csi_sanders1129 | Fic: Before It's Too Late (Reply)

Title: Before It’s Too Late
Chapters: 6/8
Author:

csi_sanders1129
Genre: Drama. Suspense. Angst. Hurt/Comfort.
Ratings: T
Word Count: ~1,900
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!

NOTE: I accidentally posted Ch 6 as Ch 5 last week, so if you’ve already seen this chapter, go back to chapter 5, please. :3

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | CHAPTER 5 |

Once Matt showed up, along with a handful of other doctors and nurses, Jason had promptly been kicked out of the room. They'd taken Spinelli for tests, to see how he'd dealt with the surgery, if he needed anything else done before they could get to his arm, they told him. It would be a while.

He called Max on his way to the cafeteria, hoping for maybe a change of clothes from the Penthouse, maybe a bag of stuff for Spinelli, too. The loyal guard assured him that he'd be by as soon as possible, but only once he'd asked after Spinelli's condition. With that taken care of, Jason was intent upon pouring more caffeine into his sleep-deprived system.

However, upon purchasing his coffee, he found the cafeteria was more crowded than he'd expected it to be. A group of eight was huddled around one of the tables in the back corner of the room, and they seemed eerily familiar. Spinelli's classmates, Jason realized. He'd seen some of them when they'd fled the building the previous night.

Jason approached their over-packed table with two drink carries filled with a mix of cups of hot chocolate and coffee.

Amongst the appreciative replies to his offering and following quick introductions, one girl spoke up – Leah was her name. "You were there last night, too, right?"

He nodded, pulled up a chair of his own. "Spinelli's my roommate. I was there to pick him up."

"Is he okay?" Another girl, Emily, asked him, concern clearly written on all of their faces.

Jason sighed, dragged a hand over his face before downing a good portion of his drink. "They did surgery on him last night, he just woke up a little while ago and the doctor's are looking him over before they send him off for another operation."

Sighs of relief came forth from the crowd, then. "Does he know about the others yet?" The first girl asked him, eyeing the television in the corner of the room that's airing news story after news story about the incident at the college.

"I didn't get a chance to talk to him about it before they kicked me out."

One boy, Aiden, sitting in the corner of the group, spoke up then. "It's my fault." He mumbled out, and all heads wheeled to face him at once. "I… I knew Richard. He was in a class with me last semester and… and he… I should have seen this coming. I should have reported him or something, the way he acted."

"You couldn't have known he'd do something like this." A second boy, James, countered. "The guy was crazy."

"No, you don't…" Aiden continued. "I knew how crazy he was. He… he got told off by the professor in my other class for texting or talking or something, I don't even remember what for, but he threw a huge fit about it. I thought he was gonna haul off and hit the instructor, but a couple of the students talked him down. If we'd reported him or something… maybe this wouldn't have happened."

The other students all offered reassurances and kind words to their guilt-ridden classmate, but Jason wasn't listening to them anymore. This really was no one's fault and he knew that, he did. No one but the shooter himself was to blame and he was already dead and gone, but that didn't mean that none of them were thinking through what-if's and maybe's. Just as Aiden was and just as Jason was.

What if he'd needed Spinelli's help on something for the organization last night? What if he'd had Jackal P.I. work to do? What if he hadn't been at the school? What if Jason had been there, too?

His cell phone buzzed in his pocket – probably Max – and it was all the incentive he needed to get up and go. "I'm going back to Spinelli's room to wait – you guys should go home, get some rest. He won't be up for visitors for a while, probably."

Slowly, the students nodded in agreement, but none of them seemed ready to leave just yet. "Tell him we'll see him later, then." James offered, waving Spinelli's roommate off as he headed for the cafeteria's exit.

"I will." Jason promised.

The last thing Spinelli remembered was counting. 100… 99… 98… 97. He didn't recall hearing 96, so he figured the anesthesia for the surgery to repair his arm had kicked in by then. Starting at 100 was pretty pointless, he figured.

The next thing Spinelli remembered was completely unrelated. In his drugged-out, put to sleep, state, his mind wandered. Wandered four months, three weeks and two days into the past when he was broken over Maxie's abrupt departure from his life and Jason was there helping him pick up the pieces.

He had no idea why this memory came to the forefront of his subconscious mind, but he was decidedly disinclined to complain about it. He rather liked recalling the details of that night and those that had come after it.

It had been nearly two weeks since Maxie had bailed on him, and by then it was clear that she wasn't coming back. Spinelli... had taken it hard. He'd been moping around at Jake's for a while, and he had consumed a fair amount of alcohol while there, but now he just wanted to be home.

