It's Aliiive!! (Kodi)

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Oriel wasn't sure if he should even be here. The last time Oriel was at this hospital was when he was being treated for snake-bite, and he felt like he barely survived that one. If it weren't for the drugs they had him on, Oriel was certain he would have lost his mind, or clawed someone's eyes out amid a panic attack. Waking up in the unfamiliar place had been bad enough, but to find out he couldn't leave? And to have nurses coming in and out at all hours, shoving pills in his face and telling him to just 'take it easy'...?

Fuck hospitals. Fuck nurses. He wished.

Oriel had spend a good twenty minutes outside the large ominous building after having been dropped by the bus before finally braving the inside in search of his best friend. But...how good of a best friend was he if he couldn't even be there for Kodi and prevent this from happening...? The waves of guilt had been rushing over him ever since he heard the news from that fucker Gray. Why hadn't Kodi told him himself? Asshole....fucking...

Oriel brought a gift for Kodi. A sandwich. A knuckle sandwich, honestly. A real one too, but he planned on giving Kodi the former first. At least that was the plan. But again...just like when he saw the boy finally after his break-up with Gryph...rather than boiling up in anger like he was used to, Oriel felt his eyes sting and hot tears start to fall from them.

"I....I'm so glad you're still aliiiiiiiveee!!!" he wailed, throwing himself across the prone boy and resting the full of his weight against him. Oriel didn't notice if Kodi was awake or asleep, he was just too too happy to see him not dead.

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Kodi was always of the same mind about hospitals that Oriel was. His father had brainwashed him from a young age that modern medicine was evil and deadly, and that prayers and asking for healing was the correct way to go about things. He’d slowly, slowly started to be corrected in those ways of thinking, mainly because he was an idiot that got into fights a lot and now knew that it was important to take care of wounds to keep them from getting infected or anything. But he still hated hospitals with a passion and wanted to get out of this stupid place as quickly as he could. The doctors were vague about his release date, especially since he was an underage boy with a severe alcohol addiction, which made him even more frustrated and impatient.

He hadn’t really reached out and told anyone about what had happened, mainly because he felt like a huge fucking idiot and didn’t want to advertise his dumb behavior that had gotten him into this mess. The only reason he’d told Gene was because he’d asked, and Gray… He didn’t know how Gray had found out, but that guy seemed to always know everything that was going on. Of course it would only be a matter of time before Kodi’s best friend found out, too.

He was actually dozing at the time of Oriel’s visit, having just eaten a delicious meal brought to him by his lovely dumpling princess. Kodi didn’t know where Gene went or what he had planned for the rest of the day, but for now he was alone… at least until Oriel came in and flung himself across the older boy, startling him out of his half-sleep. He panicked for a moment before he realized who the heavy, hairy person was, and groaned, weakly attempting to push him off. “I won’t be if you smother me,” he complained, smiling despite his words. “When’d you get so big an’ fat? Ugh, stop scratchin’ me with your beard.” Kodi chuckled and gave the younger boy a quick scratch on the head. “Sorry…. I didn’t want you worryin’ about me,” he mumbled as an excuse for not texting his friend.

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Oriel’s anxiety with hospitals had a lot more to do with the fact that it was an unfamiliar place than because he didn’t believe in modern medicine. Oh, he believed in it all right. He believed that the halls of hospitals were filled with sick and depressed and tortured and helpless people day and night. He believed that the place was tainted by the spirits of those who died there. He believed that the nurses and doctors only wanted what was best for him and that’s why they invaded his personal space, and told him what to do left and right, and would stick things inside him and pump him full of who knows what. Maybe he was a little terrified of modern medicine. He’d resisted so much to just see the school doctor to bandage up a sprained wrist, and avoided Dr. Neville’s office like the plague for the longest time.

Roaming around the halls today, Oriel was still filled with anxiety, though…it wasn’t quite as intolerable as it could’ve been. He could do this…probably.

By the time he got to Kodi’s room, Oriel had all but forgotten about everything else around him and was only focused on the sickly, bedridden boy in front of him. Seeing him look so pathetic, but knowing that he could have been so much worse…it had brought the waterworks without much hesitation. Oriel hated crying in public…but Kodi wasn’t exactly public, so it was okay!

Oriel clung to the sleeping(not anymore) boy like he was Kodi’s very own personal blankie(that seeped a little wet at some parts). He continued to nuzzle despite Kodi finally rousing to tell him not to. “Mmm last summer,” he answered casually, humming blissfully into his nuzzles. “And…nope!” Oriel grinned and sandpapered Kodi’s face with his chin. His face dropped in a slight but sudden bout of sadness when the dentoknetic expressed his reasons for not contacting him. “I….I know….you know I’m going to worry anyway though, right? Can’t fucking help it.” Oriel glomped the idiot boy again. “I just got too much love to give!! ‘Specially to my bestest best friend in the whole of the wide world!!”

