Decompression
folder
+S through Z › Silent Hill
Rating:
Adult +
Chapters:
3
Views:
2,963
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Currently Reading:
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Category:
+S through Z › Silent Hill
Rating:
Adult +
Chapters:
3
Views:
2,963
Reviews:
9
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
0
Disclaimer:
I do not own Silent Hill, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.
Part 2
The room was still dark when Henry woke up. He blinked
his eyes open, rubbed clumsily at them, and swallowed, wincing at the grainy
clicking noise this produced. His tongue peeled away from the roof of his mouth.
It felt like a sponge being peeled off a half-dried coat of paint.
had nothing to drink but a lot of vodka, some coffee, and the occasional quick
glass of metallic-tasting tap water for the last week. The vodka had been an
extremely stupid idea and had done more harm than good on a number of levels,
he'd run out of coffee the fourth night he was trapped in the room, and the
water--well, he stopped drinking the water after his kitchen sink once decided
to produce hot and cold running blood. Of course he was dehydrated.
Smoking damn near three packs in one day probably hadn’t
helped, either. He made a mental note to go out and get some Gatorade or something
in the morning. For now, he hauled himself out of bed, staggered drowsily to
the bathroom, filled the plastic cup that came with the room with slightly less
metallic-tasting tap water, drained it in three gulps, and repeated the process
three times. That was a little better. His tongue still had that unpleasant
dry-sponge feeling, but at least he no longer felt like he was trying to swallow
around a lump of sand. Henry took the pizza out of the little fridge, opened
the box, and stared at it for a moment. It hadn’t looked all that appealing
fresh--not that anything else would have either, but it looked even less appealing
cold. The cold pizza went back into the fridge untouched.The rain had stopped in the short time Henry had slept,
and he thought about opening the windows again. Before he could do that, someone
knocked on the door.According to the digital clock permanently attached to
the nightstand, it was a little after three in the morning. Three in the morning,
and there was someone knocking on the door. Henry swallowed and found that his
throat had gone uncomfortably dry again. That, and now there was a cold, crawly
feeling in the pit of his stomach.Another knock. There was a peephole in the door, of course. Henry didn’t
particularly trust them anymore. Not after the last thing he’d seen through
the one in his apartment--Stop it, Henry told himself. He turned the lamp
on, walked the four steps to the door, took a deep breath, and took a look out
the peephole.What... how... never mind. Henry let out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d
been holding, unlocked the door, and opened it. “Eileen!?””Hi.” Eileen gave him a little sheepish smile.
“I, uh...guess I should have called first.”“No, no, come in. It’s okay.” Oh God
was it ever okay. Henry stepped aside to let Eileen in, then he shut and locked
the door again. “What are you doing here? I mean, not that I’m not
glad to see you, but I thought--”“They let me out of the hospital tonight...and
then I got home and I couldn’t sleep.” Just like she’d done
when Henry had sat down on the edge of her hospital bed, Eileen reached out
for his hand, and he took it gladly. “And then I finally remembered to
check my machine--”“--and you got my message and came running out
here to the other side of town at three in the morning when you should
be--”“--resting. I know. But...” Eileen looked
away and shivered, just a little. “I can’t. Not now. Not there.”
She looked back at Henry. “Speaking of people who should be resting, I’m
sorry I woke you up.”“It’s okay,” Henry said again. “I
wasn’t asleep. I think I passed out around one or one-thirty, and then
I couldn’t stay asleep. And I probably wouldn’t have slept
at all if I hadn’t...” Hadn’t what? Spent an hour mentally replaying a thirty-second kiss?
