Work Text:
And all Pac knew, was this was almost the same scenario as when this whole thing began.
Chest tight with breath he couldn't catch, a fading nightmare still behind his eyes, sitting up to take in his surroundings just in case.
Except this time, when he tried to sit up, he realized the sheets were sticking.
There was something the sheets were sticking to this time.
When there hadn't been for a very long time before.
Sweat, he was actually sweating, because there was adrenaline.
He was sweating.
And that means.
He opened his eyes, he had eyelids to open now, he had eyes to actually see out of now.
It was dark, he had to focus, he had to blink, he could blink now, and it was almost unfamiliar, but Pac knew where he was.
On his bed, in his room, on his bed where he was sweating for the first time in.
In.
Pac was shaking, Pac wasn't sure he was really awake, Pac was pretty sure he was still having a nightmare.
He lifted a hand to touch the bone of his forearm anyway.
Oh.
And.
Oh.
His arm, both of his arms, his face, his eyelids, his torso under his shirt.
Everything.
And for the first time since waking, because he was probably awake for real, he guessed, he realized he itched.
Dear god, he was itchy.
It felt like there was something under his skin.
His skin.
He had skin.
Which was a sentence a mix somewhere between being funny and being startling in itself.
It was crawling, it was itching, it was suffocating, he couldn't breathe.
He couldn't breathe.
And Pac really couldn't breathe.
It was covered, all the bone was covered, like it should be, like it should've been from the beginning, but it wasn't, and now it was.
And he couldn't just feel it, he could see it, he could see.
And fuck it itched.
Fingertips, he let the feeling flow back into his fingertips, they tingled and itched and was too tight and he remembered he had fingernails.
And he had to check.
He didn't mean it, or maybe he did, and it hurt.
It hasn't hurt anywhere in.
In.
He was bleeding, he could feel it, it was wet.
His fingers and his forearm and his face were wet.
Two with blood one with tears.
Pac was crying, he could cry again, he had eyes.
Blink, and blink, and adjust eyes he wasn't sure were real to lack of light, and see, and see blood.
It was red.
It was so red, when did it- was it always that red?
He didn't.
He.
He could see, and it was so red.
He could feel, he had skin.
He couldn't breathe.
Pac had lungs, Pac had lungs under his ribs that were covered by skin under his tank top, Pac had lungs he could use and he could breathe.
He could breathe and he could blink and he could see and he could feel and he could bleed and he could cry.
And he was suffocating.