Tim awoke with a soft groan and forced his eyes open, immediately shutting them again when the light hit them. His head was killing him. The throbbing was near the point of unbearable, but he of course had suffered through worse. Again his eyelids raised just a bit, the action taking much more effort than it should have. It was not hard for him to deduce the fact that he was on the forest floor; then again, what else was new. Shifting his right hand a bit, his fingertips brushed the nightmarish white plastic of that God-forsaken mask and he shuddered internally.
After several moments of waiting for his body to regain feeling again, he pushed himself into a sitting position with his left arm and tried to ignore the chill of the morning air that stung his hands and cheeks and made his teeth threaten to chatter together. Through power of will he managed to prevent that reflex. He really did not need to add additional intensity to the pain in his already-pounding head. There was something… off. Tim didn't feel as alone as he usually did when he woke up in such a state.
An inspection of the area surrounding him was no help as to why he would feel that he was not alone, so he grudgingly forced his stiff limbs to move, eventually managing to get into an upright position. He lifted his right hand and combed his fingers through his dark-brown hair to get his bangs out of his face, ignoring the fact that they promptly returned to their original inconvenient position across his eye. There was no one there, so he decided he would have a look around the perimeter in case maybe someone was just outside of his field of vision. Once he got moving his legs seemed to protest a bit less against the movement, and he crossed his arms tightly over his chest in an attempt to seep any warmth out of the red flannel he was wearing. It honestly was failing to provide any relief to the cold, but his arms remained crossed nonetheless.
For a while there was nothing. Occasionally glancing over his shoulder, or fighting with his unruly hair to maybe get it to stay out of his face, Tim trekked on until he caught a glimpse of a dirty, and somewhat bloodstained, leg clothed in light blue denim that was protruding from the brush just off the main path. Are they dead? The thought blinked through his mind and only a moment later he was tearing at the brush in hopes of freeing whoever it was that was buried beneath. The concealment was definitely intentional based on the manner in which it was done, but who could possibly have done it? There was never anyone out there, really. Except for Tim.
He pulled away the branches, leaves, and other various types of foliage until the person was fully uncovered. They had a hooded sweatshirt on, and seemed to be lying facedown. Taking a moment to study the clothing of the unconscious—or possibly dead –person, he again raked his hand through his hair, only this time in a slightly bewildered gesture. There was no way. It couldn't be. Just to make sure, he tentatively walked closer and crouched down, rolling the person onto their back in order to get a look at their face. The act was somewhat unhelpful, since the individual was masked. Black face cover with a red frown on it, which sent a new shiver up Tim's spine. Despite his unease he reached shaking hands toward the figure's hood and pushed it back, pulling the mask off. Maybe this time it was someone new under there, right? It had to be… right?
"NO!" Tim shrieked, shaking his head. This could not be happening again. Especially not like this. He had heard that history repeats itself many times in his life. Compared to this, the Operator's reappearance was a welcome trade for sure. Once he came back to his senses, he checked for a pulse and breathed a sigh of relief at the discovery of a faint throb beneath his fingers. Holding back any further emotion, the best he could, he grabbed the other by the shoulders and lightly shook him; the motion was hardly enough to move the other, since Tim couldn't seem to bring himself to risk accidentally making the situation worse. Rocking back on his heels, he huffed softly and glanced over his shoulder in hopes that, miraculously, someone would be standing there. Maybe there would be someone that knew what to do. His head quickly snapped back toward the other as he heard the faintest of whimpers come from the allegedly unconscious form.
"Brian? Can you hear me?" Tim's voice was quiet, somewhat desperate, almost pleading with his friend.
The reply was a repeat of the previous noise, and he hurried to get behind Brian to help him into a sitting position. He winced any time his friend whined or flinched, since he was worried beyond belief that this idea was only making things worse. Once the other man was in a somewhat upright sitting position, Tim maneuvered him a bit so that he was propped against the trunk of a tree.
