Perhaps it had been who had said them; or how that person had said them. Perhaps it was because he knew them to be true. Elijah knew he looked dead, for he felt it, too.

They were only worried about him, he told himself. They didn’t really know what they were saying. They had no idea that he couldn’t stop, even as his life slowly dwindled away.

No matter what words they used, it wouldn’t make any difference.

Elijah knew what was wrong with him, he just didn’t want to help himself. In fact, he chose not to. He didn’t care anymore; about anything. And, apparently, he didn’t care about living anymore, either.

The beeping was steady, but not reassuring. It filled the silent room with a hallow sound that echoed and made its alert occupants hold their heads in their hands. Maybe they did that in grief; or maybe they just couldn’t hold their heads up anymore. The one in the bed couldn’t, that was for sure.

Orlando sat with his head leaning against the cream colored bland hospital wall. His t-shirt was stretched across his skin and felt like sandpaper, itching at him constantly. He was aggravated with everything and kept lashing out irrationally when asked if he was okay. It was easy to see that he wasn’t okay, and he wasn’t sure he ever would be again.

He kept seeing it; kept replaying it in his mind. He jumped, suddenly alert and awake, each time his eyes drifted shut from the exhaustion that plagued him. Each time this happened, he saw the scene again. The blood, the open bottle, the colorful pills littering the white sink, the needle, the crumpled baggie, several snubbed out cigarette all over the floor, a lighter, beer bottles in the trash can, the ghostly white complexion of his friend.

*

“Elijah!” Orlando hollered, falling to his knees in front of his friend. Elijah’s face was pale but his face was tinged with green, his eyes were unopened and his chest wasn’t rising nor falling with life. His black band t-shirt was taught against his slim form and his jeans were smudged with dirt. Elijah’s left hand was a fist, holding a torn white piece of paper displaying his illegible scrawl; the other hand lay open, palm up, in his lap. In it were several little red pills. Beside his unmoving body was a small pile of white pills.

“Red and white,” Orlando muttered, checking for a pulse. There was a pulse; a very weak one. He quickly thanked god that there was still time. How long, he couldn’t be sure, but he had to do something. Orlando hit his head on the sink as he stood up. He cursed loudly and colorfully and raced to the telephone in the hall.

*

Orlando’s eyes shot open; he was breathing heavily while an anxious Dom leaned down beside him, peering into his scared eyes. “You okay?” Dom asked, sitting back in his own plastic seat, beside Orlando.

Orlando nodded and swallowed hard. He glanced at Billy, who looked extremely nervous and sick. “You’re reliving it,” Billy stated, his eyes not moving from Orlando’s.

“He’s digging his own grave,” Dom commented, sipping at his soda.

“We can’t let him just kill himself!” Orlando hollered rather loudly. They were sitting around Billy’s kitchen table, having a sort of intervention, but without the key player.

“We’re not letting him, Orly,” Billy said calmly, “He’s doing it himself and there’s nothing we can do.”

“Bullshit!” Orlando yelled, standing angrily and pushing his chair back so hard that it clattered to the ground, “We can stop him!”

“How?” Dom asked, his voice low and tired sounding. They had been awake for at least forty-eight hours going over ideas, but mostly fighting.

“I don’t know,” Orlando replied, sounding immensely sad as he picked his chair up and sat heavily into it. “He’s our friend, we have to think of something.”

Dom looked him straight in the eye, “This is one of those times where the person needs to help themselves. He’s not at a point to do that.”

“We can make him be,” Orlando stated harshly.

Billy shook his head sadly, “You know we can’t.”

“I won’t let him die,” Orlando retorted, balling his hands into fists. “This has been going on too long. He’s mixing too many different drugs…and with alcohol for Christ’s sake! It’s like he wants to die! He’s basically committing suicide!”

“Maybe that’s what we need to concentrate on,” Billy said, sounding as if a light bulb had popped over his head, “Maybe we need to figure out WHY he’s doing it, in order to stop him.”