Henry shook his head and opened his mouth to say “Nothing”
or “Never mind” or something equally lame. It didn’t come
out. Something about the look Eileen was giving him made it impossible for Henry
to brush the subject off or change it or lie about it. That look was also making it damn near impossible for
him to put together a coherent string of words to finish his sentence. So he
closed his mouth.Leaned down a little.Kissed her. Just once. “...if I hadn’t had that to think
about.”Okay, maybe not just once. Or maybe this time Eileen
kissed him. It was kind of hard to tell by that point. After that,
as far as Henry was concerned, it ceased to matter who started it. The only
things that mattered to him now were the small hand he held against his chest
and the other small hand curling over the back of his neck under the collar
of his shirt and the little finger tracing absently along the line where the
neck of his T-shirt gave way to skin and the warmth of Eileen’s lips against
his own. Henry decided that things could stay just like this, that they could
go no further, and he would be happy with that for the rest of his life.Then the tip of Eileen’s tongue dabbed tentatively
at his, and he changed his mind. She did it again, and this time it wasn't tentative
at all. Henry made some little noise in the back of his throat, soft and faintly
tinged with desperation, and did it back. And kept doing it. They both
did. Eileen's fingers splayed out over the front of Henry's shirt, and his heart
raced beneath them; her other hand slid down Henry's back, and a slight tug
at his waist hinted that she'd found a belt loop to hang on to. That drew another
of those soft little noises from Henry, and he let go of her hand and wrapped
that arm around her shoulders and his other arm around her waist and suddenly
he never wanted to let go, never wanted to stop kissing her----until he had to breathe. Henry dropped his forehead to Eileen's shoulder and gasped
in a few breaths, quiet but quick and a little ragged around the edges. Even
then he didn't quite stop; he turned his head a little and nuzzled the side
of Eileen's neck, and she murmured something soft and pleased and did the same
for him, stroking his hair back while he caught his breath.Then her lips trailed up to his ear, and he forgot all
about breathing. His own, anyway; hers was impossible to forget about,
warm and soft in his ear, a little ticklish--a little beyond ticklish--and then
her lower lip brushed against his earlobe and the tip of her tongue traced its
way up from there and oh God did she have any idea what she was doing?
...okay, she knew what she was doing, yes, there was no question about
that, but did she have any idea what she was doing to him!? Henry realized
that if she drew much closer, she'd find out exactly what she was doing
to him, and he swallowed hard. His fingers twitched against the small of her
back--they seemed to be trying to pull her that close, and didn't much
care what their owner had to say about it--and he squeezed his eyes shut and
whimpered. And then her teeth--oh God her teeth closed ever so gently
on his earlobe, and her fingers slipped into the back pocket of his jeans, and
Henry let out a tiny groan and shivered and wanted--He wanted--He needed--No.No, Henry told himself, swallowing hard again
and clenching his jaw. He was not going to do this, he was not going
to do it, he was not. It was another of those things that went under
the heading of Just The Way He Was, he'd never been one to think with his dick
before, never, he'd always taken pride in that, and damn it, he was not
going to do it now. Not to Eileen. No."Eileen--" Her name came out half-croaked;
Henry cleared his throat and lifted his head from her shoulder, taking his ear
out of easy reach in the process. Both of his hands came up to rest on Eileen's
shoulders, taking on the delicate task of holding her back without looking like
he was pushing her away. "I--I have to stop." Eileen's lips ghosted over the side of Henry's neck when
she whispered his name. His neck was a little more sensitive than most, yes,
but lips and tongue and breath there just made him shiver instead of turning
his bones to water and his thoughts to static like they did when applied to
his ears. "It's okay," she whispered, and she touched a tiny kiss
to a spot just under his jaw.At first, Henry thought she meant it was okay if he stopped...
