#couldve been either one i did not decide

There was nothing quite like waking up to the feeling of being crushed and having no idea how one had gotten there, when the last thing in memory was a casual morning commute.

Car crash? Building collapse?

Something shifted and Mel was aware of a dull pain in his legs. Were his eyes closed?

There was a distant siren. There was shuffling, voices… actually kind of… familiarvoices…

“Over here!” Very familiar. Not from his family, though, or his friends or workmates or the guy he’d started dating– The familiarity was on the same level as someone from… TV? Was he hearing things?

“Excuse me, are you conscious? Good, please stay awake, you’ll be okay, we’re here to help,” the familiar, somehow soothing voice was saying through the pounding in Mel’s head. It was interrupted by a horrible metallic screeching. (Already-mangled metal door being torn in half by bare hands.)

That sound was too much.

He came to again with a gasp. Various voices were having quick exchanges. His legs felt a lot worse suddenly, not being crushed anymore but like they were… loose? Weirdly? Falling apart. Bleeding? The siren wasn’t distant anymore.

Hands were grabbing him and he wasn’t sure if he needed to get away or try to make things easier–

“Please don’t move!”

Mel’s eyes opened to see a familiar face hovering over his, haloed by angelic yellow light with pulses of flashing red from one side. Brown skin, dark freckles, beautiful hair that he wouldn’t dare touch even in his dreams, deep brown eyes that were even more earnest and mesmerizing in real life and possibly a little bit more due to what might be blood loss. Blue fabric tight across a muscular chest. Halcyon.

“Okay,” he faintly heard himself say without much thinking about it.

Something obviously happened, because Halcyon was a superhero. He was being rescued. By Halcyon. The superhero. Was he carryinghim?

Halcyon was saying something else, maybe explaining something, but Mel’s moment of clarity was fading fast. Everything was moving again. He held still as best as he could and Halcyon smiled reassuringly and, honestly, he felt kind of reassured.