He walked into the penthouse, his feet dragging with every step he took. Spinelli was totally exhausted, he felt as though his very soul was bruised. For a brief moment he pondered that thought - was such a thing even possible? - and then the bright flare of inquisitiveness vanished and he simply stood by the open door, half in and half out of the entryway, too uninspired to move another inch.

"Spinelli?" The familiar voice was distant and garbled as though it was coming to him through a long, dark tunnel. He averted his head, if there was someone there, anyone, he didn't want them to see him in this defeated state.

A gentle hand clasped his shoulder and lightly tugged at him. He didn't care, forward, backward, standing still, really what did it even matter now?

Admittedly, this was one of the darker moments he'd had in dealing with Maxie's cruel departure, but then everything changed for him.

Some of it, the exact memories and precise details of how it happened, he lost to the alcoholic haze in his mind. He never really figured out how exactly Jason went from standing beside him in the entryway of the Penthouse to Jason pulling him past the regrettably pink room - and all of its equally regrettable memories - towards the room at the end of the hall.

By the next morning – when the hangover had worn off, anyway – he was almost happy again. Spinelli had started to believe he was never going to get to feel that again, at least not for a long, long time.

But they never talked about it. Ever. Not three days later when Jason came home late after some business trouble and lured Spinelli away from his laptop and back to his room. Not a week after that when Spinelli accidentally caught Jason in the shower. Not any of the times they were together over the next few months. Not even when Spinelli found out that Sam had split on Jason just days after Maxie had left him. They'd had some big disagreement - over having kids or something, Jason had never told him and Spinelli had no idea where anyone had stood on the issue – and it had ended on amicable terms, but Sam had gone off travelling or something to deal with it. On the plus side, Sam's trip had left McCall and Jackal down one member, and so Jason picked up the slack.

Sometimes, if he happened to look up suddenly Spinelli would catch Jason looking at him, with some indecipherable expression on his face and he would immediately look away whenever their eyes met.

That peculiar behavior was wholly contradictory to the one and only thing that Spinelli found unsettling about the unnamable thing that had formed between them. If unsaid rule number one was Do Not Talk About It, capital letters and all, then unsaid rule number two had to be No Kissing. Rule number two was by no means as strictly abided by as rule number one – Jason would kiss him, on rare occasion, and if Spinelli initiated it, Jason would respond – but it came with strings attached. Kissing led to Jason pushing him away, not coming to him for varying lengths of times. The longest had been two weeks, and Jason had actually disappeared on him for a few days that time, which had about killed Spinelli (nearly another betrayal, nearly another person he cared about up and leaving without any notice). It baffled Spinelli to no end, and it hurt, this odd aversion to kissing.

Not that it wasn't a really cool not-relationship to be in or anything. That was hardly the case. As much as Jason's behavior put him off at times – he eventually kind of stopped trying to kiss Jason for fear of getting pushed away one time too many, and he never brought it up because he didn't want Jason to walk away – it had its plus sides.

Jason was always around him, now, always protecting him and looking out for him in ways he hadn't before they'd started getting together. Even Sonny's irritable comments of 'freak boy' and 'go back to whatever planet you beamed down from' were brought to a swift end the second Jason heard them uttered. Whatever was between them might have been unsaid, but Jason wasn't going to let Spinelli take that from anyone.

Spinelli's lengthy inner-analysis of the workings of his relationship with Jason came to an abrupt end when words from an unfamiliar voice started filtering into his brain. Slowly, as the anesthesia they'd dosed him with for the surgery began to wear off, he realized that he was hearing bits and pieces of a duo of nurses talking about the recent dramatic events at the college.

"-kid was there, huh? Lucky one, he is, then. I heard the other four people who were hit didn't make it. Just him." One nurse says, obviously oblivious to her patient's current state of consciousness.

The words took a long moment to register in his drug-clouded mind but when they did the effect was devastating. Spinelli's mind reeled with thoughts that were simply overwhelming when he should have been relaxing after undergoing his second surgery in twelve hours. Who else had been victims of the unstable Richard Alridge? Memories of others falling around him – the professor, the two brothers and the girl around him – they had to be the ones who'd suffered fatal wounds. Why had he survived when no one else had?

Suddenly breathing was hard, rather impossible. Machines surrounding him beeped in frantic protest as his heart raced in his chest and he gasped for air, drawing the attention of the gossiping nurses.

Dead. They were dead. He'd failed, hadn't saved them. They were dead because he'd failed…