csi_sanders1129 | Fic: Before It's Too Late

Title: Before It’s Too Late
Chapters: 7/8
Author:

csi_sanders1129
Genre: Drama. Suspense. Angst. Hurt/Comfort.
Ratings: T
Word Count: ~3,200
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

'Code Blue in OR Recovery… Code Blue in OR Recovery…'

The message had gone out hospital-wide on the PA system, as all alerts and pages did. Jason had just finished changing – he'd gotten held up talking to Max, and then had a phone call from Sonny following that - and was on his way back to the waiting area by Spinelli's room when he'd heard it and even though he had no way of really knowing who the call referred to, somehow he did. It was Spinelli.

He knew that Spinelli was in the OR. Given the time since he'd last seen the younger man, he was probably in recovery by now. He just knew.

So what had gone wrong?

His pace quickened as he neared the waiting room he knew they'd send him off to – no way would he be getting in to wherever they were working on Spinelli – and he just let go. Pacing, back and forth and back and forth across the span of the room. Here they'd had Spinelli away from him for hours and now this? This was supposed to be the easy surgery, the non-life threatening surgery. Jason had thought that Spinelli was pretty much out of the woods at this point and now they'd called a Code Blue – whatever that was code for, he knew it wasn't good – on him. More pacing, cursing under his breath.

He couldn't even go after the guy who'd done this to Spinelli. The coward had gone and killed himself before Jason could get his hands on him…

It was too much all at once. Without a thought, he hauled off and slammed his fist into the nearest wall. It caved with surprising ease under his hand, but he knew he'd probably done more damage to his hand than to the wall in the process. Not that he cared.

The pain in his hand made the unnamable pain in his heart hurt marginally less.

Robin found him thirty minutes later. He was sitting on the floor with his head in his uninjured hand and the one that was bruised and bleeding and probably broken curled into his chest. `

"Jase?" She said hesitantly, obviously unnerved by both the sight of her friend and of the damage done to the wall, as she put the situation together. "Come on, let me see your hand."

"Spinelli?" He asked, ignoring her request.

"He stopped breathing in Recovery. They think he had a panic attack or something that really irritated his lungs, but he's stable now. He'll be back in his room soon." Robin told him. "But you'll be in the ER getting your hand x-rayed, apparently."

"Hands fine." Jason mumbled out, still keeping it held protectively close to his chest. "I don't need the ER."

The doctor fixed him with a withering stare. "Jase…" She said, arms folded over her chest. "You do, and you know you do. The sooner we get it checked out, the sooner you can get back to Spinelli."

Jason gave in just as reluctantly as Robin had figured he would. But Spinelli was the best way to motivate him into any sort of action at all, evidently. "Fine." He said, getting to his feet. "I want to get back up here to Spinelli as fast as possible."

When Spinelli woke up again, he was totally alone. He was back in the room he'd been in earlier, with Jason, but no one else was here now. His mind was hazy still, as if some rather potent drugs were swimming around in his head and keeping him from thinking too deeply about anything at all. He felt tired and just overwhelmingly sore, as if he'd just done something that required a hell of a lot of adrenaline. Muscles hurt, bones hurt, everything, it seemed, hurt.

Slowly, as he lay there in the hospital bed, dazed and confused, it started to come back to him again. What he'd heard those nurses chatting so casually about when he'd last woken up. The memory, like everything, was clouded and distorted and he had to fight to remember what he'd heard exact. Had it been three dead? Four? Yes, four.

To his own credit, he didn't panic this time or set off any alarms on the machines monitoring his vitals. He was too numb. So Spinelli just stared at the wall across from him and tried to forget everything he'd tried to remember.

That was how Jason found him, an hour later, when he returned from his dubiously consented to detour to the ER. He'd had his hand x-rayed, had a couple of stitches and some bandages put on, and then had his hand splinted. No big deal for him at all – other than that it had kept him away from Spinelli for far longer than he had ever wanted to be.

Robin had practically forced a couple of rather effective painkillers down his throat, so he didn't even have the distraction of the pain in his hand to suppress the crushing feeling in his chest that swelled up every time he even thought of Spinelli.

The near catatonic state he discovered Spinelli in upon his return did not ease the feeling any.

"Hey." Jason said, claiming the chair that had been his for the many hours it had taken Spinelli to first wake up. "You alright?"

No answer. Spinelli just blinked absently as he continued to fixate on the wall opposite him.

"Spinelli." He tried again, and still the younger remained unresponsive. With a sigh, Jason pressed onward. "You scared me, you know. Not just… a little while ago, with what happened in the OR, but last night, too. I heard everything, all of it. It was really smart to call like you did – no one would have even known about it until it was too late if you hadn't. And I wish you hadn't had to go through that, trying to talk him down. But you did everything you could, you know that, right?"

That got him a reaction. Spinelli broke his insistent stare directed at the wall, dropped his gaze to stare at the blankets bunched up around his hips.