"I need to see what the injuries are, okay?" As he spoke, he carefully moved Brian's hood a bit more and hissed almost inaudibly through his teeth at a rather large impact wound on the side of the other's head. Willing himself to continue examining, he did not come across any other noteworthy wounds; bruises on his arms, but that could be from anything. The only concern, then, was the wound on his head.
Brian had sat through all of the gentle examination of his injuries without too may more whimpers. Once Tim was finished, he tilted his head slightly up and barely whispered "Tim?" After opening his eyes the slightest crack, he gasped sharply and flinched backward, consequently bouncing his head off the tree behind him with a sharp cry of pain before lifting his hands up to his head to gently cradle it and try to soothe the pain a bit. He was trembling and whimpering, and obviously terrified at that exact moment. "Don't," he managed through the pained whines and the haze that seemed to be surrounding him.
Tim's eyes widened and he took a step back away from his injured friend. Reflexively, his teeth clamped down on his lower lip, worrying it a bit while he tried to make sense of the situation. After glancing down at himself, then back toward the direction he had come to get to that spot, he found it extremely difficult to fight off the tears that stung the back of his eyes. He did this. He never wanted to hurt him. Not again.
Hands rose in front of him in a gesture meant to show that he had no intention of harming Brian; he retraced the step that he had retreated a few moments before. Frowning at the way his friend flinched whenever he moved, Tim slowly crouched down next to him again and cautiously touched his shoulder with his fingertips. The contact drew another fearful gasp from the injured man, causing him to retract his hand and have no choice but to close his eyes to keep his tears at bay.
Once he was as composed as he could be, Tim made another attempt to get his hair to stay out of his face before speaking in a gentle, if not frantic, tone. "Brian, I'm not… going to hurt you. Please, I'm only trying to help."
"No," the other responded weakly, sobbing and pleading incoherently for the other not to hurt him. Somewhere in his mutterings was something along the lines of being tired and it being dark, but the majority of his panic was fear of Tim possibly hurting him "again."
Listening to the way that Brian was crying and begging hurt. It made his head throb more and the fact that he was the reason for him to be so scared and wounded made his stomach churn. Regardless of the fact that it was not necessarily Tim, in a sense, it was still he that Brian was afraid of, his hands that had harmed him, and him that had tried to hide the deed. The entire situation sent his head reeling and he could not seem to form the words to reassure him that he was not going to harm him any more. He couldn't lie to Brian; telling him that he promised he wouldn't would be just that. A lie. He did not know for sure that he wouldn't. Hands tangling into dark locks of hair, he knelt in the dirt and leaves that covered the forest floor and shook his head. Tears rolled unbidden from his eyes as he tried desperately to find some way to get the other to allow him to help before it was too late.
Slowly, Tim lowered his hands from his head and scooted somewhat closer to Brian. "Listen, if you can still hear me." His voice was barely above a whisper as he attempted to soothe him. "I'm sorry. Please let me help. I don't want you to die." 'Die' was the most difficult word for him to say. It hooked on the lump in his throat, and he had to tear it loose. All he could manage to free from his emotions was a raspy breath that somewhat formed the word.
Hearing the desperation and genuine grief in Tim's words, Brian seemed to calm down slightly. He was still tense and shaking, but at the very least he had ceased his pleas. Tears glistened on his cheeks when he looked up again, his eyelids barely in the lead against gravity as he did so. "So tired, T…Tim." With that, the fight between will and physics ended and Brian lost consciousness once more, slumping over toward the other man.
