A crash sounded in the silence of the waning sunlight before silence fell again. Moments later, the quiet was broken once more by the sound of a heart wrenching sob. A lean form tugged himself from the wreckage of a demolished black and crimson F-150. He tried to push himself up, only to let out a cry of pain before looking down at his legs. His right eye widened, the left currently unable to open due to the shard of glass that was stuck through it. Both of the male's legs were bent in places they shouldn't be bent and one had a large piece of glass from the windshield in it. Looked like he wasn't going anywhere fast.
The heat suddenly intensified around him and he looked up in time to see the truck engine begin to spew flames. Time seemed to slow down as the air around the flames seemed to get sucked inwards before being blown out rapidly in the form of an explosion. The male had time to manage to throw his arms up in front of him before he was blown back, having taken the brunt of the explosion since he couldn't move away fast enough.
Then, all he saw was darkness...
Beep...beep...beep...beep...
"How long has he been out?"
Beep...beep...beep...beep...
"Two weeks...I dunno how long until he wakes..."
Beep...beep...beep...beep...
"I hope it's soon...he's already missed the funeral...the cops think it was..."
It was what? What were those voices talking about? Funeral? Who's funeral? What was going on? Why couldn't he open his eyes? Beep... And what was with that beeping? It was getting annoying, 'Come on eyes...open! Now!' There...light...but it's blurry. So much white...and that smell. Smelled like a hospital...
Wait...
Hospital?
'Oh shit...'
The accident. Kaien. No...it couldn't be...it wasn't just a dream. Then the funeral...
'Nooooo...' He wanted to sob, he wanted to scream, but nothing came out. The beeping sound grew more rapid and he started to thrash his head back and forth, that being the only thing he could move.
'Noooo...Kaien...no...' Tears started to leak from his eyes. He could faintly feel the rough texture of gauze around the left side of his face and it was growing damp with tears. He didn't care though. Why couldn't this all just be a dream? He wanted to wake up from this nightmare and go to the beach or the park with Kaien. He wanted proof that this wasn't real.
The sound of nurses coming running at the increased beeping of the heart monitor attached to him could be heard. They tried calming him, but it was useless. He just wanted to see Kaien. He wanted out of here. Why couldn't he speak? It was infuriating.
He faintly felt a needle being pushed into his half numb arm and slowly, he was forced to calm from the sedative pushed into his system. No, this wasn't right. He didn't want to calm down, he wanted to know what was going on! He wanted answers damnit!
Sounds were fading, the light he could faintly see from his one good eye was dimming, his world was going black. One final whimper escaped him before he succumbed to the influence of the drug he was given. The last thing he heard was that faint beeping again, slowing back down it a calm pace...
"We had to sedate him. It seems he woke but was having some sort of fit. It could be simple trauma or it could be the idea of what actually happened. Once he wakes again, just to be sure he doesn't make his injuries worse, we'll keep him on a low sedative that will allow him to function normally, but he'll be in a calm state." A young doctor explained, pushing his glasses up on his straight nose as he looked at the family of his current patient. They all looked a little worse for the ware. The father, a tall, broad, strong looking man with dark brown hair and chocolate eyes looked ready to fall over from exhaustion. The two girls, twins most likely, both looked on the verge of tears as they looked at they're elder brother. The doctor couldn't blame them. The poor boy was lucky to be alive at the moment, and as it was, he would be lucky if he walked or spoke again, "You are free to stay if you wish, but I must insist you get some sleep, sir. If you wish, I can have my nurses bring you something to help you rest."
The man looked up at the doctor and nodded solemnly, "Yeah, alright. Girls...you keep an eye on your brother, ok? He'll need us to be strong for him now." He said, looking at his twin daughters. The darker haired girl, Karin, nodded and scrubbed at her eyes, a determined look on her face while her sister, Yuzu, just sniffled and looked back at the prone form of her nii-san on the bed.
The doctor nodded and walked off to get one of his nurses while the uncharacteristically serious father of the three sat on a chair and reached up to run a hand through his son's bright orange hair, "Stay with us son...I can't loose you so soon after losing you mother." He murmured before looking up at the nurse who entered and nodded, accepting the medicine she handed him to help him sleep. He was not looking forward to having to explain what happened when his son woke from his forced sleep.
His eyelids seemed so heavy, but he could hear muffled voices speaking around him. They were quiet, but slowly growing clearer as his mind woke from the drug induced sleep he had been in. He recognized those voices. Renji, Rukia, Shinji, and his sisters. They were talking about him and the accident. Slowly, he started to open his single working eye, the chocolate colored iris rolling around to look for the owners of the voices.
"Shhhh...he's waking up..." Murmured a voice he knew to be Rukia. He heard a bit of shuffling around before everyone came into his line of sight, "Hey Ichigo." She said gently as his vision strengthened slightly allowing all their faces to become clear, "How you feeling?"
He opened his mouth to answer, but when he couldn't make any sound come out, he closed it again with a frown.
"He can't talk. The doctor said when the explosion hit him, a bit of shrapnel damaged his vocal cords." That was Karin, "If he does speak again, it won't be until they fully healed."
