Hello my lovelies! :D Okay, so I really can't help but beat on Josh...I've tried and it just doesn't work. Every plot line that pops into my head involves him injured in some way and I love it :p But then you guys do too, right? That's why you're here! ^.^ This takes place right after I See Your True Colors...And That's Why I Hate You because...well, just because lol! I needed some serious Josh whump in my life XD
A/N: Okay, quick note: I know rule #1 of working with electricity is to turn off the main power source but with Sally around I think it kinda defeats the purpose to turn off the lights, you know? So that's my excuse for shocking the shit out of Josh. Also, holding the screwdriver would make the shock much worse O.o Poor thing...Hope you all enjoy! Also, the pairing is Josh/Aidan but its also Josh/Sally, I just couldn't include both :D
I own nothing! :/
"I mean, can you believe that?" Sally gestured wildly with her hands; she couldn't seem to decide what to do with them. In the entire time she'd been talking, they'd switched from furiously crossed over her chest, to perched on her hips, to swiping hair out of her face, to make obscure gestures to the house around them. Had Josh been paying anymore attention than he actually was, he was pretty sure he wold have gotten dizzy from her spastic movements.
"And he says he's happy without me! Happy! What did I ever do to make him unhappy with me?"
The lights flickered above Josh's head and he waited for them to stop before he tried to screw the light fixture back in. Holding a screwdriver in one hand, trying to replace a faulty light fixture (not Sally's fault) while the lights flickered on and off (definitely Sally's fault) was a bit harder than he thought it would be. He took solace in the fact that he'd managed to replace the wires, even if they were still exposed, before she'd cornered him with her poltergeist rant.
"Sally, maybe-"
"And then-" Another flippant arm wave followed by a sharp, pointy finger aimed directly at him. "And then, I try to warn Bridgette, I try to tell her exactly what happened to me and how every bit of it was Danny's fault but then he sheds a few tears and suddenly she's on his side! His side! Not mine! I got to play human slinky on the stairs because of that asshole and she still believes his whole "it was an accident' story!"
Josh was half listened and half trying not to fall off the ladder as the floor began to shake. "Sally..." He said, bracing himself against the wall. "The floor."
"So then what does she do? She comes over here and starts talking to me about "we've moved on" and "we're happy" and all this other crap that sounds like it was vomited onto the floor of a Hallmark store and she tells me that she's going to ignore me! Straight up ignores the fact that I fucking possessed her hand and wrote HE KILLED ME on a piece of paper! What the hell?"
The ladder pitched again, nearly toppling Josh from the top but he managed to catch himself just in time. "Whoa...! Okay, so I get that you're pissed. I get it. But the more pissed off you get, the more likely I am to die on this ladder-"
"So what am I supposed to do, huh? Just sit around and wait for my dickhead ex-fiance to kill my airhead best friend so we can be stuck in Boston purgatory together and bitch and gripe about how lousy he is until the sun burns out? Not happening! There's gotta be a way to get through to her..."
More lights flickering, a light bulb shattering behind him and Josh sighed. He was going to have to replace that one too...with Sally going off, they were spending a fortune on light bulbs every week. "Okay, seriously, calm down. I know it pissed you off-"
"Pissed me off?" Sally snapped, glaring at him, her form visibly shaking as she struggled to control herself. "Josh, I'm more than pissed off! I'm fucking Biblical right now! I'm fucking Old Testament Flood the World pissed!"
"Yeah, well throwing a temper tantrum isn't going to solve anything! Especially when it makes our house look like a demo for an earthquake simulation!" Josh snapped back, the floor still vibrating beneath him. It wasn't that he didn't care or was trying to be insensitive to Sally's predicament but he had his own set of problems to deal with right now. Namely, walking out on his family again after he'd just been reunited with them. The look on his mother's face when he said he had to leave...
"A temper tantrum?" Sally gasped incredulously, her eyes widening in a mixture of shock and rage. "My ex-fiance pushed me down the stairs and killed me and then made my best friend believe it was all my fault and you say I'm throwing a temper tantrum?" The lights flickered again, the floor rolling, and Josh braced his hand against the ceiling, clinging to the edge of the light fixture like it would somehow keep him upright. "God, you are so unbelievable sometimes!"
The ladder jerked to the side again and Josh barely managed to catch himself on the edge of the light fixture. "Sally!"
"What!"
The ladder rocked violently once more and Josh reached out and grabbed the only thing he could to prevent himself from falling: the exposed wires of the light fixture. There was a tremendous pop followed by a haze of white-hot buzzing in his ears as a surge of electricity connected with the metal screwdriver in his hand. The ladder gave way from underneath him and he fell, vaguely hearing Sally scream, "Oh my God! Josh!" before he hit the ground and the world faded to black.