and then a touch of her tongue to that same spot made him realize what she really
meant. Henry stepped on that thought and pinned it down before it could run
wild. "I have to stop now," he said, a little more firmly,
as much to himself as to Eileen. More to himself. "...or I won't be able
to stop at all--""Henry." Eileen caught his face between
her hands and shut him up in the most direct way possible--with a kiss. Henry
whimpered into it, and his fingers twitched on her shoulders as she drew back
just enough to talk. "It's okay. I need this too." And then
she pulled him down close again, close enough to whisper "don't stop"
right into his ear.Henry's fingers twitched again and he opened his mouth,
unsure of what would come out of it.Nothing did, nothing but a rush of breath and a low groan.And then nothing else could come out of it because
it was on Eileen's, and this time it was deep and desperate and hungry, and
the firm no Henry kept repeating to himself gave way to please
and from there to a whirling blur of white noise that occasionally tried to
coalesce into something that sounded like yes. He felt Eileen's fingers
trail down the middle of his chest, pause, tug, move a little lower, and repeat
the process. By the time Henry realized what she was doing and that maybe he
should help, his shirt hung unbuttoned and open and Eileen's splayed fingers
were sliding up over his chest, warmth melting through the thin cotton of his
T-shirt in their wake. All that was left for Henry to do was will himself to
take his hands off Eileen's shoulders long enough to get his unbuttoned shirt
the rest of the way off. He pulled one arm free and wrapped it around Eileen
again, burying that hand in her hair. Gravity mostly took care of the rest,
and a quick shake of his hand left the shirt pooled on the floor. For a moment,
Henry thought about removing some more clothing, either his or Eileen's, it
didn't really matter at that point, and then her arms wrapped tight around his
waist and suddenly she was pressed close against him, that close, and
it became impossible for Henry to think about anything at all. His fingers twitched
once more, harder, and Henry gave up and let them do what they wanted. They
went to Eileen's hips, pulled them tight against his, and stopped there, trembling
faintly as Henry abruptly dropped his head to her shoulder again. His throat
worked soundlessly; he produced no noise aside from a short series of broken
gasps until Eileen's fingers threaded into his hair and stroked it back."Don't stop," she whispered again, hot against
his neck. "Henry... please don't stop.""I'm--I won't--I--" Henry swallowed hard again
and shook his head. His voice was deserting him and fast; whatever he was going
to say, it needed to be quick and it needed to count. "...bed," he finally choked out, and followed
that with a short breathless laugh. Eileen echoed the little laugh, just as breathlessly.
"...yeah." Her arms tightened briefly around Henry's waist, then loosened
a little, just enough for them to shamble the four steps to the bed. Henry's
legs promptly gave out there, and he sat down hard, pulling Eileen down with
him. Once he got his legs to work long enough to haul them up onto the mattress
and stretch out on his back, his arm went around Eileen's waist and he pulled
her onto him. Again the thought of shedding clothing tried to form
in Henry's mind; again he decided he couldn't be bothered to let go of Eileen
long enough, again Eileen demonstrated that she couldn't be bothered with that
small detail either, and again she did so in the most direct manner she could.
She shifted atop him and one thigh wedged itself between Henry's, and there
was no question of whether or not she knew what that did to him. He
tried to hold still, to concentrate on kissing her lips and her neck and her
shoulders and to keep his hands and his attention above the waist for now. But
Eileen shifted again, pushing up on her hands and arching her back and pressing
her thigh forward, and there was no way Henry could keep still under her after
that. If he couldn't hold still, Henry reasoned, he could at
least go slow. Yes. This much he could do. Had to do, because he couldn't stand the thought
of this coming to an end anytime soon. The curves and planes of their bodies
fit together as if they had been machined to do just that, from the soft swell
of her breasts in his cupped hands to the harder swell of his erection against
her hip, and while this might happen again--if it were up to Henry it would
most definitely happen again, and at least for the time being it appeared that
Eileen would not object to that--it would never happen quite like this
again, and rushing through it was simply not an option. Quite suddenly, their clothed state ceased to be a hindrance
at all--in fact, it actually heightened the sensations. Filtered through Henry's
T-shirt, Eileen's hands spread a diffuse, lingering warmth over his chest and
his shoulders, and occasionally they would catch and drag the soft cotton a
short way over the skin beneath. When her fingers or her lips touched bare skin--the
backs of his hands, his forearms, the hollow of his throat and yes, his ears--the
presence of clothing covering the rest of him just made those spots that much
more sensitive. And then there was the heat, the near-unbearable heat
generated by two layers of denim rubbing against one another, and it was that
heat that finally made moving slowly impossible--that and the rising pitch and
volume of the little moans Eileen loosed as she ground her hips down against
his thigh, every one of those delirious, delicious little noises drawing a softer
echo from Henry's throat and a sympathetic twitch against Eileen's hip. Even
then, Henry fought to keep some semblance of control over the rhythm, but his
hands betrayed him and clamped onto Eileen's hips, pulling them down against
his faster and harder until Henry squeezed his eyes shut and craned his head
back against the pillows and gasped out something that might have been Eileen's
name, and somewhere in the back of his mind it occurred to him that he was going
to come in the only clean pair of jeans he'd brought in from the car and he
didn't care.Some movement, some precise combination of angle and
pressure and friction, drew forth a particularly emphatic noise from Eileen.
