Perrie & Britta
The first thing he heard when he finally awoke was the soft and steady beeping of a heart monitor. Perrie shut his eyes tighter when he realized where he was from that noise alone, hoping it was a bad dream, hoping he could wake up in his bed and just have a normal argument with Dixon about where he was all night. It would have been easier to stomach last night that way, at least, if it had all been in his head. The drugs. Damon. The fire. The vision of his parents. All of it would have been so much easier if opening his eyes meant it had never been reality, but instead, he knew that opening his eyes to see the white-tiled ceiling of a hospital would only make it unbearably real.
But Perrie couldn’t just ignore the feeling that coursed through his body, and not just the dread and fear and upset and regret that sat in the pit in his stomach. Though the fire had been put out, his nerves still burned beneath blistered skin, punishing him for what he had been stupid enough to do, who he had been stupid enough to trust. A choked groan of pain escaped his incredibly dry throat, and it was the sound that followed that finally made him open his eyes. The shifting of a chair was enough to tell him that someone else was in the room with him, that he wasn’t alone. He’d expected to see Dixon, staring at him disapprovingly. He’d maybe expected to see Scott. He hadn’t expected to see his best friend staring back at him when he finally, slowly opened his eyes. “Britta?” Perrie croaked.