OOOOO
Aidan pulled into the drive way warily, seeing the foundation of their apartment trembling from the inside out. Since moving in, he and Josh had gotten used to Sally's rather...dramatic outbursts but it was getting harder and harder to explain to the neighbors why their apartment always looked like it was centered on the San Andreas fault line.
He got out of the car, tucking the grocery bags from the passenger seat under one arm. While he and Sally had no reason to go to the grocery store anymore, Josh had asked him to pick up a few things on the way home while he was doing some work around the house. What that work consisted of Aidan wasn't sure but Josh's OCD kept him pretty busy even when everything appeared fine to the rest of them.
The door knob was vibrating beneath his hand as he opened the door and he stepped into the equally vibrating apartment. "I'm home!" He called upstairs though from the sound of Sally's ranting he was pretty sure neither of them heard him.
He walked into the kitchen, setting one of the bags on the table and the other on the counter, sorting out the contents and placing them in their respective locations. Sally was still upset about what happened with Bridgette; understandably so but her anger was about to destroy their house. He could hear her ranting upstairs (he didn't even need super vampire hearing for that) to a more than likely cornered Josh. He almost felt bad for the younger man except for the fact that Sally had given him the full story the night before in equally pissed off force and now she was just moving on to someone else who would listen. It seemed to help for her to vent, even if it was playing hell with their apartment.
"A temper tantrum?" He heard her gasp from upstairs and mentally winced at whatever Josh had said. He understood where Sally was coming from, really he did, but Josh wasn't nearly as calm and collected during her outbursts as he was. Sure, he'd listen and let her go on until there was nothing left, but that was also when he was wasn't neck deep in drama of his own. Seeing his family again after two years had played havoc on his emotions (Aidan coule smell it all over him) and Marcus showing up hadn't helped in the least. The last thing Josh probably wanted to be doing right now was listening to Sally bitch about Danny.
"God, you are so unbelievable sometimes!"
The house rattled again and shower of plaster fell into the sink. Aidan paused from putting up the groceries and debated for a second if he should go up and run interference for them.
"Sally!"
"What!"
Yep, interference would probably be necessary or there would be nothing left of the house by the time-
His thoughts were cut off as a loud snap echoed from upstairs and he heard Sally scream. "Oh my God! Josh!"
"Sally?" Aidan called, a cold, sick sensation settling in his chest at the sound of her voice.
"Aidan! Aidan get your fangy ass up here right now!"
He was running before his brain even caught up with his actions. He cleared the staircase in less than a second and burst into the bathroom, coming face to face with a panicky Sally and an unconscious Josh on the floor. "What happened?" He half-gasped, half-growled as he dropped to his knees next to the younger man.
"I-I don't know! I was yelling and then the next thing I know, he fell off the ladder and landed on the floor and oh my God Aidan why isn't he waking up?" The last part came out all in one breath and if Aidan had been paying any attention at all, he would have answered her.
He wasn't listening to her though, he was trying to concentrate on listening to Josh. He leaned closer to the younger man, listening carefully for his breathing and heartbeat. It should have been easy to hear; living with Josh in the house, the sound of his heartbeat had become almost background noise to Aidan. He couldn't hear it now though...he couldn't hear anything.
"He's not breathing." Aidan heard himself say though he didn't remember opening his mouth to speak.
"What?" Sally shrieked from behind him, her hands flying up tp cover her mouth. "Oh my God! I killed Josh!"
Aidan's body went into autopilot as he flipped Josh over onto his back, absently scanning him for any other injuries. There was a nasty burn in the palm of his hand from the metal screwdriver on the floor but other than that, he appeared fine. Except for the whole not breathing, no heartbeat bit...yeah that was a problem.
He positioned his hands the younger man's chest instinctively (working in a hospital for years had a tendency to do that to you) and began compressions, trying to ignore the fact that this was his best friend on the ground and not a nameless patient on a gurney. Josh's head rolled to the side limply, rocking slightly with each compression. His face was pale, completely devoid of color, and it was easy to mistake him for a corpse. Aidan pushed that terrifying thought away and continued CPR. "Come on Josh..."
Sally had crouched next to Josh's head, tears streaming down her face as she watched. "Oh my God, Josh I'm so sorry! I'm so so sorry!" She kept reaching out, trying to touch him, but her hands just phased through like a mist.
Aidan tilted Josh's head back and took a deep breath. He vaguely wondered how long it had been since he'd actually forced himself to breathe, he didn't really need to anymore being a vampire and all, and leaned over, breathing into Josh in the hopes that it was doing some good. He saw Josh's chest rise slightly from the air intake but it went still once more; he still wasn't breathing. Working in a hospital, usually a patient would be bagged to assist in CPR but since they weren't at the hospital, they were still in their apartment, the old fashioned way had to do for now.