Although that same combination made it temporarily impossible for Henry to open
his eyes again just then he was silently thanking all that was holy that neither
of them had bothered to turn out the lights. He didn't need input from his eyes
to tell him what was happening; he could feel Eileen grinding down hard against
his thigh and shivering against him and arching forward into his hands, he could
hear her breath catching in her throat and freeing itself on little whimpery
wails, and that told him all he needed to know about what was happening. Still,
there was much to be said for being able to watch it happen--truth
be told, he liked watching this almost as muchwatchingas actually doing it, sometimes more so, and
as long as he was being honest with himself he figured he might as well admit
that way in the back of his mind where things he was too busy or distracted
or ashamed to actively think about were relegated, he'd thought about this a
lot latelyalways watchingat great length and in detail, about what he might see
in this situationalways watching youabout what kind of faces Eileen would make when sheI'm always watching youSomething wasn't right.Quiet now. Too quiet. Too suddenly so.Too heavy."I'm always watching you."Henry's eyes snapped open.His mouth opened just as something flashed cold and sharp
across his throat, and whatever he was going to say came out as a bewildered
choking noise and a spray of blood. Maybe she was never really here at all, Henry
thought crazily. Maybe all this time it was--He gagged as that thought reached its logical conclusion.
A different reflex triggered then, and his shoulders jerked upwards, as if he
were trying to sit up. Walter effortlessly shoved him back down with a hand
planted firmly in the middle of his chest, shoved him down so hard that Henry
could hear two of his ribs snap. He tried to scream and choked instead. Trapped. Henry was trapped, pinned to the bed from the
waist up by Walter's hand on his chest, pinned to the bed from the waist down
by Walter's hip. Trapped, and bleeding to death. His eyes flicked to the nightstand,
and he saw the phone. There was hope. He might not be able to talk, but he could
knock the receiver off the hook, and maybe he could punch the right numbers,
and the 911 operator would hear and trace the call and send help--And then Henry looked beyond the nightstand, beyond Walter's
other hand and the dripping knife held therein, and he saw the rotting wallpaper
peeling away from the bloody walls like dead skin and the chains crisscrossing
the door, and he knew nobody would hear a thing. The knife thumped gently onto the pillow next to Henry's
head, leaving Walter's hand free to thread into his hair. Henry shut his eyes
tight in anticipation of the yank that was sure to follow. It never came. Instead, Walter simply stroked Henry's hair back, combing
sweat and blood through it. The touch was surprisingly--and sickeningly--gentle,
and Henry decided the pain he'd braced for would have been far, far easier to
deal with. He tried to flinch back, to jerk his head away from those fingers,
but his range of motion was too limited for him to do much aside from twitch
and certainly too limited to dislodge Walter's fingers from his hair."I'm sorry," Walter murmured, and although
his voice actually did sort of sound sorry, his eyes were decidedly
not."I know I interrupted you." That faint smile he'd always worn
broadened, just the tiniest bit. "It's all right, Henry. Go ahead. I won't
deny you that." Wouldn't deny him what? What the hell was he
talking about--Oh God.Oh God.Henry's eyes snapped wide open, staring at nothing, and
he made a tiny strangled clicking sound that might have been a whimper as it
hit him. Shock and fear had clouded Henry's mind such that he'd failed to notice
that he was still completely and painfully hard, and in his panic and terror
he'd forgotten what he'd been doing just moments before..."Uh g--" Oh God--But his body hadn't forgotten. It hadn't forgotten at
all and even worse, it didn't care who the thigh wedged between his
belonged to, it didn't care that the hip trapping him against the mattress and
pressing down hard and hot and completely motionless against his cock belonged
to Walter Goddamn Sullivan and by the time Henry realized that his
body was about to do the worst thing it could possibly do to him--"Uh gk n--" Oh God please no----it was too late.It was too late and he was coming, he was coming
hard, against his will, against Walter's hip, and there was nothing
he could do to stop it. He shuddered violently, his hips jerking upwards against
Walter's in helpless, convulsive thrusts, his shoulders jerking upwards a few
inches before Walter shoved him back down again and snapped another rib or two,
and what normally would have been yelps and groans came out as wet gagging noises
and the occasional weak spray of blood.Fortunately for what remained of Henry's sanity, his
climax, powerful as it was, didn't take long to run its course. When it was
over, Henry squeezed his eyes shut and tried to breathe without much success.
