csi_sanders1129 | Fic: Before It's Too Late

Title: Before It’s Too Late
Chapters: 5/8
Author:

csi_sanders1129
Genre: Drama. Suspense. Angst. Hurt/Comfort.
Ratings: T
Word Count: ~1,200
Pairings/Characters: Jason Morgan/Damian Spinelli
Synopsis: PCPD Officers have just been called to Port Charles University. Sources have informed us that an armed man has barricaded himself inside a classroom. Attempts to contact the gunman for negotiations have thus far been unsuccessful. More at 9.
Comments: Rated for what could be considered triggering topics. Written on request from

suerum . FIC IS NOW OFFICIALLY FINISHED. It will have 8 chapters, total. OC's are mine, whether or not I want them, GH characters are not. Reviews are awesome. Enjoy!

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 |

Some four hours after finally getting into Spinelli's room, Jason found himself woken by the sound of arguing – and when had he even managed to fall asleep? – just outside of the door. He reluctantly released his hold on Spinelli's hand and moved to investigate the annoying disturbance.

"-don't care, I want to see Spinelli!" A childish remark from a childish speaker, Jason spotted Maxie standing in the hallways arguing with Dr. Hunter.

Jason glanced at the clock posted in the hallway. 8:37. Nearly twelve hours had gone by since Spinelli's ordeal had begun. And it was entirely way too early for this.

"Maxie." He snapped at her. He was already on edge and suspicious of her presence and he had good reason to be. Several months earlier, she had up and disappeared, gone to stay in Paris, or Milan, or some other fashion capital of the world that Jason didn't care about, for Kate. She hadn't told Spinelli, she'd just left, and Spinelli had all but fallen apart over it. It had been in the fallout from that experience that had first led he and Spinelli to start the… whatever it was that was going on between them.

Maxie turned on him then, now ignoring Matt completely. "Jason, you'll let me in to see Spinelli, right?"

He didn't want to. Really, he didn't want her anywhere near Spinelli after what she did to him when she left. But on the other hand, leaving Spinelli alone wasn't an appealing thought either and he really, really needed coffee if he was going to stay awake and look out for Spinelli. "For a few minutes." He agreed. "That's it."

She nodded and slipped in and he left the room.

He was gone no more than five minutes. That was it, just long enough to grab a cup of coffee from the cafeteria and make his return to Spinelli's room. And apparently, five minutes was all it took for Maxie to cause trouble.

"What the hell did you think you were doing, Spinelli?" She all but demanded of the still-unconscious boy. "You're not like Johnny or Jason, you're not supposed to be idiotic and stupid and go playing the hero trying to save everybody else. You're not a hero, Spinelli, so stop trying to be."

Pride and anger hit Jason simultaneously as he stepped back into the room. Pride, as he had predicted, was for Spinelli, who'd risked his life – it was still at risk, shouldn't be past tense just yet – to save all those people. Anger, at Maxie, for her words, for demeaning Spinelli's sacrifice.

"He is a hero." Jason flatly denied her erroneous assertion.

Maxie rolled her eyes and glared at him. "So says the poster-boy for running into stupid situations." She scoffed at him, having now claimed Spinelli's good hand, his left, for herself. "It's your fault he did this, isn't it? He's always trying to be like you so he tried to play the hero."

"Everyone in that classroom would have been dead – Spinelli would be dead – if it weren't for what he did in there. He did the right thing, tried to save lives, so don't talk like you know what happened." Jason warned her. She hadn't heard the recording. She hadn't heard Richard Aldridge confess that he had no plans for escape because he was taking them all out with him. She hadn't heard Spinelli be insurmountably brave with a gun trained on him. "You should go."

"Not a chance." She countered. And, really, he should have known that she wouldn't abide to his 'for a few minutes' stipulation. "I'm staying with Spinelli, I'll be here when he wakes up."

More anger, this time at her actions more so than her words. "You think you can just come back here and pick up where you left off with him?"

"Not that it is any of your business, but, yes. Spinelli will understand. I had to leave for work; it wasn't like I really wanted to go."

Jason felt something in his chest roll with the mere idea of Spinelli going back to her, giving her another chance. "It's not gonna happen this time. Even Spinelli has his limits and you've stretched them to the breaking point. Every time he starts to forget what you did to him, I'll be there to remind him. So, I suggest you save your dignity, Maxie, and leave now before I throw you out."

Maxie laughed at him in response, sputtering something that could have been 'you wouldn't dare.' But Jason was beyond caring. She was in his spot beside Spinelli, she didn't know anything about him at all, and she had to go.

"Don't think I won't." He amended, advancing a few feet towards her. Jason was fully prepared to remove her from the room if she refused to go.

Luckily, she relented, slowly getting to her feet and muttering under her breath at him as she made for the door.

Once he was sure she was gone, he reclaimed both the chair and his grip on Spinelli's hand. "Don't listen to her," he said. "You're a hero and nothing anyone says can change that."

Damian Spinelli was slowly coming back to awareness.

First, there was the soft, repetitive motion of fingers tracing trails up and down the length of his arm. If it wasn't so soothing, he probably would have been worried by the fact that he didn't know who was doing it.

Then there was the voice. He couldn't quite make out the words – they sounded muffled and distorted, like someone was talking underwater – but they sounded reassuring and he found that he really didn't want the speaker to stop.

Fingers carded through his hair every once in a while, too, and that feeling was equally welcome, if distantly familiar.

"Mmm…" He groaned in quiet contentment, but the single noise unexpectedly resulted in a sharp, intense burn in his chest. His eyes shot open in shock as the memories of the classroom flooded back into his brain – exams interrupted by footsteps, long-barreled weapons leveled at his head, a disgruntled student with no end-game, and then white-hot pain in his chest and he couldn't breathe and….

"Spinelli!"

And then Jason was there, the touch, the voice, all him. Right there and bringing him back into reality, keeping him grounded and still. "Spinelli, you're alright. Just… calm down. You're okay. Stay still for me, okay?" He requested, voice quiet and calming, just as it had been all along. Spinelli watched him hit the 'call' button for a nurse. "Try not to move too much, alright?"

Slowly, as the realization came to him that he was in a hospital, no longer in the accursed classroom with gun-toting lunatics, he managed to nod. "Ston-" He tried to say, but the words caught in his throat as the sharp pain in his chest flared up again.

Jason hushed him. "Try not to talk, either," he amended his previous statement. "The doctors will come and get you checked out, make sure you're good." One of his hands curled around Spinelli's, slowly raising it to his lips. "You'll be okay."