He's often wondered if dying is like spitting off a bridge. You watch what was once a part of you recede into the vast chaos of an unknown world without passion. A kind of reluctant indifference as it's carried away into the tide. Imagines that the soul stands on the bridge forever, watching the wildness of the world go by without thought.

Never once had he thought it would feel like a ripping pain that shatters through his body. Or that it would include some really ugly lady repeating,

"Mr. Torres....you to have to wake up now..."

Realizes fairly quickly that he is, in fact, very much alive which might be considered unfortunate given the burning pain on his neck, wrists and mid-section. Remembers everything with a sullen recognition of his own stupidity. Too small lab coat and a tank top underneath. And least it hadn't gotten his face, but he must have knocked his head when he tried to get to the car...

And left the phone off the hook. Where was Mik?

"Mr. Torres, my name is Dr. Harrison."

Fantastic.

"How are you feeling Mr. Torres?"

"Like I got splashed with acid due to negligence and then suffered a concussion." He grumbled, glad to find his mouth free of tubes. His voice was hoarse and paper thin.

"Well, that is a fair assessment." The trollish woman informed him. "The burns are healing as well as can be expected, I think you'll find them itching you a great deal in about a week or so. You were in a coma for about three days, but I think you're out of the woods now. We're going to keep you here for observation another three or four days and they we'll send you home."

"Thanks." He was too tired to make a witty remark, despite the long sleep he had just woken from.

"The nurses have told me that you've had quite a few visitors."

"Big family." He managed and the thought of his mother worrying over him, made him feel worse then he already had.

"Mmm. Well, I want you to start drinking a lot of fluids, but don't try and get out of bed just yet."

"All right." Wanted to try to spite her condescending tone, but knew he would wind up on the floor.

Sleep overcame him again in a wave and he drifted off feeling guilty and alone. A few hours later, they moved him out of intensive care and to a regular semi-private room a few floors up. His roommate on the other side of the curtain was silent, except for the light steady hiss of breath and the occasional shift in the bed.

Reluctantly, Cyanide woke himself up fully for the first time in several days and even managed to sit up. The blinding white of the room was irritating, gave his eyes nothing solid to hold onto. The t.v. loomed, but he ignored it, knowing he would be to distracted to pay attention to day time television right now. Let his thoughts drift aimlessly to the odd shifting dreams of the coma that were already fading away as if they'd never been.

A light knock dragged him from his reverie.

"Come in." Wished his voice was a little stronger, took a sip of water to clear it.

The door opened tentatively as if the person on the other side was waiting for a booby trap to spring. Cya gave a soft sigh when Mik finally walked in, his hands clasped in back of him and his eyes nervously searching the bedridden man's face.

"Hey."

"Hey. Pull up a chair."

A moment while Mik pulled over the light plastic chair from the corner and sat next to the bed.

"You're going to all right. The doctor's said so."

"Yeah, sounds like it."

There was a long pause while Mik seemed to search for words. His hands clenched together in his lap and his eyes rested blankly on the curtain that separated the Cya from his roommate. The tension grew thicker and Cya was just about to attempt to break the ice when Mik's normally steady voice began to haltingly fill the silence.

"When...the accident happened...I called to tell you I was sorry. To tell you that I missed you and I wanted you back. I heard the explosion.....could hear you scream....then there was this terrible silence. I panicked, hung up, called 911 and then ran to the car... I got there before the ambulance did. I found you on the stairs....I think you must have been trying to get to your car, then feel...that's how you got the concussion." Tears started to form in Mik's eyes, "I waited for the ambulance and it was the longest ten minutes of my life. You were breathing so shallowly and all I could think was that if you died...you would die angry at me..."

Heart heavy and eyes stinging with tears, Cyanide brought a heavily bandaged arm up to caress the stubbed cheek of the crying man. He made soft reassuring noises and that seem to break the dam. The sobs came full force and Mik unclenched his hands to let them do as they would. One came to rest on Cya's forehead and the other on his chest, moving a little, resting and checking for life.

"I'm sorry, Mik." The Latino said softly, " I said horrible things."

"So did I."

"Come back home with me? When the doctors let you out?"

"Yes. I'll have to tell Mama... Dios! Mama, is she all right? She must be worried sick..."

"I've been keeping her posted. She was here the first day, but I sent her home so she could take care of your sisters. Skids, Harley and I have been taking turns sitting with you."

"I thought only next of kin could get into I.C.U.?"

Mik blushed a little.

"What's the good of all that money if you don't use it once and a while..."

"Mikhael Rasputin!" Cya looked at his lover in shock. "Did you pay off the nurses?"

"Maybe."

Cyanide stared long and hard at his usually goody two shoes boyfriend. Mik had bribed a nurse, so he could sit by his side while he was unconscious.

"I missed you." He said slowly. " We have a lot to talk about."

"I missed you too. And yes, we do, but it can wait."

"Can it?" Cya mused aloud and would have continued, but for the sudden appearance of the rambunctious duo. Harley and Skids crashed in, carrying at least two dozen Get Well Soon balloons.

"You're awake!" Harley exclaimed, moving to the bed. "We were pretty worried about you for a while there."

"It's great to see you not hooked up to all those machines." Skids added.

"Hey, can I sign you bandages?" Harley asked, whipping out a permenent marker from seemingly no where.

"Oh, me too!"

"Uhh...sure?" Cyanide looked questioningly over at Mik who shrugged.

"They replace them every few hours anyway. Just don't press too hard. Dr. Harrison said his skin is in a pretty bad way still."

The rest of visiting hours were willed away with Skids and Harley filling Cyanide in on what he had missed while comatose. Which meant sharing every single detail of the news, type of coffee they had consumed and the full play-by-play of the season premiere of Angel's eighth season.