Jason reached out, caught Spinelli's uninjured hand in his own uninjured hand. "If you hadn't done what you did, you wouldn't be here. There wouldn't be a whole group of your classmates sitting in the cafeteria waiting to see you. To tell you how brave you were."

"Your Jackal does not consider his actions to be so valiant. Not when several of those present weren't as fortunate as I."

Jason, while simply glad to hear him talk again, wasn't going to let Spinelli think that way. "There wasn't anything else you could have done, Spinelli. It would have been a lot worse if you hadn't tried to talk Aldridge down. Your classmates are proud of you. The police, even Mac, they're all proud of what you did in there. I'm proud of you." His fingers moved of their own accord, drawing random patterns and shapes over Spinelli's hand. "I don't even know what I would have done if you hadn't been okay."

Spinelli looked at him, then. Finally. With red-rimmed green eyes that told Jason that he had most definitely taken way too long in the ER.

And he probably should have figured this out for himself a long, long time ago. He'd had months to do so, really. But all he'd done was try to avoid it. Jason had just pushed Spinelli away every time he got too close, every time he got too invested, too attached, to this thing they had going on. He ignored the hurt looks Spinelli gave him when he did try to distance himself, and he ignored how much it hurt seeing Spinelli's hurt looks. But he should have known and he should have acted way sooner than this. Nearly losing Spinelli should not have been the driving factor that made him realize what he was slowly letting slip away from him.

Actions and words jumbled up in his head and he couldn't for the life of him figure out what he was supposed to say or do to get Spinelli to understand what he wanted to explain. It should have been easy. Three words. Just three small words that held a hell of a lot of meaning. But this was Spinelli and three words just weren't enough.

"Stone Cold?" Spinelli prompted, when Jason's silence had stretched on to the point of concerning.

"Maxie's back." Jason decided on, despite all of the other things he wanted to say. "I don't know if it's just because Mac told her what happened or if it's for good. She was here for a few minutes, earlier, before you woke up. She said she wanted to pick up where you left off." Then he waited. Spinelli's reaction would determine just what Jason admitted to.

Spinelli frowned at this new piece of information. "The Jackal is not interested in pursuing any sort of relationship with the Traitorous One. Not again." He answered, which was what Jason had silently been hoping to hear. "Surely Stone Cold was aware of that."

"I… I just wanted to be sure." Jason countered, moving to shift from his chair beside Spinelli to instead sit on the edge of the bed. "Before I tell you something I should have made clear a long time ago."

The younger man watched him carefully; obviously wary of whatever his mentor-and-lover intended to say.

"This thing between us. It, ugh, it needs to stop. Now."

Spinelli paled, the response seeming even more intensified by the stark, hospital white of everything surrounding him and the harsh glow of the fluorescent lights above. "I… pardon?" It had to be the first time Jason had ever acknowledged that there was a thing going on between them, and now he wanted it ended?

"It needs to end, so that I can do it right." He amended his previous statement in what was probably the only way it could turn out to be positive. "You don't even know how much you mean to me and I haven't tried to show you. All I've done was try to push you away whenever you started to get to close, whenever I started feeling too… attached. And I could have lost you last night without ever even realizing what I was avoiding."

He couldn't tell Jason that his actions hadn't hurt him, hadn't made him doubt himself all over again, hadn't made him fear another unexpected betrayal like the one Maxie had pulled on him. But, he trusted Jason more than he'd ever trusted anyone in his life despite all that and if Jason said he was going to fix it, he would. Spinelli fell silent for a long moment, decisions and responses spinning in his head at what seemed like warp speed.

Jason watched him carefully, obviously waiting for some sort of response to his veiled admissions.

"What, exactly, were you avoiding?"

He knew he'd have to say it to truly convince Spinelli. It was probably the only way to do so, given how much he'd trouble he'd gone to in dodging any attempts at conversation on the subject. So, he did. "I love you." He said, tone hushed and quiet, but he'd moved closer so Spinelli easily caught the whispered words. "I'll do whatever I have to do to prove it to you."

The hand he had been holding and absently stroking was suddenly snatched from his grasp. That move was abruptly followed by Spinelli averting his face from Jason. Spinelli actually tried to turn his entire body away, as well, but with a sharp gasp of pain he aborted the motion as the reality of his grievous injuries once more became startlingly evident.

"Spinelli!" Was Jason's agitated and concerned reply as he moved to stop the younger man's foolish movements, worried that he might have done something to make his situation worse. He wasn't sure he could take watching Spinelli go through another surgery or another close call. "Are you okay?" He reached over and tried to turn Spinelli's face back toward him so that he could see his eyes, could ascertain what had happened to produce this unexpected rejection, but Spinelli could be decidedly stubborn when he wanted to be, and so he resisted Jason's efforts to make him look at him. His hand came away wet which meant Spinelli was crying

"You can go," his voice was low, strangled sounding and there was an element of something indefinable contained within it, something which made the stark pain in Jason's chest resurface with a vengeance.