He forced another full breath into Josh's unresponsive lungs and moved back, repositioning his hands and continuing chest compressions. He could hear the blood swishing through Josh's veins with each compression but it didn't comfort him to know that he was the cause. "Come on Josh, breathe...come on..." He felt the sternum and the rubs bend beneath his hands and he knew that if he pressed to hard, he could shatter Josh's ribcage. He didn't care at this point.
Sally was still crying. The house had stopped shaking and the lights had stopped flickering but now the sink and the shower were running in response to her tears. It would have been kind of funny had either of them been in the mood to laugh. "Josh...Josh please..."
There was a slight shudder beneath Aidan's hands and he stopped, moving away just as Josh jerked spasmodically and started coughing. "Oh my God...hey, easy...easy Josh. I gotcha..." He said, helping the younger man roll onto his side as a rather violent bout of coughing followed the first.
"Josh! Josh, oh God, are you okay?" Sally was asking frantically, the shower and the sink sputtering behind her.
Josh didn't answer, he just continued to cough and gasp on his side.
"Easy...easy man, just try to breathe slow, okay? You're alright..." Aidan coached from his side, rubbing gentle circles into the rigid knots of his shoulders. He wasn't really sure who he was trying to convince, Josh or himself. Being what some considered a monster, Aidan liked to pride himself on not being afraid of much. But that...seeing Josh lying on the floor, basically dead...that had terrified him. It scared him more than anything had in a long, long time.
Eventually, Josh caught his breath enough to look up at vampire and shuddering ghost hovering above him. "Ah...jeez, why does it feel like I just got my ass handed to me by the Energizer Bunny?" He gasped, curling in on himself a bit.
"You kinda did, man." Aidan joked weakly, grabbing his hand and looking at the burn on his palm. The wound was already beginning to heal itself, stitching back together in layers of muscle and skin.
"Owww..." Josh groaned, his uninjured hand going over his (probably) bruised sternum. "What the hell, man?" He cast a lopsided look up at Aidan.
Aidan opened his mouth to answer but Sally beat him to it. "OhmyGodJoshI'msosorry! Ididn''-"
Josh blinked, cutting her off mid-ramble. "Wait, I wasn't breathing?"
Sally nodded sheepishly, her eyes huge with tears.
"You disobeyed electrician tip #1: Never touch a live wire, especially not with metal." Aidan said, nodding to the discarded screwdriver on the ground. Seeing the confused/shocked (no pun intended) expression on his best friend's face, he slid an arm under Josh's shoulders and helped him sit up, keeping his arm around him more for his sake than for Josh's. He could hear the younger man's rapid, slightly erratic heartbeat from his close proximity and it helped ease some of the residual panic that had been lingering around his mind. It was faster than he would have liked but Josh's heart was beating and that's all that mattered at the moment. Still...
"Josh, maybe we should take you to the hospital? You know, just to make sure you didn't do any permanent damage."
The shock seemed to have worn off and Josh absently shook his head. "No...no its okay, I'm fine."
"Josh, I think you should go." Sally said, tears still streaking her face. At least the shower had shut off now.
"Yeah man, you pulled a full flat-line not two minutes ago...maybe we should go just to-"
"I'm fine you guys!" The younger man snapped suddenly, cutting them both off. He shook his head slowly, dragging a hand through his hair. "Sorry...its just..." He shook his head again, taking a deep, slightly uneven breath and letting it out slowly. "I'm alright, I promise. I just think I need to lay down for a bit. Kinda dizzy, you know?"
"Josh-"
"Aidan, I'm fine. Seriously, this isn't the worst thing that's ever happened to me." Josh shrugged half-heartedly, his hair sticking up in odd angles all over his head. "Besides, you're a nurse just like I am... if I start to feel bad or anything, we can go straight to the hospital, okay?"
There was a heavy pause and it seemed like a protest was forthcoming but it didn't. "Are you sure?"
"Yeah, I'm sure. I'm okay."
Aidan didn't look convinced and Sally looked less convinced but neither of them said anything. Instead, Aidan carefully helped him off the floor, keeping one hand tangled in the back of the younger man's shirt. "Okay, well, no more Bob the Builder for you today." He said, steering Josh out into the hall and toward his room, Sally following behind them closely. He led Josh over to the bed and let go of his shirt only when he was convinced the younger man wouldn't collapse onto the floor. "You're sure you're okay?" Aidan asked one more time, eyeing the other man carefully.
"I'm sure."
Aidan nodded once and stepped away, motioning for Sally to follow him. The ghost looked hesitant, looking between the recently electrocuted werewolf and her fangy housemate. Aidan nodded to her, another gesture for her to follow. Finally, she seemed to realize it was a losing situation and followed Aidan out into the hall, leaving Josh to rest in his room.