"Oh...damn...that sucks, eh, Strawberry?" And that was Renji. The only person who believed he could get away with calling Ichigo that. Damn not being able to speak, he'd rip the red head a new one. For now, a glare would work. Then he remembered the gauze around his face and lifted one arm that felt like led to his face to run his fingers over the rough material.
"You had a bit of glass get lodged in your eye. They managed to get it out, but the doctor thinks it completely ruined your sight and you probably won't be able to see out of that eye again." Yuzu told him, in her soft, ever caring voice.
Great. Half blind, mute, what else could be wrong with him?
"Both of your legs are busted in about three places." Could Shinji read his mind or something?
The teen on the bed heaved a sigh and closed his working eye. After a few moments it flew back open as he thought of something.
Kaien.
Where was Kaien?
He started looking around, past his friends and family as if maybe his boyfriend would pop out and surprise him.
The small group all looked at each other before Rukia sighed and bit her lip, "Uh...Ichigo...Kaien...he...er...he's dead..." She murmured softly.
Ichigo froze at hearing that and turned his working eye to her, his body trembling.
'No...that can't be right...no...no...no no no no no no! NOOO!' Tears started to stream down his face and the hand he had near his head covered his face as sobs shook his shoulders.
The small group looked at him, tears streaming down all the girls' faces as they watched one of the strongest people within their small clique completely break down. Through his mother's death, he had stood strong for his family. Through constant teasing and taunts about his looks and hair color, he had pushed through, brushing off the insults like they were nothing. When he was ridiculed for his sexual preference, he held his head high and kept moving forward. Even when his first boyfriend turned into an abusive, possessive son of a bitch, he moved on and stood strong. Now, as they stood around him, looking down at his mangled body, shoulders quaking with sobs, they saw how fragile he truly was. None of them could find the words to say to console him. None could find the strength to hold him. Not one of them knew what to do.
His life had crashed down around him and there wasn't a thing anyone could do.
"Hey Ichigo." Called the familiar voice of Renji from the doorway to the single patient hospital room.
Thanks to having to stick around for a while, Ichigo had been moved to a semi personal hospital room. Instead of the stark white that other rooms had, this one was shades of blue. The walls were a soft pastel blue, the sheets and blanket wrapped around Ichigo just a few shades darker. The floor and ceiling were still white, but the room looked more like something one could actually be comfortable in. The monitors and such were still around, but they were tucked out of the way until they were actually needed.
At hearing Renji enter, Ichigo looked away from the window he had been looking out of and towards his red-haired friend. He lifted a hand and motioned for him to come over and sit down, his single working eye, the other kept closed since he hated having it open, curious as to what was in the bag his friend held.
Renji chuckled a little at seeing confusion and curiosity in his friend's eye and moved to sit on the chair beside his bed, "I know how much you were getting bored in here, so I got you a few things." He said before reaching in the bag and pulling out an Edgar Allan Poe book. He snickered a little at the way Ichigo's eye lit up at seeing the book and he reached out to snatch it away, "I knew how much you liked that guy's stuff, I dunno why though...he writes creepy shit." Renji grumbled, suppressing a small shudder that made Ichigo grin, his eye twinkling with laughter that couldn't be heard, "Oh quit laughin at me ya ass..." Renji grumbled as he reached in the bag again and pulled out a small hand held game of blackjack, "I figured between this and the book, you wouldn't be as bored." He explained, setting the game on the table while Ichigo flipped through the book.
After a few moments of looking through the book, Ichigo set it to the side and leaned over to pull Renji into a hug, his lips forming the words 'thank you' against the bigger male's shoulder.
"No problem Ichi." Renji muttered, returning the hug. A soft mental frown tugged at his mind, however, at the memory of a note that he had seen on the orangette's door when he went to take care of Ichigo's cat the last time, "Hey...Ichi...whatever happened to that guy you dated a few years ago before movin out here?"
Ichigo pulled back and frowned a bit in thought before his face paled a bit before snatching up the pen and paper he had to communicate with everyone. He flipped to a clean sheet and scrawled out the message, 'Please tell me you aren't talking about Shiro...'
"Was that his name?" Renji asked, frowning a little at the nod before looking at what his friend wrote.
'He was sent to prison for abuse...he only had a year though...I haven't heard from him since.'
Renji sighed and ran a hand through his hair before pulling a note from his pocket, "I think you should read this." He muttered, handing it to the orangette.
Ichigo gulped a little before taking it with a shaking hand and unfolding it.
'Hey there, my sweet little strawberry,
Have you missed me? I've missed you. It was so mean of you to send me to jail then run away and hide from me. You should have known I'd find you sooner or later. Well, I found you. Do me a favor, Berry, don't let me see you with anyone else, kay? Hate to have another episode like the accident. I really didn't mean for you to get hurt that bad. You forgive me, right? It doesn't matter. Just know, I'm watching you, my strawberry, and no one else can have what's mine.
With lots of love,
Snowy.'
When Ichigo finished reading the note, he was shaking so bad that the bed was creaking slightly. He looked up from the note, his head darting this way and that before he shredded the note and, as quickly as his casted legs would allow, dove under the blankets, his form still shaking.
Renji frowned at this display and raked a hand through his hair. Why had he shown Ichigo that note...?