The hospital room smelled of antiseptic and wilted flowers, like a graveyard in the making.

"You still with me, dove?" He murmured, his voice rough around edges like cracked pavement. His lips tugged into the ghost of a smirk, but his eyes- God, his eyes burned with something raw. His hand slipped from yours to pat the jacket slung over the chair next to his bed. But when he pulls out the cigarette and lighter, the self-satisfied smirk returning. “Still got it. Nurse Ratchet’s got nothin’ on me.”

"Felix." You reach out to stop him, but he waves you off.

"Fuck, i’m not gonna light it in here, relax,” He said, holding the cigarette up to his lips like it was the promise of freedom. “But this?” He gestured with the lighter, then the door. “This is my ticket out of this goddamn place.”

“What are you talking about?” Your words came quickly, panic laced in every syllable.

He tilted his head, dark eyes catching the sterile light above, turning them molten. “I don’t want to die here. not under these shitty lights, not in this shitty bed.” His bravado slipped for a moment before he caught it again. “I wanna go out in the snow. feel the cold on my skin, see my breath in the air, and look up at the sky.”