The first time the blond became aware of his surroundings after arriving at the hospital, he couldn't open his eyes. He was still so tired, but somehow he managed to catch snippets of conversations being held near the foot of his bed.
"Josh lost...blood...possible transfusion...surgery...alive, but needs lots of rest..."
"Thank you, Doctor..."
"...looks so bad, Miles..."
"The boy...fine, Corlynn."
"Get better, little brother...need you..."
"...okay, Josh? ...get well..."
New nearly incomprehensible words that he could barely make out forced their way into the conversation.
"...so...b-d. Lo-ks...aw-ul..."
Focusing all of his energy, he caught different voices that now broke through the fog clouding his head.
"Can't die, lead singer. ...stubborn..."
"...pull through, Ramsay..."
Josh grunted softly when he shifted positions, desperately fighting to try to stay awake in order to hear what was being said by everyone in the room. Before sleep took over his life again, he realized that he had been listening to voices that seemed to belong to a doctor, his parents, two of his sisters, and two out of three of his band members, but he just didn't have the strength to reply to any of them. Even blinking took too much energy at the moment, so he allowed slumber to take hold.
The next time the singer remembered regaining consciousness, he couldn't explain it, but he could feel that he wasn't alone in the room before he was able to pry his eyelids open. Objects in front of him swam a bit, and he had to squint and shade his eyes against the bright light coming through the curtains, but nevertheless, Josh could see well enough to discern that he was in a hospital. And yes, there was Matt's unmistakable form sitting in the chair near the bed with one booted foot crossed over the opposite knee, his fingers laced together and resting on his stomach and his head tilted back. The guitar player was snoring quietly, which calmed Josh a bit because it was so familiar.
Blinking several times and rubbing his left hand across his eyes to clear the blurriness, Josh felt around, grabbing the mechanism that controlled the bed and raising the head a bit, realizing that the intense pain he remembered feeling the last time he was this awake was no longer there. The intravenous fluids that were hanging on a pole near his bed with the end of the line taped to the back of his hand probably had a lot to do with that, and he was grateful.
The blond eased one of the two pillows from behind his back and tossed it at the guitar player, cringing at the quick twinge of discomfort he felt across shoulder and chest. The pain was promptly forgotten as Josh let out a quiet laugh when he saw the pillow glance off Matt's body, scaring the younger man awake. The brunet sat up quickly, dropping his foot to the floor and gasping. "Jesus Christ," he breathed heavily, looking around the room, his eyes landing on the pillow on the floor near his feet.
Matt trailed his gaze from the object up to Josh and smiled widely the minute he realized that the blond was awake and apparently feeling well enough to be just this side of tolerable. "Hey, man," the guitarist greeted him quietly, clearing his throat and standing to move so he could sit on the edge of the mattress.
"Hey," Josh said, weakly returning the smile and falling back against the bed again. He'd used up all the strength he had for now.
"How do you feel?" Matt gestured to Josh's torso and head.
"Fabulous," the singer joked, blinking slowly and noticing the immobilization sling encasing his right arm that he was wearing for the first time.
"Be serious." The younger man spoke evenly, but was obviously hoping for a straight answer.
"Okay, okay," Josh relented, fingering the hospital bracelet and staring at his name printed boldly across it. "I'm as good as I could be, I guess." The blond caught the slight stiffening of Matt's posture. "Honest," he tacked on.
"Good...good. I'm really glad to hear it. But, Josh, what, um... what the hell happened to you?"
Josh sighed quietly and bit the inside of his cheek, thinking hard but coming up empty. "I wish I could tell you, dude, but I just, I don't know. I can't remember anything." The singer slowly lifted his eyes to the guitar player. "My turn. How long have I been here?"
The brunet raised his arm and slid his sleeve back, checking the watch on his wrist that read out the date, day of the week and the time. "A little over three days."
Three days. Three days completely unaccounted for. Josh remembered pain and he knew he was in a hospital, but he couldn't add two and two together well enough to figure out why. "What's wrong with me?" he asked quietly. Matt didn't know what had happened to him to cause him to be there, but maybe the younger man knew what was wrong with him that still kept him there.
"I...what? You don't know?"
Josh shook his head, closing his eyes briefly when he realized that the motion made the room spin a little. "I remember...um..." The singer rolled his eyes up to the ceiling as he tried to recall the last events that made any real sense. "I think I remember you dropping me off at home, and then all I remember is some really fuckin' serious pain. I have a vague memory - or maybe it was a dream? - of an ambulance, and then...nothing. I'm blank."
"Man, Josh... I wish I could tell you, but I have no idea what's wrong with you. I don't know what happened, but whatever it was must've been hell. You look like shit." Matt's voice cracked a bit as he slid himself from the bed and crossed the room, tucking his hands into his pockets and stopping to stare out the window, keeping his back to the blond the entire time. "How could...? I mean, God... We should've...I dunno, we should have just gone out to dinner the other night like I suggested before we left the studio... This never would've happened. I could've...-,"
"Dude, listen to me," Josh cut off Matt's words quickly. He didn't want the pity or the martyrdom. Hell, he didn't even know why he was there to begin with, and it seemed kind of stupid to him to get any kind of sympathy from anyone else when he couldn't figure out why. "We don't even know what the fuck happened to me yet. How can you possibly tell me that this, whatever it is, wouldn't have happened wherever we were? Maybe it was, like, a heart attack. Maybe...fuck, maybe my past finally caught up with me or something. Whatever this is, it's not your fault. You didn't know anything would happen. I didn't know. Don't go fuckin' blaming yourself for this shit." Josh pushed himself further up on the bed and leaned forward so he could better look at the younger man, ignoring the slight vibrating of the room that was quickly making him sick. He didn't often let himself feel guilty for any reason, but couldn't, for any reason, let Matt believe that whatever had happened actually had anything to do with him. Josh had the odd, but distinct feeling that he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Matt turned back to face Josh with glassy eyes. "You don't... You have no idea how fucking...-," He paused in his words to take a quick shaky breath before continuing. "...how goddamn fucking scared I was when I got the phone call from your mom at midnight that you were in the hospital. I'm sorry, Josh. I'm sorry," the guitar player repeated.