Eyes widening again, he caught Brian as he fell and carefully lifted him into a sitting position once more. Another glance around informed him that, as he expected, no one else was out in the cold in the middle of the woods, at who knows what time of the morning. At least it was daylight. For all Tim knew it could be way later now, but in reality he had only spent maybe fifteen minutes there with his friend. By then he had stopped feeling the sting of the winter air; he was too focused on trying to keep Brian alive to worry about his own well-being. Chewing on his lower lip thoughtfully, he looked toward the path he knew led out of Rosswood and mentally attempted to calculate the distance from where they were to the parking lot. A moment passed where he considered the chance that neither of their cars was even there. Tim shook his head slightly and positioned his arms so that his left arm was behind the other's knees and the other was supporting him beneath his arms from behind. Lifting him carefully in a bridal-style position, he tested his hold before starting off toward the parking lot at a brisk pace.
The entire walk was full of muttered apologies to the unconscious man, stopping every hundred feet to be sure he was still breathing, and futile assurances that he would be okay. After what seemed like an eternity, he breached the tree line and crossed the grass as he scanned the parking lot and immediately redirected his route to approach his car as soon as humanly possible. Carefully, he shifted his hold enough to be able to try the handle of the back driver's side door, then opened the door with a barely audible "thank God" at the fact the door was already unlocked. He was very gentle as he situated Brian into the back seat, cringing at the amount of blood that had matted his soft dark curls. Once he was sure that he would be safe in the back, Tim shut the door and quickly climbed into the driver's seat, fumbling with the keys that had already been in the ignition as he registered that his hands were numb from the cold. A few murmured curses slipped through his lips as he continued to fight the keys and eventually got the car started, door shut, and his seatbelt secured. "Just hold on a little longer…"
As he pulled out, Tim set his jaw into a worried frown. He hoped beyond hope that he wasn't too late. The seconds felt like they were being dragged through cold molasses as he drove toward the hospital. How he was going to explain this to the ER he had no idea, but he would think on his toes when that came up. For now, his only intent was to keep Brian alive. He had to make sure he made it out of this alive. He could never forgive himself a second time, just like he had never fully forgiven himself the first time either.
Another fifteen minutes passed before the car was nestled haphazardly into one of the only available parking spots near the door to the emergency room. Ignoring the woman on the sidewalk that raised her perfectly painted eyebrow at him for driving recklessly, he aggressively clicked the release button on his safety belt and jumped out of the car. Wrenching open the back door he continued to pay no mind to the woman's staring as he gently lifted Brian out of the back seat and kicked the door shut. The door did not latch fully, but by the time it had reunited with the frame, Tim was already halfway to the automatic door. Impatient muttering was barely more than frantic breaths coming from his lips as he entered the ECU at the mercy of the motion-censor doors. Once in he all but ran to the first available person at the desk with half-coherent pleas to help his friend.
"Yes of course, I'll call in and get someone right away," the brunette behind the counter replied, and moments later a man in a surgical mask came around the corner with a wheelchair, instructing Tim to put the unconscious man into it. He obliged hesitantly and stepped back a bit, crossing his arms in an attempt to quell the shaking in his hands. This proved to be a hopeless cause, and he only stood there as the doctors whisked Brian away into a room to get him patched up while meanwhile waiting for the word that he had been admitted to an actual room, rather than one in the emergency care unit.
At the word of the brunette that had called for the care of Brian, Tim sat in one of the armchairs that furnished the waiting room. Generally these were the first to be claimed, but the ECU was fairly empty aside from him, the woman, and a middle-aged man on the other side of the room. He sat near the edge of the cushion on the chair, turned slightly to rest his right elbow on the armrest and in turn his chin on his hand. He couldn't seem to stop fidgeting and looking around.
"What happened," the brunette inquired, an almost motherly concern behind her question.
Without missing a beat, he sighed and looked at her with all the worry that he had going through his mind reflected in his dark eyes. "We were hiking," he replied softly, sounding as if the smallest push would cause him to burst into tears. "He fell…" Squeezing his eyes shut, Tim turned away again and shook his head slightly. "I hope I got here in time…"
The woman rested a hand on his knee. Honestly she had the most maternal atmosphere about her, and he couldn't bring himself to so much as ask her not to touch him. The slight gesture proved to be comforting, in a way, but it couldn't stop his suppressed tears from finding their way down his cheeks as his shoulders shook and he sobbed softly. Half of his shaking was from the cold, but he simply could not physically keep his emotions inside any more at that point.
