[Alex's POV]
"Remind me why Jasper is here?" Alex asked as he was sitting on the edge of his hospital bed.
"Because you look pathetic and need some motivation to get you going again," Otto scolded. "Don't think I don't know about you skipping out on your therapy. And don't give me the whole I'll-get-better-if-I-rest-a-little-shit! You've been lazing about and you know it."
Alex stared at her flabbergasted. She'd noticed? Shit! Everything about this situation was so embarrassing.
A week had passed since Otto's near-death experience and she'd been discharged from the hospital almost immediately.
Well, she'd been in perfect health the second she'd woken up...
Alex himself on the other hand, was a very different story. He hadn't regained his strength at all! In a week worth of time, for crying out loud! He could only hope this revalidation wouldn't take as long as the last time.
"Psst!" Jasper elbowed him. "That's when you say; yes, mother!"
Alex laughed.
When Otto had been discharged from the hospital, she'd been surprised to find that Jessy and Jasper had known nothing about her three day long coma.
Alex couldn't imagine why she would want anyone to know such an embarrassing thing, so he'd asked her to keep quiet. But when Jasper coincidentally called him to hang out during one of her visits, she'd simply yelled loud enough so Jasper would hear her; "Yeah, sure! Come and meet us at Saint Marie's hospital."
They'd been visiting together ever since.
"Come on," Otto encouraged him as she offered him her hands.
"What are you doing?" Alex asked as he looked horrified at her outstretched hands.
"I'm helping you," she said.
"By doing what? You'll never be able to hold me if I fall," he complained, because he knew his legs wouldn't be able to support his weight.
"All the more reason to do your very best then."
"This is so embarrassing," he grumbled as he grabbed her outstretched hand.
He loved touching her. It always came with a feeling of harmony. Not to the same degree that Amon and Neferet used to harmonise, but it was there none the less.
Honestly; it was hard not to touch her now that he knew what he was missing. Or snuggle for hours on end. Or kiss her.
"Jasper, promise me you won't tell anybody at school about this. Please?"
"Aw, Alex. Don't worry, I'll make sure to stress the fact that you rock those flannel jammies," Jasper laughed.
Alex grumbled in frustration. Yet he knew Jasper would keep his secret. He must have realised the seriousness of the situation because he'd even kept his "funny comments" to a minimum.
"On three?" Otto asked, looking him straight in the eyes, waiting for confirmation. He nodded. "One, two, thre-hee~"
Otto counted and pulled, but the second he stood, his legs buckled and they both fell to the ground.
Another failed experiment.
He'd secretly hoped it was a mental issue that kept him weak. But it turned out this wasn't a problem that could be fixed with sheer willpower. Because of his little miscalculation, Otto was now laying stretched out on her back on the ground and he was sprawled all over her, crushing her with his weight.
"Ouch," she complained in a way he knew she hadn't really hurt herself.
"Sorry," he said and immediately started shifting his weight onto his arms. Otto watched his whole body tremble as he tried (and failed) to do even this little task, small beats of sweat appeared on his face from the effort.
"Don't hold your breath or we'll be putting your fainted ass to bed within seconds," she scolded. Alex couldn't help but laugh at the irony, but laughing wasn't exactly helping him get up at the moment.
Luckily, Jasper seemed to have taken pity on him as he was now helping Alex to get off the ground.
"Thank you," Alex said as Jasper lifted him back into the bed silently.
"What happened to you?" he asked after staring for a few seconds and then directed a question towards Otto. "And why are you acting as if nothing is wrong?"
"Sorry," she said. "I thought you had been exaggerating, since a similar thing seemed to have happened to me and I'm fine. I guess it wasn't the same after all."
"Of course you're fine!" Alex thought to himself as he avoided Otto and Jasper's eyes.
"Well, you must be pretty blind if you can't see that he's not fine," Jasper scolded her in Alex's stead. "He looks like a ghost of his former-self. Even his eyes have dulled. It's freaking me out."
