# A Familiar Smell

Title: A Familiar Smell
Status: Complete
Characters: Fang, Naser
Rating: SFW
Classification: One Shot
Author: Anonymous
Summary: Ending 1 Anon makes a decision to save a life, but not the one you’d expect.
​
The first thing that hits me is the smell. It passes through my brain like a razor, instantly severing any other thought I may have had. The shapes of my former classmates splattered across the halls goes fuzzy for a second, the overwhelming sights and smells touching upon my primal fear.
I vomit all over myself.
Retching and dry-heaving, I finally manage to gain a feeble control over myself. I’m shaking like a leaf as I turn my eyes back to the hallway, forcing myself to come eye-to-eye with the carnage: The crumpled forms of students silhouetted amid puddles of blood, the splatters of their lives across the school lockers, and the one person in the world who didn’t deserve to be here, clumped in the middle of the hallway.
It was Naser.
No, no, it’s not him. It can’t be him, not Naser. This isn’t real, none of this is real, I’m going to wake up soon, I’m…
My body devolves into a spasming mess of retching failure. I almost welcome the smell of vomit: Anything that masks the awful reality of the morning, anything to hid what she had-
*Thud*
Something, some noise, knocks me out of my fetal withdrawal. Trembling, I manage to raise my head enough to glance back down the hall.
Somehow, Naser’s still alive.
With his no doubt last ounces of strength, Naser manages to raise his hand in my direction, our eyes meeting briefly. I freeze up, not knowing what to do, not able to handle that all of this, what had happened to everyone, to Naser, may be my fault. I can’t move, I dare not move, as if by moving I would somehow release time, grant it my tacit consent to continue down its horrific path.
Naser’s hand falls with a wet splash of blood.
Finally, as if Naser had reached out and grabbed me by the scuff of my shirt, I jerk myself to my hands and knees. Slipping once or twice in the offal of the hallway, I finally manage to crawl to my fallen friend. Although he has stopping moving, I can still hear a faint choking wheeze emanating from his broken frame.
“N-Naser…” My voice is hoarse, the acid from my stomach scouring my vocal cords. Tentatively, I reach out a hand to him, my bloody handprint becoming just another pattern on his awful jacket. “Naser, please… Jesus fuck Naser, please!” With each word I blaspheme amid the dead, I find some remnant of strength. Like a dying man suddenly freeing himself from a crushing weight, I leverage my surge of strength to turn Naser over, dragging his not-quite-dead weight onto my lap.
“Naser, hang in there! No no no, this can’t be happening, not to you! You didn’t do anything, you didn’t deserve this…”
Some distant memory calls to me, snaps me out of my mania. Pressure, I have to apply pressure… Groping across his chest, I finally manage to locate the bullet hole, just above his heart. Even as I press down with all my might, I can feel his heartbeat start to weaken. Ba-thump, ba-thump…ba-thump… ba-thump… I lose count, lose track of time, sitting there in that filthy hallway, covered with the blood and the puke and the shame, until the sound of authorities bursting through the door makes me lose that heartbeat.
​
​
Weeks pass.
An endless parade of sterile hospital rooms lodge themselves in my memory. The attack made national news: I was held as a hero, the brave student who rushed into the carnage and saved the life of his friend. They said that had I not kept that pressure up for as long as I did, Naser may have…
May have joined his sister.
No one seemed to blame me for the death of Fang, for all those students. Certainly not Samantha, who never left her baby boy’s side. Each time I visited the still-unconscious Naser in the hospital, each time I fled from my apartment, from the room where Fang and I shared our first night together, Sam was waiting for me there. We never spoke, no trite forgiveness or mangled apology broke our silent vigils, but I could feel each time I sat by her son’s side that Sam held no ill-will towards me.
I wish I could say the same for myself.
It was during one of these visits when Naser finally woke up. Sam had drifted off, still clutching her son’s hand in her own, one of Ripley’s coats draped around her like a circus tent. I was there in my usual spot: A chair by the door, a nice distance between myself and the family that I had ruined.
“A-Anon?”
Naser’s voice stirred me out of the fugue state I had adopted. Shifting, I looked at him, perhaps for the first time: Skinny, with tubes and wires coming out of him, a sickly pallor to his scales and the tops of his bandages just visible over the rough hospital sheets. He looked broken, and I couldn’t even see his wing.
“Hey.” My voice sounds like a file scrapping down a cast-iron bathtub. I hadn’t eaten properly for days, let alone had something to drink. “You’re awake.”
“I’m awake.” Naser’s voice was incredibly soft, as if he feared he may break apart if he spoke too loud. Even so, he smiled. “Where am I?”
“You’re, uh… You’re in the hospital.” I raise my voice slightly, hoping I wouldn’t wake Sam. I still wasn’t sure if I should get closer or not.
“Oh…” Naser, head still resting against the pillow, scanned the room lazily with his eyes. They really had the same eyes, her and Naser. “I guess that explains the beeping.” A joke, another smile. Like nothing had happened. Eventually, his eyes fell on his mother. “Hi, Mom,” he whispered, too quiet to wake her.
“Naser, look, I’ll leave you alone…” I started to get up, feeling the blood I was lucky to have left begin to work its way back to my legs.
“No, no. You can stay.” Naser moved his hand towards Sam’s face, laying it gently on her cheek. The diminutive ptero stirred: Only once, but the motion seemed to have a profound effect on Naser. “Has she been here every day?”
I nodded, and then remembered Naser wasn’t looking at me anymore. “Yeah. Yeah, Sam’s been by your side almost the whole time.”
“So, she didn’t, ah, didn’t…” Naser’s voice trailed off.
“No, she didn’t.”
“…”
It took me a moment to realize Naser had fallen asleep again. I rose, trying in vain to blink back my tears. I suddenly felt like I had to get out of there, like I was a stranger who had overstayed his welcome.
“It wasn’t because of you, Anon.” My hand paused on the doorhandle, my vision blurring. From behind me Naser’s voice came out clear as day, loud enough to start his mother stirring from her slumber. “It wasn’t because of you.” I left the two of them alone, keeping my thoughts to myself as I tried to remember where the coffee machine was.
If it wasn’t because of me, Naser, than who?