"That's what you want?" Jason slid off of the bed and sat back in his chair, his defenses – way down with Spinelli, but always close to the surface - were starting to re-establish themselves and his own voice was harsh and distant sounding, even though he felt like his insides were being twisted in a vice. "I don't understand," he softened his tone, leaned forward once more, suddenly unwillingly to give up this prospect of something wonderful, something life affirming and life determining, without a fight. "We...you and I, just a minute ago...things we're good and now…" He trailed off and let his honest confusion show.

Now he could see a slice of Spinelli's face, a tear stained cheek, a corner of mouth pulled down in misery and pain, a glimmer of an eye looking at him with betrayal and maybe even that most foreign of emotions for Spinelli - anger.

"That is correct, Stone Cold," his voice was dull, emotionless, matching the expression on his face. "I was consoled to have you here, to know that you cared enough to see your Jackal through this time of both physical and emotional tribulation. That is, until you decided to be mendacious."

"Mendacious?" Jason echoed, not quite sure what Spinelli was getting at, "You think... you think I'm lying. Spinelli..." He moved to sit on the edge of the bed once again and tried to grab for the boy's hand, but he pulled out of reach, tucking it across his chest. His entire body posture was rigid with opposition at the thought of Jason touching him.

"I deserve better, Jason. You owe me the truth and the truth I can take." He paused, biting his lip and he turned with another grunt of pain, to shift his body so he was once again facing toward his mentor. "I don't need you to pretend that you... care for me." He said the words as though they tasted bitter and he wanted them off his tongue as soon as possible. "I know, that you probably thought it was for the best, that if you convinced me to believe you had feelings for me it would make for a swifter recuperation. I am sure, Stone Cold," Spinelli swallowed as he looked down at the blankets on the bed, unable to meet Jason's eyes any longer, "It was done, as are all your acts, with the best of intentions but I assure you I can recover without false protestations of your undying love for me."

Jason was floored, "You think I told you that I loved you so that you'd get better faster?" His voice was barely audible as he spoke the unfathomable words.

Spinelli still wouldn't look at him but he nodded his head dumbly, for once seemingly lacking the ability to form words with which to reply.

Jason dry scrubbed at his face in frustration, "That's ... that's just the dumbest idea you've ever had. And you've had plenty of 'em."

Spinelli's head jerked up and his eyes flashed in anger as he once again found his tongue. "You deny the Jackal's assertion then?" He asked, his voice sharp and challenging.

Jason leaned forward in response - words were Spinelli's weapon of choice, action his. He caught the hacker's face between his two hands, holding it with a gentle firmness as he leaned in to press his lips against Spinelli's. At first it was just a contact of two mouths, the pressure barely there but Jason couldn't contain himself, not after everything he'd endured these past few hours, not after almost losing his chance at this most precious opportunity.

He nipped at Spinelli's bottom lip insisting on entry and the younger man gave way, a moan erupted but it would impossible to say from whom, they were both so intertwined. Jason probed his mouth with his tongue, the smoothness of cheeks and the rougher surface of the tongue intoxicating him, making him dizzy.

Some part of his brain - the sane, coherent part - abruptly reminded him that Spinelli had just been shot twice, operated on twice, had nearly died several times, and that now wasn't really the time for this. Later, and for months and years and hopefully decades hence would be the time for this, but right now enough was enough.

He pulled away, the blood pulsing through his veins and his lips tingling, he was panting and so was Spinelli, breathing so hard that it quite alarmed Jason.

"What... was that?" Spinelli gasped out, his eyes enormous on his paper white face. The machines monitoring his breathing and heart rate had gone red in alarm, and no doubt someone would come to see what was happening soon.

"Proof," Jason responded briefly as he searched the bed for the call button to ensure help was en route. "Now lie back, you idiot, before you start having another panic attack and stop breathing again. I am not going through that again." With a wry grin, he held up his right hand swathed in bandages. "I don't think the hospital would appreciate any more holes in their dry wall, either."

Spinelli stared at the injured hand, it was the first time he'd registered it. "Stone Cold injured himself when he heard the Jackal was in extremis?" He asked in wonderment.

Jason looked at him, his brilliant blue eyes meeting Spinelli's, "I thought I'd lost you, Spinelli, and I didn't know what to do. I just knew if you died then nothing would be good ever again." He knew the nurse was coming in response to the page but he had to say this, "Can you forgive me? For not being honest before, for needing to have something so horrible happen to finally realize what you mean to me?" He looked at Spinelli, waiting for his answer, his future hanging in the balance.

He got his reward. That smile, the one which always made him think the sun was shining even when it was raining, broke across Spinelli's face and this time it was Jason's hand which was raised to Spinelli's lips, the kiss feather light. "You always forgive the ones you love, Stone Cold, always."