Disappearing for a minute, the motherly woman soon returned with a blanket and a box of tissues, gently draping the blanket around Tim's shaking frame and setting the tissues on the arm of the chair. "I'm sure he'll be okay. That wound looked fresh, and head wounds always seem to bleed more than they actually do. There's hope yet." Offering a sympathetic smile that Tim failed to find it in him to return, she ducked back behind the counter to her station.
Another half an hour passed. He had managed to stop crying, at least. The blanket was warm, and in the time it took to get himself under control again he was no longer cold. He had just begun to doze off when the motherly woman approached him once again and gently touched his shoulder to get his attention.
"Your boyfriend is in room 305. You can go see him now. The doctors need you to fill out some paperwork, since you seem to be out of your shock now."
A slight flush colored his cheeks and he muttered a soft "thanks" to the woman as he untangled himself from the blanket and went to fold it. The brunette took the blanket from him with a bit of gentle urgency and smiled at him, and he thanked her again and quickly made his way to the room mentioned. He's not though. We're just friends… Tim honestly was not that sure why that assumption stuck in his head the way it did, or maybe he was, but nonetheless he shook his head and focused on getting to room 305.
Once he had entered the room he approached one of the two doctors and crossed his arms to again attempt to control his shaking. "Is he gonna be alright?"
The doctor took a moment to respond, filling the momentary silence by reaching over to the counter to retrieve a clipboard and a pen and hand them to Tim. "He's not doing so well right now. We don't know when he'll wake up. But he's breathing, and seems to have a steady pulse rate." He glanced up at the heart monitor as he spoke. "We have him hooked up to intravenous fluids in order to rehydrate him. It seems he lost quite a lot of blood. Not as much as it looked like, however." Another pause, and the man tapped the paper on the clipboard that was now in Tim's hand. "We need you to fill this out. There's a section on here for cause of injury, which is something I'm actually very curious about."
"We were hiking," Tim muttered, "and he fell." This little lie, even having only been told twice now, was beginning to feel more or less natural as an explanation of Brian's injury.
The doctor nodded, looked over at Brian, and then nodded once more. "It gets slick in the winter," he warned. "It's not safe to be up on the rocks. You kids should know that." With that, he and his partner walked out, shutting the door behind them.
The man located a plastic chair with a worn cushion and dragged it over next to the bed. Sitting in the chair backwards, he rested the clipboard on the back of it to hold it up while he filled out the paperwork required. This task took around ten minutes, and once finished he stood and set the clipboard on the counter with the pen rested on top of it. Returning to his chair, Tim sat in it correctly and clasped his hands together in his lap, staring at them the majority of the time aside from whenever he would glance up to see if, by chance, Brian had woken up. This off chance never seemed to come, and eventually he gave up on looking altogether.
Deep in thought, he jumped when the doctor that had handed him the clipboard swung the door open. He strode in and straight to the counter, flipping through the paperwork with mock interest and a practiced false seriousness intensified by his "uh huh" and "interesting." It took almost everything in Tim to not shift around uncomfortably while the doctor went over what he had written. Clearing his throat loudly, the doctor set the clipboard back down on the counter.
"Someone will be in periodically to check his vitals and change his fluid drip. You're welcome to stay as long as you like, since you brought him in." Again the doctor left the room, tugging the door shut with one gloved hand as he pulled off his surgical mask with the other.
Tim scooted his chair a bit closer to the bed, resting his arm on the edge of the mattress and his chin behind his arm. "You have to wake up," he murmured, tilting his head down to hide his face in his arm. A shaky sigh tore through his chest and he could do nothing to stop the tears from returning as he brought his other arm up to cross with the first so he could better hide his face.
