming down the hall. She’s got these sneaky little shoes, they don’t make any sound on the floor. Okay, I think I got it.”

Nick looked down at his hand, unflinching as Cody yanked out the IV. That helped focus him a bit. “Wait, you were there? When she came in?”

“Yeah. I know how you feel about hospitals, Nick. We came here right from the precinct. Murray’s downstairs with the Jimmy.” He lowered the bed rail and pulled the sheet back and off, wadding it up and tossing it in a corner of the room.

“But where...” He remembered hearing Cody’s voice, unable to find him.

“Under the bed, okay? I hid under the bed. Now come on.” Cody swung Nick’s legs over the side of the bed. Nick watched his feet dangle as the memories came back in sudden bursts like mortar fire. The thugs pulling him down from the window and throwing him to the cold concrete floor; fists and boots in his ribs, his stomach, his back. He’d covered his head to no avail, but lying there taking the pounding, Nick had focused on the only thing that really mattered: his friends had gotten away. They were safe. He just had to wait for help to arrive.

A hand landed heavily on Nick’s shoulder and he jumped. Help had arrived. It had hidden under the bed first, true, but it was here.

“Nick. You okay? You need to pass out again? Maybe we should do like the doctors said, leave you here overnight. Those guys really did a number on you.”

Even in the low light of the hospital room, Nick could see the fear in Cody’s eyes, guilt creeping in around the edges. It wasn’t the first foxhole Nick had shoved Cody into and they both knew it. Nick reached up and gripped Cody’s arm with both hands. “Take me home, Cody. Let’s go.”

It took both of them working together to get Nick dressed. His jeans and shoes were salvagable, and Nick sat patiently on the hard mattress with his eyes closed, conserving his energy while Cody buttoned his fly and tied his laces. His shirt seemed to have been lost somewhere in the frantic ER shuffle, so Cody gave Nick his blue hoodie, zipping it up nearly to the chin.

“You ready?”

“You got it, big guy. Let’s go.”

Nick’s balance wasn’t so hot when he stood up, however, so he wound up slinging his good arm round Cody’s shoulders, Cody half-carrying him as he shuffled forward, grimly determined not to throw up.

Cody cracked the door a slit and peeked out. After a few seconds, he squeezed Nick’s hip. Go.

They went. Slowly and awkwardly, they went.

The brightly lit hallway was hell on Nick’s eyes, so he tried a couple shuffling steps with them closed. That was worse. Eventually he settled on one eye, following a long blue stripe of tile on the floor that seemed to be headed in the right direction. “So,” he said conversationally, “they get the number of that bus that hit me?”

“You bet,” Cody answered. “Turns out the guy was behind on his payments to a couple other people besides Myron. His landlord for one and some slick goombas from the Midwest for another.”

“Oh. Them. Bad idea.”

“Not half as bad as the other guys who showed up at the bust: IRS. Turned out the guy skipped out on his taxes, too.”

“No. Nice fella like him?” The tile got to be too much. Nick closed his eyes and kept going.

“No kidding. Those guys’re mean, too. Swept right in and took custody of everyone involved. Just took right over. You shoulda heard Quinlan.”

“He order them flowers or chocolates?”

“I wish. I thought for a second Murray’s glasses were gonna crack. For a guy in Reserves, Quinlan sure talks like the real deal.”

They stopped and Nick heard a quiet ping. He leaned a little more heavily on Cody, listening to the elevators crank and whir toward them.

“Hey, Nick...”

“Yeah.”

“You don’t look so hot. Maybe I should just--”

“Don’t even think about it, Cody. Just get me back to the Riptide.”

“You took a couple pretty nasty blows to the head. Maybe--”

“No.”

“But Nick...”

“Excuse me, where do you two gentlemen think you’re going?” A voice, high and sweet and young. Jasmine again.

Nick cracked his eyes open. “Dancing. I hear there’s a great new place down by the pier. Right on the water.”

Cody squeezed Nick’s hip again. “What my friend here means is that we’re just out for a quick stroll before he goes back to bed. You know what they say: a brisk walk a day keeps the concussion away.”

"Or it keeps you headed straight for jail, buster. You're trespassing. And your friend's badly hurt." The nurse frowned and picked up the wallphone. “Hello, Security?”

“I think that’s our cue, Nick,” Cody whispered. “How d’you feel about stairs?”

Nick was fairly sure the only way he could deal with stairs was by falling down them, but even that was preferable to staying in the hospital overnight. Alone. “Race you to the bottom.”

The elevator doors opened with another soft ping just as the nurse hung up. Finding renewed strength, Nick hobbled inside, still clinging to Cody.

“Get back here, both of you.” The nurse bustled toward the elevator. Cody was right; her shoes were amazingly soundless. “No one’s leaving until I say so.”

“If you say so.” Cody jabbed the door-close button. He grinned cheerfully. “Bye-bye.”

The elevator doors shushed shut nearly on Jasmine's pert little nose and Nick could hear the pounding of her bird-fists on the other side. Then with a clunk the car began its slow descent.

Nick exhaled heavily, taking stock. His shoulder hurt like hell, and his ribs were making tracks in the same direction. Not to mention all the other places he’d been pounded on. He felt old and worn, like shoes you gave away.

"Nick?" Cody asked softly.

On the other hand, he was on his way home, with the best friend a guy ever had at his side, and that made up for a helluva lot. Damn near everything, in fact. Nick summoned a grin and made an effort to stand on his own two feet. "Never better, big guy. Thanks for busting me out."

Cody beamed. “Anytime, Nick. You know I wouldn’t let you rot in there. Besides, if I hadn't shown up, I bet you’d've gotten dragged back out on the town by that nurse. You heard how much she likes dancing.”

Nick gave Cody a gentle elbow.

The elevator coasted smoothly to a stop. The doors slid heavily back along their tracks, revealing the underground parking garage and the very welcome sight of the Jimmy sitting idling mere feet away. Murray looked up from a book, startled. He waved, and Nick nodded in return. He and Cody started for the car. “There’s just one thing,” Nick said.

“What’s that, Nick?” Cody sounded worried.

“Remind me next time Myron calls, our rates have gone up. Way, way up. In fact, the next time Myron calls, Cody, remind me to tell him we’ve moved and he can forward our mail, attention Smith & Wesson.”

Cody snickered. “You got it, buddy.”

They reached the car and Murray clambered awkwardly into the back as Cody guided Nick into the passenger seat and strapped him in.

Cody slammed the door, setting Nick’s head ringing, then jogged round the front of the Jimmy and slipped behind the wheel. He guided the Jimmy deftly down the ramp and gunned it through the tollbooth at the exit, snapping the guard-arm in a shower of splinters. They took the exit turn on two wheels, leaving the outraged shouts of the guard behind them as they sped out into the night.

Cool air washed over Nick’s face and he let his head fall back against the seat, feeling the smooth hum of the road beneath them. Cody dropped his hand on Nick’s knee and squeezed.

Above them, a dark, starless sky spread over the city, lit orange where it touched the tops of the buildings, then growing darker the closer they got to the ocean.