Josh motioned for the younger man to come closer and held his arm out once Matt had taken several steps toward the bed. "Matt. Stop. It's not your fault. I swear to fucking God, it's not your fault." He tugged on the brunet's sleeve, pulling him even closer until Matt had his face buried against Josh's left shoulder and the blond's arm was wrapped loosely around the younger man. A tighter hold put too much pressure on the singer that caused a burning sensation each time he took a breath, so Matt would just have to be satisfied with what he was able to give. "Believe me, it's not your fault. I fuckin' swear to you. It's nothing you did and it's nothing you didn't do," he reiterated. "I'm okay. I'm talking. I'm breathing on my own. I'm alive. You can see that, right? I'll be alright. I'm too much of a fuckin' pain in the ass to die, anyway."
He felt Matt tense against him and he mentally chastised himself for not being at least a little more sensitive with his wording as the brunet pulled away, wiping a hand across his eyes. "Don't. Just...don't. I don't wanna hear it. Don't even joke about it, man. I don't wanna think about that."
"Hey, I'm sorry," Josh apologized, easing his arm back down to the bed. "I don't know what the fuck happened to me, so I have to find some way to deal with...whatever the hell this is, you know what I'm saying? That's me. That's always been me. You know that."
Matt shoved a hand through his hair, brushing it back from his forehead, blinking rapidly several times. "I know, I know, but this time... It's just different."
"How?"
"You're in a fucking hospital, man," he explained, using a tone that made it sound like it should be obvious. "This apparently isn't some paper cut or something you got by being stupid. You came here in an ambulance. An ambulance!" Matt slammed his hand down on the bed for emphasis, jolting the singer and making him wince.
"I've...ow...," he stopped himself to pull in a slow breath. "I've been in a hospital before, dude. For really serious shit, too. You know that. You were there."
"Yeah, you were. But, how do you know this time isn't just as serious? This time just...this scares me." Matt sat back down on the bed, resting one knee in front of him on the mattress while the other foot stayed firmly planted on the floor. Josh hated the way the brunet stared down at the cream coloured tiles, refusing to meet his eyes.
"I know," the singer admitted quietly, running a finger along the blanket under his hand. "I know it does, but I'm not gonna fight about this, Matt. I don't want to fight about this. I get that you're scared and I get that you're fuckin' worried, but I'm okay. I appreciate it, and dude, I love you like a brother for it, but you've gotta keep it together because I'm the one lying in this damn hospital bed with no idea why. So I kinda need you to suck it the fuck up and find a way to pull it together, at least for now. For me." Josh smiled slightly at the guitar player. He wasn't as bothered by the whole situation as he was making himself out to be, considering he couldn't remember any of the details about what had gone on, but he did feel like he needed to snap Matt out of taking everything out on himself, so he went about it in the only way he could. Luckily, it worked.
"Yeah. Yeah. You're right. Yeah, I'm sorry." Matt shoved himself to stand again and walked over to his jacket, which he'd left draped over the back of the chair he had been awkwardly sleeping in up until thirty minutes ago.
"Um, so, listen. Mike and Ian visited a few times since you've been here," the guitarist said, awkwardly segueing into a new subject. "They were here for a couple hours early this morning, actually. They, uh, they first showed up as soon as I called them to tell them that you were here a couple days ago. But you were still in surgery and wouldn't be awake for a while, so I sent them home. No use in everyone hanging around, ya know? You've been pretty out of it, sleeping each time they dropped by, so I said I'd call 'em later...if...when... you know... Your whole family was here, too. Your mom was the one who called me to, um, to let me know you were here. They were here the whole time up until just a couple hours ago, and they were exhausted, so I told your folks that I'd...," Matt paused to take a breath and run his hands over his face, etched with worry lines. "That I'd stay until you woke up so that they could go home and get some rest. Your mom, she couldn't stop crying." Josh sighed quietly after hearing that while the brunet poked a hand through his jacket pockets until he came up with Josh's wallet, cell phone and keys. "They had your stuff and handed it over to me, thinking you'd probably want it when you woke up."
Once again, the three objects Josh most frequently lost or had trouble with were being placed into his outstretched hand. He lightly wiped his thumb across the shattered glass screen of the phone, staring intently at the dried blood caked into the cracks, and he couldn't help but to think that the thin red lines looked like veins - broken, punctured patterns that used to be protected. This. This was from that night, he frowned slightly as that much broke through the barrier that was holding back every other memory. "Thanks." His voice sounded strange, low and quiet. "I guess I'll call everybody in a little bit."