"My eyes?" Alex asked confused.
"Yeah, you haven't noticed? I know I'm not supposed to judge people when they're sick, but your eyes lost all their colour. Heck, they're grey now."
"Grey? Do you mean like a duller blue or more like my dad's eye-colour?" Alex asked confused as he grabbed his phone from the nightstand and looked at his reflection in the black screen. He looked horrible, that's about all he could see in the black mirror of his phone screen.
"That reminds me," he said. "Can one of you go and get me an extension cord? My phone keeps running out of battery, but the wall outlet is too far for me to use my phone while it's charging. Resulting in me being bored out of my mind."
"You got it," Jasper laughed and headed out of the room in search of an extension cord. Otto stayed behind. She was standing quietly next to the bed and was trying not to look at him.
"Sorry," she finally said after a stretch of silence.
"For what exactly?" Alex asked confused.
"I don't know... this," she said as she generally spread her arms and motioned towards all of him.
"You're sorry for me being a useless, weak person?" he asked, one brow raised.
She winced at his words.
"Not exactly. I can't help but feel responsible," she said. "That none of this would have happened if I hadn't slipped and fallen."
"You can say that again," Alex thought, but out loud he said: "So, its your fault I have an unnamed disease, which makes me feel drained and causes me to flatline from time to time?"
"No~," she chided. "You know what I mean! Why do you always have to twist my words?"
"Oh, you mean how I call things as they are?" he mocked a thoughtful expression. "You're right, I don't know why I keep doing it."
Otto rolled her eyes and smiled. She was leaning with her upper legs against the bed now and bended over to stroke a stray strand of hair out of his face.
Alex tried to hide how much he was enjoying her closeness, but knew he was failing miserably as his eyes fluttered shut automatically.
"Despair no more! The extension cord is here!" Jasper said loudly as he stormed in, making Otto jump away from the bed. If Jasper had noticed, he didn't show it.
"Ah! My hero!" Alex laughed as Jasper plugged one end into the wall outlet, plugged his telephone charger in the other end and handed the charger to Alex.
"Thanks," Alex said as he gratefully accepted the charger, but the second it touched his fingers a huge spark jumped over.
"Ouch!" he yelled out in pain and threw in a few profanities while he was at it. "Shit! That really hurt."
Alex shook the offended hand wildly in an attempt to get rid of the pain. It didn't look like the spark had left any burn marks, but it sure as hell hurt!
"What?" Alex asked as he noticed Jasper and Otto staring at him.
"Well, I learned a few new words," Jasper laughed.
"Feeling better now?" Otto asked, one eyebrow raised, a smile tugging at her lips.
"Ha, ha. Very funny! It still freaking hurts," Alex complained. In fact, the spark just now reminded him an awful lot of the time he'd touched the bump on Otto's head.
"Looks like it managed to return a little of your vigour, thought?" Jasper said.
"Has it now?" Alex asked as he looked into the black screen of his phone once more.
He didn't see any difference from the previous time he'd looked. But now that he was thinking about it, he felt a little better. Maybe a little less weak?
When Jasper handed Alex the fallen charger a second time, even before touching it, Alex could feel the electricity swirling and flowing through the cord.
He was a lot more reluctant to accept the charger from Jasper this time, trying a careful touch before actually grabbing it. Luckily, no new spark jumped over like it had the first time.
It wasn't until he'd plugged in his smartphone that he realised that he could feel a warm glow coming from the device, and that he could absorb the energy it radiated.
It probably explained why the device's battery had been failing recently while it usually lasted so long; he'd been unconsciously draining the thing of its energy like a starved vampire!
Now that he thought about it, when he used to have a bad episode in the past, there would always be some sort of device strapped to him. Was that why he wasn't healing now? Because there weren't any devices strapped to him?
Alex wasn't sure that he like this new development, but at least now he knew how to regain his physical strength.
In less than three days, he felt as good as new and was discharged from the hospital.