“This is a fucking graveyard,” Orlando muttered, after sitting for five hours straight in the hospital room. Elijah still lay motionless on the crisp sheeted bed, oblivious to his surroundings. “And only one of us is in a coma.”

Billy wiped at his eyes and sniffed, “I don’t know what you expect.”

“Just because he’s dying doesn’t mean we have to!” Orlando cried, putting his head in his hands.

Sean put his hand on Orlando’s back when his shoulders sagged, and then when they moved up in down in a sobbing motion. Sean began tearing up then, too, and didn’t bother hiding it.

“He’s going to die,” Dom said suddenly, staring at Elijah’s body. He couldn’t breath on his own, so he had tubes sticking up his nose and IV’s galore; it was not a happy sight, and definitely not one any of these young actors wanted to see.

“Don’t say that,” Sean swallowed, “We have to think positively.”

“I don’t know how we can,” Orlando said, sitting up and motioning towards the bed, “He’s already more than halfway there.” Orlando laughed sardonically, “He took so much, Sean. You didn’t see it.”

“What did he take?” Sean asked, “Nobody told me.”

“You don’t want to know,” Dom answered cryptically.

Orlando felt like he was going tremendously insane as he talked to the 911 operator. He was pacing around the length of Elijah’s house while Elijah lay unconscious in the bathroom, his head propped up on the toilet seat.

“I told you I don’t know what he took!” Orlando shouted at the poor woman.

“Calm down, sir,” she said, “And try to think clearly. Go into the bathroom…see if you can describe the pills to me.”

Orlando closed his eyes and took a deep breath as he walked back to the bathroom. He didn’t want to go back in there, but it seemed he’d have to. He averted the body on the floor and propped the phone between his chin and shoulder.

He ran his hands over the pills in the sink, memorizing the look of them, their textures and their colors. He closed his eyes and swallowed hard. Then he remembered the pills on the ground and the ones in Elijah’s hands.

“It’s ecstasy,” he said suddenly, leaning down beside the body, “Red and white…it’s gotta be ecstasy, right?”

“Possibly,” the operator replied, “Is there anything else?”

Orlando stood up and saw the busted bottle by Elijah’s head, on the toilet seat, and the blood trickling down his friend’s forehead. “Beer,” Orlando said, “There’s some Tylenol in the sink…I don’t know if he took that or not.” He rifled through the medicine cabinet, found the Tylenol bottle and shook it; it was empty. He threw it angrily into the trash where it made an odd clanging noise against the beer bottles. Then he noticed the needle lying haphazardly beside Elijah’s hand and the baggie next to that.

“Heroin…maybe crack,” Orlando said, “I can’t tell.” He sniffed the baggie, “I still can’t tell.” He sighed and his eyes drifted to the sink; he saw some small pink pills in a tidy pile behind the faucet.

“Paxil?” he questioned to the phone.

“Small and pink,” the operator said off handedly.

“Probably some of that, too,” Orlando said forlornly, “I didn’t know he was on it.”

“Might not be. He could have just stolen some.”

“He wouldn’t steal!” Orlando barked at the operator and then felt badly about it, and apologized.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Sean asked, trying his best to sound soothing.

“No,” Orlando answered miserably.

Billy sniffed, he was crying the most, probably because he had failed when he’d been elected to tell Elijah to quit. To quit what, it was hard to tell. They knew he did drugs, but didn’t know that he had been dabbling in numerous different kinds. Dom sighed heavily and put a reassuring hand on Billy’s back.

“I just want it to be over,” Orlando said, sounding despondent. His voice was thick with tears.

The bed creaked and caught everyone’s attention, they all looked sharply in that direction to see Elijah looking at them with a pained expression on his face.

“What’s going on?” He asked wearily, closing his eyes and then opening them. “I feel like fucking shit.”

It was one of those times when they should be completely pissed and start yelling horribly at Elijah because he’d scared them so badly, but they don’t do that. The hobbits and elf are so happy that Elijah is alive, and basically well, that all they can do is hug him and tell him how glad they are that he’s okay.

The yelling would come later.

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