It felt like a long time until anything happened again. He’d lost track of the voice he’d pushed back at, and he could barely remember having recognized who it had belonged to. Had he in the first place? Things seemed so far away from him now, as if the field of grass he was laying on were some gigantic ocean that had up and swept him away, the weight that had been pressing on him before sinking him, an anchor tied to his foot. All of the internal voices and frantic thoughts that always crowded the space between his ears seemed faint and muffled now, growing more faint and more muffled the farther down he fell. An indistinct murmur. It was comforting almost, in a strange way. He felt tired. More than tired. It could have all served as a lullaby without a melody, if he hadn’t known what it all really was.
That was right. There was still a fight going on. People were still battling even if any recognizable incantation had floated far away from him by then. His friends were still up there. But all he wanted to do was sleep. It was funny. It was pathetic. But he couldn’t bring himself to tell him to get up again as much as he wanted to. It didn’t beat out the urge to sleep.
He guessed he must have managed it, for a few minutes at the least. He didn’t know when someone else had gotten their hands on him, when someone had found him, and he let out a weak, pained noise as they pressed their palm to the deep gash in his shoulder blade. He would have told them he didn’t much appreciate being moved, but sleep made his tongue heavy and useless. He appreciated the sudden extra weight on his chest even less, and his breathing became even more shallow underneath it. Whatever he did he couldn’t seem to take or hold more air down, whether it was the sudden weight of everything around him seemingly centering down on his chest or the hot, knife-like pain on the inhale. He tried forming another mental push but the words he could hear from the other melded too close together, snowballing over themselves far too much for him to concentrate on anything for too long.
Too close. Speaking the next word before they finished the end of one.
Ded. Of course it was Ded.
With another long minute of effort he attempted another knock against the other man’s thoughts though he slipped in the middle, tripped and misdirected. It barely reached him. He shivered, coughing up more copper from his lungs. All he wanted to tell Dedalus was to stop for a moment. Slow down. He wasn’t going anywhere. All he wanted was to sleep. For a little while. That was all.
There was a layer of noise in his mind that he couldn't get rid off. All the panicked questions, the heartbreaking what ifs, the incessant repetition of simple words as both a coping mechanism and a way to stay on track, and fear. Fear was loud, almost like screams. Maybe that was what it felt like inside Benjy's mind. Usually, Dedalus was able to keep up with his own thoughts until they all became too intense and he could be found hiding in a corner of the room; but something was different this time. Beneath the layer of loud confusion, there was something he'd never felt before. Blank. Empty. A terrifying calmness on the background of the storm.
It was as if the scenario, the colour, the sky and ground that gave life to his world had vanished. It was lonely and cold, and it stuck to his helpless lungs like the scent of a hospital. Bleak. A nauseating feeling he couldn't even begin to describe.
Was that how loss felt like? Something ripping away parts of his world and leaving him unsteady - l o s t . He couldn't imagine ever surviving like that. He couldn't imagine ever surviving without him. It was too brutal of a blow for him to take. Benjy deserved much better than the life he'd gotten so far, but he still had time, and he could use that to make up for everything he never got and everything he ever lost. So he had to live.
Something faint happened inside his mind, but it was like a whisper in a shouting match. Once again, he wondered if he'd actually felt anything at all, but his confusion didn't last for long a soon Benjy moved. No one moving could be dead. The man's head quickly left the spot where he had been pressing against his friend as his hands moved over to the face, holding it as best as he could. They were ice cold and trembling more than ever, but he had to hold the other for just a moment. There was blood coming out of his mouth once again, but he was alive and conscious enough to feel him and push against his mind. He just had to take it in. His eyes would open again, and he'd eventually smile at something again and perhaps, even at him, and he'd walk. He'd run. He'd talk. He would be alright because he was alive and that was all that mattered.
"You're okay. I'm here. You're okay." Dedalus wasn't sure he could be heard; his voice was small and choked, as if he might start sobbing loudly at any given moment. One of his hands moved back to the grass, feeling it a bit all around them for his wand, but he had to take his eyes of Benjy if he was to find it. After a few seconds that felt like hours, Ded gathered the courage to do it, turning to search for the one thing that would get them both out as fast as possible. His wand had rolled away from him when he'd found his friend and he stretched out to pick it up, quickly returning all of his attention to the other man. "You're okay." He was assuring both of them now as his fingers tightened around the familiar object. It was already enough of a risk to apparate with someone barely conscious, if at all, much less with someone with possible injuries that could be worsened during the trip, but it was still their best shot. Benjy's best shot. All that was left was for Dedalus to make his hands and mind steady enough.
His gaze didn't leave Benjy's face as he extended his arm out, wand in hand, the other gripping tightly on his friend's arm. He had to quiet all of himself down and do the job - and do it right. There was no room for error there. His grip grew stronger and he worried about hurting him, but there was nothing else he could do. You'll be okay. He inhaled sharply, almost painfully, before feeling the unsettling pulls and pushes of apparition, holding on to Benjy as he couldn't do that himself. When he blinked, his knees touched the floor of St. Mungo's and his friend was right beside him - whole. Any sounds of relief were muffled by the sounds of the hospital, rapidly filling up with familiar faces from the wedding. Healers rushed in, with ready wands and wits, asking him all sorts of questions. He only realized he hadn't let go of Benjy when a stern looking man grabbed his wrist so that they could move his bleeding brother out of the entrance. They'd probably asked him to do so a few times before. All voices and steps and cries morphed into one single long noise as he stood there, barely up on his feet, watching him being taken away. Soon the doors closed and he couldn't see him anymore. The healer was still there, asking questions, offering him a seat, perhaps. He'd followed, slow steps dragging across the floor. Some words had escaped his mouth - a name, the blood, the coughing, but he mostly just stood there, his mind so far away.
'We'll bring you in as soon as possible.' He got that sentence fully and repeated it in his mind until it was a soft hum, a promise and something to focus on. The healer left with that, and he limited himself to walking a couple of steps towards a corner of the room and slowly sinking into the floor, his knees being pulled towards his chest. His hand clung tightly to his wand, something familiar, as both arms wrapped around his legs and he hid inside his shell. The world, already terrifyingly big as it was, grew larger and larger as he made himself smaller. Beneath the noise, the bleakness reduced in size but it was still there, lingering and threatening. Dedalus thought it might never go away, like a pandora box. Once opened, there was no way to push it back in. At least Benjy was alive. At least he’d never have to feel that in all of its brute force again.