The next thing he knew someone was standing next to him, fiddling with the bag that hooked to the IV line. Blinking away the bleariness of sleep, Tim registered that this was the person that he was informed would periodically be in to check on Brian and, as the woman was doing just then, change the fluid for the IV. He could not for the life of him recall falling asleep, but God did his neck hurt from being in that strange position for however long he had been out. A glance at Brian told him that his friend still had yet to regain consciousness, and he sighed sadly, drawing the attention of the nurse that was then taking the unconscious man's temperature. She smiled sadly at him and gave a sympathetic nod, then turned to her clipboard and scribbled down a few numbers before walking out of the room.
Rising to his feet, the man tugged the sleeves of his flannel up to just below his elbows and glanced at the tight bandages that were wrapped around Brian's head. Without even really thinking about it, he reached a tentative hand up to gently brush his fingertips across the other's cheek, and then moved to lightly brush his hair off his forehead. Tim returned his hand to its original position of being interlocked with his other, then sat on the edge of the hospital bed and stared at his hands that he had rested on his lap once again.
The softest whine was emitted from Brian, and the other hardly noticed it until another noise was made, that one being one of sleepy confusion. Softly shushing his friend, Tim looked over at him, a worried frown on his lips and his eyebrows knit together to match. "Brian? Are you awake?"
"Where… am I…" he murmured back, eyelids fluttering before lifting slightly. "Tim..?"
Finding himself unable to contain the joy he felt at Brian being awake, he smiled brightly, eyes reflecting his relief despite the crystalline glimmers in the corners of them. Gently, and yet excitedly, Tim leaned over and hugged his friend, hiding his face between his shoulder and neck. "Brian, you're awake," he observed with a trembling chuckle. After that he was silent, all attempts at speech drowned by his tears of relief.
When the nurse returned to take Brian's vitals again, she paused in the door and leaned against the frame to simply observe the scene. The patient was awake; the person that brought him in was all but clinging to him and crying, while the patient had his arms loosely draped around the other guy. It was truly a beautiful sight to behold. The raw emotion in the display was far too much for her to justify interrupting, and so the nurse chose to wait in the doorway. When the two showed no signs of ending their moment, she decided she would just come back in a little while instead and left.
Once he had finally gotten his tears in check, Tim dared to lift his head to look at the other. "Brian… I… I'm so sorry…"
Visibly flinching at the apology, he shook his aching head a bit. "It," he started, then gave up and simply shook his head again.
"But… I d-"
Whatever Tim was about to say was interrupted when Brian's lips were gently pressed to his. The kiss was brief, but effective in stopping him from apologizing any more. In fact, Tim honestly had no idea what to say to that. When he tried to form a sentence in his mind, the words just wouldn't make sense. Eventually he managed to speak, but it was only a somewhat confused and very soft "What…"
Brian shushed him and managed a slight smile, though it wad evident in his eyes that he was still in a lot of pain. Tim opened his mouth to apologize, but as soon as the word was started another quick, soft kiss was pressed to his lips. Just to test a theory, he tried out another apology, with the same result as the last two times.
"No apologizing," he whispered, nudging Tim with his left arm—the one the IV was not in—to try to convince him in not so many words not to leave.
Catching the hint, Tim shifted a bit, his arms moving to wrap around Brian to the best of his ability on the hospital bed and nuzzling his neck gently. He smiled when the other pressed a few soft kisses to the top of his head, responding by gently kissing his neck. A few moments of silence passed before either of them spoke.
"You wanna hear something interesting?" Tim asked in a voice hardly above a whisper.
"Hmm?" was the response, the questioning hum sounding drowsy and content.
"The lady at the counter assumed that you were my… boyfriend."
Before responding, Brian chuckled softly and kissed the top of Tim's head affectionately. "Well, am I?"
That definitely had not been the answer he expected. The man's face heated up and he was certain that if he had not been hiding like he was, his blush would be evident from a mile away. "I… yeah. Yeah, you are."