Hospital Beds and Memories

When I was told that it was nearly halloween and that I was going to miss it all, I was really upset. It wasn’t exactly my favourite holiday or anything, but I just loved looking around at all the ‘spooky’ and ‘scary’ decorations, seeing how excited kids always were to get candy, making a costume that I would only wear once. What I loved the most, however, was face painting. Of course I wasn’t professional, but I loved trying out new things. Normally, I’d be in front of the mirror for hours, trying to create the right shadows and highlight to make myself look creepy. I may have hated normal makeup, but I loved trying to figure out special effects makeup. It was a small guilty pleasure of mine that nobody really knew about.

I had voiced my complaints to Jack, actually telling him about my secret. He thought it was pretty funny and cute, and felt bad for my ‘sad, sad life’, as he put it. What I didn’t expect, though, was that my room was going to be fully decorated when I woke up on the 31st of October. Fake cobwebs littered the bedside table, fake spiders crawling around in it, a pumpkin was put on the dresser against the wall, and there was a silhouette of a black cat with a witch hat on the window sill. I couldn’t stop grinning as I sat upright and looked around the place. Jack had managed to do this last minute, still having managed to find some halloween supplies somewhere, decorating the place while I was asleep without making too much noise.
Even if it had been shitty, I would have loved it. He must have put so much effort to make it work out. Just the fact that he tried already made me so much happier. Who knew something small like this could make my day?

“I know it isn’t much, but I hope you like it.” Jack shrugged and sat down on the side of my bed. He was trying to read my facial expression, but was too stubborn to understand that I really felt joyful. I never thought anybody would ever do anything like this for me.

“I love it.” I leaned forward and kissed him for the first time in forever. I either never felt like kissing him before, or there were too many other people around us. This time I couldn’t help it, not caring that I could possibly get ill from such personal contact.

“That’s not all,” he finally accepted that I really did like his gesture, now also grinning himself, “I have one more surprise.”

“Even more!” I gasped, staring at him with disbelief. “But, Jack, this is so much already!”

“Well, I wanted this day to be as normal as possible for you,” he stood back up and made his way over to a plastic bag standing in the corner next to the door, quickly turning back to me to give me a wink “plus, I might get something more than just a kiss this time.”

“You wish,” I scoffed and shook my head at his childish behaviour, “not only are we in a hospital, but that’s just way too far fetched.”

“Oh… so the glow in the dark condoms were too much?”

My eyes went wide, staring at him with shock. If he actually did that, I was going to flip shit. Not just because he was weird enough to get glow in the dark condoms, but also because he thought he could get lucky even though we were permanently living in a hospital room for now. This was not the place for anything like that.

“Relax,” Jack chuckled, shaking his head at me, “I’m just kidding. I would never do that-- wait, I probably would, but not in a place like this. If we were at home right now, that would be a complete different story. But for now, all I have is innocent, unless you count the spookiness factor.”

“Spookiness factor?” I raised an eyebrow at him, acting like I was judging him for it.

“Shut up, don’t rain on my parade,” he pouted and sat back down, having taken the bag with him. Before I could ask what was in it, he started pulling out some objects, making my mouth open wide. “I got you some special effects makeup and shit. This way you can still make us look awesome for this awesome halloween party we’re going to have in here. Don’t tell anyone, you’re the only one invited.”

“Sounds like one rowdy party,” I giggled, looking at all the expensive stuff he bought me. This was much fancier than the things I would use. I often improvised, but this was actual branded quality stuff. “This is awesome, thank you so much.”

I kissed him once again, feeling him smile against my lips. While I often didn’t like people doing so many things for me, I really did like this side of Jack. Without going overboard, he still managed to make my time awake here so much better. This just reminded my why I loved him so much. He didn’t try too hard, but he still showed that he cared so much.

“So, are you going to make me look like some scary monster attacked me or some shit?” He smirked, pointing at all the supplies scattered on the duvet.

“Right now?” I asked, not having expected him to actually volunteer for me to put makeup on him again.

“Yeah, right now!”

So, I brought my legs up and sat Indian style, the blanket still covering my lower half. At least I wasn’t wearing one of those awkward hospital robes anymore, or this position would have been very uncomfortable and embarrassing, basically showing off all my parts. However, because I was wearing normal clothes, I could make enough space for Jack to sit directly opposite of me after he had taken off his shoes.

I stared at the makeup for awhile, not sure where to start. “What do you want to be?”

“Well, it doesn’t really matter, as long as it won’t pull off my beautiful beard when I need to take it off again,” Jack suggested, not making the decision much easier. At least I knew not to use anything that felt very sticky and waxy around what he claimed to be ‘his beard’.