When the nurse shooed them out, Mik managed to get in a light kiss on his cheek and a brief quasi-hug before he left. Cyanide probably have stayed awake all night wondering what he was going to say to Mik, if he hadn't been so drugged up that he slipped right into sleep and didn't wake up until late the next morning.

In fact, he didn't get a chance to speak to Mik alone at all for the rest of his hospital stay. In between visits from his family, Skids and Harley, the many doctor's visits and light physical therapy to get his body used to moving again after four days of bed rest, he hardly had time to think at all.

His mother hadn't been ecstatic about letting him return to Mikhael's apartment when the hospital released him. She pointed out that before the accident, Cyanide had been clear that he never wanted to see or talk to the Russian again. Not to mention that for several weeks, Cya had to have a lot of things done for him while his skin healed and she wasn't sure that Mik was capable of taking care of her baby.

Luckily, Cyanide was well beyond the age of needing her permission and he as he pointed out, she wouldn't have time to take care of him either, between work and his sisters. It would be easier on all of them if he went home.

Home. Was it still home? After the words spit between them, could he and Mik mend the bridges? And what about his doctoral work? There were plenty of schools willing to take him, but they were so far away and those that were closer were not nearly as good.

Issues aplenty.

Still when he was free of the hospital doors and wheel chair requirement, it was with a lighter heart that he slid into the seat next to his lover. It was a place he belonged. Mik smiled at him, once and brilliantly, before turning his attention to the road. They let silence encase them, rather then fight over music or talk. By the time they reached the apartment, Cya had fallen asleep.

Carefully, Mik picked him up and carried him into the elevator. After some muffled curses, he managed to get the key in the door and swing it open. The apartment was clean and airy, he had spent much of the last two days when not at Cya's side, cleaning the place out from his long brooding loneliness.

With great tenderness, he laid his lover on their bed and removed his shoes. He decided against undressing him, knowing that it was probably only a short nap and it would disturb some of the bandages. Instead, he draped a thick blanket over the slumbering body and went to make them some lunch.

Soft strains of La Triviata woke Cyanide from his slumber and he shifted a little, one hand reaching out to the other side of the bed. Empty. Empty as it had been for the past few....wait....home. He was home. Right. Memory.

He rouse, his head groggy with sleep. He must have fallen asleep in the car. Stood and just looked around the bedroom. Their bedroom. How could he have left this? He really was stupid. Scuffled out into the kitchen where Mik was sitting in a chair, reading a book, two plates with sandwiches on them lying in front of him.

"You're up."

"Mmm. That for me?"

"Yes."

It was hard to eat. Every time he bent his elbow shots of pain ripped through him and he knew he couldn't have another pain killer for a least an hour. Determined, he bit into the soft bread and winced. Finally, Mik took the sandwich from his hands.

"Let me feed you." Soft brown eyes pleaded. In the hospital, he had let Mik feed him on the idea that while he was lying prone in bed, it was all right. But this....

"I don't..."

"Don't be a stubborn prick." Mik admonished gently, "You're only hurting yourself."

"Fine."

Mik held out the sandwich and Cya obligingly took a bite out of it, chewed and bit again. After a minute or so, the embarrassment passed and he just appreciated not having to endure the pain in order to have lunch. There was only one mishap when Mik spilled water onto Cya's shirt, but they both laughed it off and it wasn't long before they were finished.

Mik cleared the dishes and washed them. Without speaking they agreed to move into the living room, curling on oppisote ends of the couch as they always did when they had to have a serious conversation.

"I got accepted to a lot of good programs." Might as well dive right in, Cyanide. "Places that will give me a lot of money and set me up very well for my career."

"Congratulations." Mik said, trying to sound happy, but it came off cool.

"Thanks. The thing is, now, I'm not so sure...... I don't think that I want to leave. I applied to them at the time to see if I could get in. Then with us apart, I figured why not? I was going to make a decision last week, before the accident."

"You were going to leave?"

Cya shrugged, resting chin on his knees.

"I don't know. I hadn't decided."

"You should go where you want to, Cya. Don't let me hold you back." Anger crept in and Cyanide winced.

"I am where I want to be. I didn't know it until about two hours ago, but this is home, Mik. I don't want to leave."

"And school?"

Cya shrugged.

"I don't know."

"You could....go someplace not to far. Come home on weekends."

"Yeah." He was suddenly tired of the conversation and the Latino crawled across the couch to settle himself in Mik's lap, feeding off the warmth of the body beneath him and trying to ignore the heat that radiated off his burns.

"Can we have makeup sex now?" He asked finally.

"Fuck yes." Mik said with a laugh and leaned down to kiss the upturned face of his lover.

The sun dimmed as they made love in their bed, working carefully around Cyanide's injured body. The air hummed with hormones and lust as Mik thrust long even owning strokes into the open body below him. It was an act of healing that brought them past the pain of loneliness and isolation. In the rapidly dimming light, they spilled their seeds, panting and moaning in coital bliss.

Afterwards, Mik changed the bandages and rubbed on ointment, sighing as he saw the extent of damage to his lover's once perfect skin. There would be scars. Scars that could eventually be fixed, if Cyanide wished it, but Mik had a feeling that the stubborn Latino would keep them as a reminder to play safe with his beloved chemicals.

It was night that offered them the best and greatest reminder of all, however. To share the bed with another body, to know that they would wake with another in their arms was a powerful incentive to heal their differences.

"Love you." Cya whispered into the Russian's copiuos chest hair.

"Love you too, princess." And laughed off the light smack that followed.