I Hear You

They say hearing is the last to go.

Written for the LJ starskyhutch911 comm challenge 11: pull through

They say hearing is the last sense to go before you die. I always thought that was a crock of shit. I mean, think about it. How the hell could anybody be sure about something like that?

But then I found out they were right, after all—hearing is the last to go. Now I wonder who “they” were. Maybe they knew from experience. Maybe they died and lived to tell the tale, like me.

When I got shot, my vision went first, I think. Everything grayed out, then went dark. There was no white light, no pearly gates, no nothing. Only… black.

I felt the bullets hit, smelled the powder, tasted the blood. But all those sensations went away, too. One by one, they left me and slipped off into the blackness.

The last thing I remember was the last thing I heard: the sound of gunfire and screeching tires, of ripping metal and shattering glass. Of Hutch, yelling my name.

That’s the first thing I heard, too. Hutch.

Hutch, demanding that I hold on, ordering me to fight, to live. Telling me how I could not give up, that I was not allowed to leave him. How much he needed me, how much he loved me.

Those words pulled me back, back from that dark place, back to the light. Back to Hutch.

When I told him about that, weeks later, he looked confused.

“How could you know… I never said those things aloud.”

“You didn’t have to,” I said. “I always hear what your heart says to me.”