“That’s not a beard,” I laughed, “that’s a stubble.”

“Whatever, stop making me feel bad about myself.”

“Awe, I’m sorry,” I pouted, with a smile showing through my eyes, “I’ll make you look beautiful.”

“Like a pretty little princess?” He asked with hopeful eyes.

“We’ve already done that once. Let’s go for something scary this time.”

And so, I decided to just try out things I had done to myself before. I knew how to make realistic looking open wounds and scars, and some basic contouring wasn’t all too difficult either. Of course, I first tried it on my hand, before putting stuff I didn’t know on Jack’s face. He thought it was pretty interesting to see how I was able to make a cut just using some silicon, foundation, and different shades of deep red. It actually looked like the skin had been cut open, making it peel up slightly at the edges.

What better idea was there than making it look like Jack had severely been beaten up? I didn’t feel like doing the classic skeleton facepaint, so this was the other option. All I had to do was layer up the silicon and cotton pads in some places and let it dry before going to town, cutting open the artificial skin carefully. The funny part was that that wasn’t the difficult part at all. That was when Jack still had patience, and was physically able to sit still. It got a lot more difficult later on. You see, he was basically a small child. Anything and everything distracted him and he would immediately want to start doing other things. I, however, wanted to finish the face paint, I just had to make sure I didn’t take too long.

“Jack, stop moving,” I muttered while trying to give him a black eye with the dark colored makeup. If he would stop making me mess up, it would all go by so much quicker.

“But I just remembered there was something else I wanted to give you!” He whined and pouted at me.

I rolled my eyes and shook my head, “really? Cause if it a kiss, I’ll have to check if I can actually deal with that.”

“It actually isn’t, but now that you mention it…”

He grabbed my head and pressed his lips against mine. Taken aback, my hands were at weird angles trying to keep the brushes and paints out of the way so they wouldn’t stain our clothes. Continuing to kiss me, he tried to get me to kiss him back while I was more focused on the spotless bed sheets. However, I eventually gave in when I couldn’t deny the pressure of his lips against mine anymore. This feeling was the one I had missed the most. Of course, the smaller kisses were satisfying as well, but he just always poured all his love into our deeper ones. Maybe it actually was a good thing that I couldn’t let my hands roam around his body…

When something plastic dropped off the bed, we jumped apart, our heart racing not only from the kiss, but also from the shock of a loud noise interrupting us. We looked at the object, which just happened to be the packaging some of the paints came in, before laughing. If we were at home, a noise like that wouldn’t have fazed us, but in a semi-public place that suddenly changed a lot.

“You got a little…” Jack wiped his thumb over my left cheek, just underneath my cheekbone, removing some purple paint from my skin.

I looked back at him and saw one of the bruises I had already finished off was now completely smudged. “It’s all smudged over your face now.”

“Totally worth it, though,” he pointed out.

I couldn’t help but lean in to kiss him again. My art was already messed up, what did it matter now? My hand on his cheeky for support, my lips softly grazing his… and we were interrupted again. Only this time by the one and only Abagail. She still came around everyday with Ruby, shooting me daggers and trying to flirt with an oblivious Jack. And here I was, thinking people were actually happy that I was still alive. Well, there certainly was one person who wasn't. Cough, cough.

“I’m here, again!” Abagail announced cheerfully… way too cheerfully, until she saw Jack’s face, “What the hell happened to you!”

“Ireland’s pretty good at makeup, isn’t she?” He gave me a loving smile, showing me off to her.

She inspected my work after giving me a short glare. “Well, I mean, it’s… yeah…”

“It looked better before, but Jack insisted on transferring and smearing it onto my face,” I let her know, trying to push her buttons.

“Look, it’s not my fault that your lips. Are. So. Kissable!” He pecked me a couple of times between words, trying to take off any pigment that was now on my face.

“So, you wanna hold Ruby?” Abagail awkwardly, yet rudely interrupted.

“Sure!” Jack smiled.

However, I wasn’t going to allow him. I laid down so my head was in his lap and groaned, “but it’s my turn to get cuddles. She’s been lucky enough to get it every day since she was born. I haven’t had any in, like, literally months!”

“She’s got a point…” He pulled me into his lap, sitting against the headboard, and wrapping his arms protectively around me before whispering in my ear, “I really have to resist saying ‘that’s what she said’, you just set yourself up for that.”

I snuggled against his chest, watching Abagail slouch over to her seat, giving me the ugliest look I had seen in awhile. But I knew that Jack would always put me first, and would always choose me, or at least that was what it seemed like at the time.