OOOOO
Aidan spent the rest of the evening popping in and out of Josh's room to check on him and make sure he was still doing okay. Still breathing his mind supplied after his third trip upstairs and Aidan chose not to focus on that too much. It was true though, no matter how much he tried to deny it. And no matter how many times Josh threatened to literally bite him if he didn't stop mothering him, Aidan couldn't help it.
Sally was an emotional wreck, flitting in and out of every room but Josh's. She was controlling herself enough not to cause the house to shake but the TV in the living room kept switching channels and there were more than a few broken glasses in the trashcan now.
Each time Aidan came downstairs, it reassured her that Josh was still okay but it didn't help her guilt for electrocuting him. Jesus, she had electrocuted him! She had been bitching about Danny killing her and then she'd turned around and nearly murdered Josh in the process. She felt horrible; she'd spent all of her time complaining about her problems that she hadn't even bothered to ask about his. Ask about his family, his sister, his life. She's been so wrapped up in everything in her (non)life that she'd completely ignored him.
Finally, she couldn't take it anymore and disappeared from the living room, reappearing in Josh's bedroom. The werewolf was curled on his side, one arm tossed over his head and the other stretched out over the edge of the bed. It was the hand that had been burned earlier though there was no evidence of it now. Sally walked over, kneeling next to the bed and reaching out hesitantly, touching the palm of his hand with her fingers. They passed right through his skin, just like she knew they would, but it was worth a shot.
There was a shift and she looked up to see Josh blinking wearily at her. "Tell Aidan if he comes in here and wakes me up again I'm going to douse him with a bedpan tomorrow at work."
Sally smiled weakly, tears shining in her eyes like they had before at the sound of his voice. "Josh...I'm so incredibly sorry. I didn't mean to flip out on you and do that with the lights and-"
"Its okay."
"No its not!" Sally cried, her voice breaking a bit as she spoke. "I nearly killed you!" She shook her head as tears streaked her face again. "You could have died because I was throwing a tantrum like a child. Josh, I've been so selfish lately, always talking about my problems and never listening to yours, and I'm so sorry. I'm so so sorry..."
Josh seemed slightly surprised by her apology but offered her a tired smile in return. "Yeah, well, we all have those times." He shrugged a bit and moved so she could have room on the bed. "It just takes some getting used to."
Sally hopped on the bed beside him, looking down at him and just watching him breathe for a second. It had been terrifying earlier when he hit the ground, she honestly thought he was dead. It was not an experience she wanted to feel again anytime soon. "So what was up with you not wanting to go to the hospital earlier? You seemed pretty adament about not going even though you kinda work there."
Josh shrugged again and blinked at the wall. "I work there all day long, I have no intention of ever being a patient there if I can possibly avoid it. I don't like being watched...monitored..." He shook his head, seeming to lose himself in thought for a second. "My dad used to do that to me a lot when I was younger...watch me, analyze me, and then when something was actually wrong with me...when I needed my father and not someone who'd sworn a Hippocratic Oath, he just kept watching. My dad always looked at our family like we were patients in a book he was researching, just nameless bodies he could analyze and it used to drive me crazy. That's why I didn't want to go to the hospital...just to become another nameless body to write a report over."
"But Josh, they know you there...you wouldn't be nameless."
"Another reason I didn't want to go." There was a soft laugh that sounded a bit forced. "Also, I kinda ditched Nora after our date the other night and I think she might be pissed at me."
"Josh." Sally looked at him seriously. "Your sister got her ass kicked and you took care of her, if Nora's pissed about that then you don't need to waste your time." Josh's hair was still all spiky and uncontrollable on his head and if she could, she would have reached out and brushed it away from his face. But she couldn't so instead she just settled with sitting next to him.
"Yeah." Josh let out a sigh, soft and even, and it was nothing like the shaky breaths he'd been taking earlier. "I don't know...just never wanted to be a patient in my own hospital, you know?"
Sally nodded slowly. She could understand that; it was an image Josh had been trying to uphold for a long time, the image that he could take care of himself, and winding up in the hospital from an accidental electrocution would kind of defeat the purpose. "So...do you want to talk about what happened at your parent's house?" She asked, using the silence as an opening to gain some information. Or at least extend the olive branch.
Josh smiled a bit sadly and shook his head. "Not tonight..." He said, looking at her carefully. "But thank you."
Sally smiled in return. "Anytime, you've always been there for me when I needed to talk."
"Not by choice. You kinda forced me to listen."
"Rude!"
Josh laughed softly and a comfortable silence fell between them. Sally had just about thought he'd fallen back asleep when he spoke up again. "But seriously, next time I'm trying to fix the lights, you need to go haunt a school bus or something. That was not fun."
Sally laughed a bit. "Deal. I don't really care for the smell of burnt dog hair in the bathroom either."
"Noted."
So the end seemed a bit off to me O.o Maybe its because I'm sleep deprived and have been typing for the past two hours...meh. Hope you guys liked it! :D