His lungs screamed for air; they got nothing but blood and sent it back up.
His heart hammered uselessly in his chest, accomplishing nothing aside from
sending more blood pouring down his neck and onto his shirt and the bed.How much blood did the average adult male hold? Something
like eight pints? Ten? How much had he already lost? The sheets were soaked,
the pillow was soaked, Henry's T-shirt was soaked and clung wetly to him from
his shoulders to halfway down his chest--how much more would he have to lose
before he could just pass out and die and not have to bear witness to whatever
else Walter planned on doing with him?Walter's hand still pinned Henry to the bed from the
waist up; his hip still pinned Henry to the bed from the waist down, and although
Henry couldn't bring himself to open his eyes again, he could feel
Walter staring down at him, smiling that mad, empty smile of his. "She misses you, you know." It took Henry a
moment to realize which "she" Walter meant. He shuddered when it came
to him. "She cried when you left. She's still crying. You can hear her,
can't you?"He could. The knife bit into his throat again, slower
this time, more deliberate, in a pattern of curves and lines. "But it's all right." One curve, one horizontal
line. "It's all right now." One vertical line, then another. One curve,
one horizontal line. "I'm going to take you back, and everything will be
all right." One final vertical line. Almost over. Surely it was almost over--Then something splashed onto the blood-soaked sheet somewhere
near Henry's right shoulder (and oh God if there was enough blood there to splash
then surely he wouldn't have to endure much more of this), and he heard a faint
clicking noise somewhere below his waist----then something cold and metallic forced itself into
his mouth. And it wasn't the knife.Now Henry's eyes snapped open, and while he
couldn't make them focus enough to see anything but a pair of gray blurs, he
knew all the same. He could taste steel and oil and gunpowder and his own blood.
The barrel lay dead and heavy on his tongue and the muzzle pushed relentlessly
against the back of his throat, and Henry gagged weakly--that, it seemed, was
all the fight left in him. There was another soft click--Walter's finger tightening
on the trigger."I'm sorry it had to come to this," Walter
murmured, and this time he really did sound sorry. "But you shouldn't have
left her."He pulled the trigger----and with a short, strangled noise that was not quite
a scream, Henry shot bolt upright in his bed--alone, wild-eyed and gasping--and
with his T-shirt soaked and clinging to his chest. He swiped one trembling hand
over his neck and found it wet. Oh Jesus--Henry's hand dropped away from this throat, and he forced
himself to look at it. It was slick with sweat. Not blood.He let out a shaky breath and flopped bonelessly back
against the mattress until he could convince his legs to carry him to the bathroom.Once he did so, he flipped on the light, caught a glimpse
of his reflection in the tiny mirror over the sink, and let out a nervous laugh.