He probably shouldn’t mention that he had planned on knocking Kodi into next week over this…but Kodi probably realized that anyway. Just because he got a better handle on it, didn’t mean Oriel still didn’t get pissed over nothing(or in this case something) at the drop of a hat.

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Kodi felt a mixture of guilt, relief, and comfort wash over him as the younger boy kept himself wrapped tightly around him, unsure of which he felt the strongest. Guilt for not telling him sooner, relief and comfort that the boy cared enough to actually come, despite the anxiety-inducing environment…

Mostly he felt itchy, though. Seriously, had Oriel always been this hairy?

“You don’t gotta cry on me, I’m not gonna die unless y’drown me…” Kodi mumbled, feeing awkward. And bad. He didn’t want to make Oriel cry. “Huh, guess I didn’t notice until now.” Wehh, he was being suffocated and squished and sandpapered all over… “You’re gonna give me a rash,” Kodi complained, pushing slightly on the boy’s face. “You wanna give a rash to a hospitalized loser?” The guilt hit him again once Oriel voiced his thoughts, though, and the dentokinetic grimaced and glanced away. “I thought I could get in and outta here without you findin’ out to worry about me…” he admitted. “’Cause I knew how upset you’d be….” But that was stupid, the whole school probably knew by now. “Wehhh! You’re gonna smother me with all that love!” he wailed, but Kodi was giggling by now too, unable to stay in a bad mood in the face of Oriel’s ridiculousness.

Once he finally managed to wrangled himself away slightly, at least enough to breathe, he glanced the taller boy with an expectant look. “Well? You bring me flowers or some shit? Visits t’my room ain’t free, you know, you gotta pay a price.” Kodi grinned good-naturedly to show that he was obviously joking.

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Puberty was a bitch and Oriel had raced through it like it was a fucking 50 yard sprint, sprouting the bulk of his hair overnight such that he wasn’t surprised that people were often surprised to hear he was only eighteen. The fact that he was going to be nineteen this year was surreal….how had he managed to survive this long? There was a time when Oriel was convinced that he’d never make it to adulthood, much less trying to get into a fucking college. Who knew he could make such progress?

Digressions aside, it was with a heavy heart that Oriel came to the hospital to visit with his best chinky friend Kodi, and Kodi’s punishment for making him worry so much was putting up with the hair, and the scratchiness, and the baby-weeping, and all manners of annoyances that Oriel-in-distress could bring to the hospitalized loser! “Yes,” he said quickly, and continued to scrape his scruff against the other boy.

Hearing the concern Kodi had over not wanting to upset Oriel…just served to make him want to smother Kodi more and more with love and snuggles. “This is your punishment for being a fucking idiot!” he declared with a sniffle, wrapping his arms around the bedridden boy and pulling him near off the bed with his brutish strength. He was glad to hear Kodi laughing though. If Kodi couldn’t even find the will to laugh at Oriel’s stupidity, then the world was done for.

Eventually he calmed down and pulled away, wiping away the snot and tears from his face with a smile. “‘Course I did, whaddaya take me for, some sort of fucking asshole?” Oriel produced the sandwich from his jacket and held it out to Kodi. “Ta-da~” he exclaimed, showcasing the wrapped up sammie with an energetically jazzing jazz hand. The sandwich had a very large, obvious bite taken out of the corner.

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Ugh… Kodi had grown a tiny bit of his own stubble during the days he’d been here in the hospital, but that didn’t mean he liked it, or that he wanted Oriel’s own frizzy mess all over him. “Uuuughhh,” he continued to complain, finally giving up on pushing the idiot away and just letting it happen. “You’re ridiculous…” Kodi would be lying if he said he hated it completely, though.

Still, he groaned when Oriel spoke again. “As if bein’ stuck here ain’t punishment enough for bein’ an idiot…” he grumbled. Seriously, he’d learned his lesson (he thought), this place sucked and he never wanted to see the inside of another hospital again. “Ow, ow, you’re gonna snap me in half,” he groaned as Oriel squeezed him. “Fuck, Oriel, if I didn’t know better I’d think you came here t’make me feel sicker.” His voice didn’t hold any real anger, though, just mild annoyance and more amusement.

He finally was able to take a full breath of air once the younger boy released him, and did so gladly. “You did?” Kodi replied, surprise in his tone of voice. “I was just kiddin’…” He squinted his eyes at the bag that Oriel held up. “Did you make this yourself?” he asked skeptically as he took the bag, uncertain how to react. He quickly noticed the bite taken out of it. “…. Looks like a giant mouse has been at is already,” he accused. Nevertheless, he popped open the bag and took a big bite with a satisfied groan. “Mmm… This is a lot better than the shit they feed me here. I’m sick of jello an’ soup.” Kodi looked up at his friend with a half-smile. “… Thanks. Sorry you had t’come here. I know you hate these places as much as I do….”