God, I really do look like hell, he
thought as he cranked the tap marked "C" all the way open. He caught
cool water in his cupped hands and splashed it over his face, rinsing the sweat
away, then he ducked his head right under the stream and let it pour over the
back of his head until he felt somewhat human again. With his dripping head bowed over the sink, Henry shut
the water off and reached out blindly to his right, groping along the bar until
he found a towel. He pulled it down, draped it over his head, and dried himself
off. That done, he slung the towel back over the bar and glanced up at the mirror
again, and the back of his head was splattered across the rotting wallpaper
behind him and his mouth hung open and blood dripped sluggishly from his chin
onto the front of his shirt and more blood poured down his shirt from the numbers
carved into his throat and the deep slash that underlined them--The noise Henry made when he awoke this time was still
not quite a scream, but it was closer. Get up, he told himself, even as he sat paralyzed
aside from the hands that knotted themselves into the blanket, staring at the
wall. "Get up," he told himself again, this time out loud. "Get
up." He tried to swing his legs over the edge of the bed and get
his feet onto the floor, and they almost complied. Then he thought of the way Cynthia's ghost (that's enough)
had crawled at him in the subway, low to the ground, (stop it) certainly low
enough that it could have crawled under the bed (stop it) and was waiting for
his feet to touch the floor so its hair could whip out (stop it) and
snare his ankles and pull and (STOP IT)Henry shoved the thought out of his mind and clenched
his jaw hard. "Get. The hell. UP."This time, his legs cooperated, even if they did
make him hop from the bed halfway to the bathroom on the first step, and even
if he didn't quite dare look back.He turned on the light and took a good look at himself
in the mirror. His reflection was as it should have been. He closed his eyes. Counted to ten.Opened his eyes.His reflection was still alive and well--wild-eyed, sweaty,
and disturbingly pale, but alive.Fairly sure that he really was awake this time, Henry
leaned heavily on the sink, forcing himself to breathe deeply and slowly until
his heart stopped racing and his hands stopped trembling. He was okay. A little
weak and shaky, and damned thirsty, but okay.He drew two cups of tap water, gulped them down, and
checked the mirror one more time. Still alive. Definitely awake.Henry padded back to bed, turned the lamp on, and lit
a cigarette. It took three tries--partly because he couldn't seem to hold the
lighter steady, partly because the lighter was running dry and produced little
more than a quarter-inch wisp of flame. There had been a book of matches in
the ashtray when he first came in; if he had to, he'd make do with those until
morning. Which, according to the alarm clock permanently attached to the nightstand,
would not arrive for another six hours, and sleeping through any of those six
hours would be impossible now.There was even less worth watching on any of the seventy
channels now. The local stations had gone to test patterns, and many of the
cable channels had gone to infomercials.Henry ground his cigarette out and reached over to the
nightstand again. His hand lit briefly on the receiver of the phone, started
to move on to his cigarettes, and returned to the phone. After some internal
debate, he picked it up and dialed a number.Four rings. A click. The telltale background hiss that
always preceded the canned greeting of an answering machine. Eileen's voice:
"hi, blah blah not home, blah blah message, blah blah beep--seriously,
you know what to do with this thing." And finally, the beep.Henry was certain this was one of the most ridiculous
things he'd ever done. It was well past three in the morning, and while Eileen
slept the sleep of the righteous (and mildly pain-medicated) at St. Jerome's,
he was talking to her answering machine. But of course he couldn't call her
in her hospital room, not at this ungodly hour, and there was nobody else to
talk to, certainly nobody else who'd gone through the things Henry and Eileen
had and survived them--that left the machine. And surely it would reach its
time limit and hang up on him before he could say anything stupid.But it never did, and Henry kept talking to it, being
careful to pause and clear his throat or something whenever his voice started
to betray him and waver or crack, then continue once he got it under control.
And then he reached a point where throat-clearing simply wasn't enough. Instead, he lit another cigarette and took a long, deep
drag off it. It stung a little in the back of his throat, and he thought of
oil and gunpowder.Henry choked out an apology and stumbled out of bed,
slamming the phone down so Eileen wouldn't have to hear him throw up.