Yay, super quick longish update! The only reason this update came so fast was because I already had this part written (despite wishing to, I can't write 10,000 words in one day. Darn), so I figured I'd just post it while I had it. Please don't get used to it, though, the next update really won't be for another week! This one is special cuz it's already done! :)
BUT...enough of my babbling. I'm really happy with the way this chapter turned out, blank and emotionless but with a little dash of Mitch's original persona. His character is slightly difficult to tackle, as he's usually sassy and confident, and while his memory is gone, he's a lot more detached. I tried the best I could to nail his queenliness down, so we'll see how it went.
Oh, and a huge thank you to Hawk03, who not only reviewed the first chapter of this story but also recommended Scomiche Oneshots on their profile! Like what kind of awesome human being does that? Seriously, thank you so much, that means a lot to me :)
Thank you for your reviews, favorites, and follows! Read away!
Things started to change very quickly after Scott's voice visited him.
To begin with, the room he lied on his bed in got less cold. That was definitely a much-needed improvement. However, the reason behind the room getting less cold was the fact that people began to enter it. People were warm and saw and opened doors, but the thing that really shocked him was that they spoke. And not only to each other, but to him, too!
It was rare that more than one voice talked to him at once. A voice that was way deep, as deep as the ocean he wanted to dump his head into, deeper than the deepest bedrock ever found, explained that the doctors (he still didn't know what they were, why they were watching him, or what they meant by 'pulling the plug') almost never let more than one person visit him at the same time. He was partly okay with this, because the voices were so new and brought so much change and didn't seem to notice how quickly they did so and hey, it was hard to keep up. But another part of him was not so okay with this, because he liked the voices and their warmth and that they kept him company. It was nice.
Even though certain voices made his head hurt more than others, it was still nice.
There was one voice that was high, tinkling, and smooth, and it sounded like it might belong to a girl. It always chatted to him about her day; what make up she had bought, how her pets called dogs were doing, and how her singing was developing. Every single time it talked to him, her girlish voice introduced itself as Kirstie. He liked the name and he liked her voice. But sometimes he couldn't help but forget it. Her name made his head hurt quite a bit.
The deep ocean voice who explained things a lot almost always came with somebody. That somebody more often than not sounded like drums. Or whirring. Or mimicked the beeping, which they did quiet well. He really liked listening to them both talk and occasionally hum to him. They were Avi and Kevin. He mixed up which name belonged to which voice a lot.
Another pair of voices that visited him called themselves 'Mom' and 'Dad'. His parents. They always referred to him as Mitch, or Mitchell.
Actually, when he really thought about it, all of the voices called him Mitch. It was a little weird at first, but he got used to it. Scott's voice mixed him up a little, because his chocolate tone wouldn't just call him Mitch like everybody else, but Mitchie or honey or sweetheart. He liked whenever Scott's voice called him sweetheart. It made his bones tingle faintly.
His voice hurt the most. By far. Scott's voice made the core of the pain in his brain throb terribly sometimes, and oh god, did he want it to stop. And yet, at the same time, Scott's voice made him feel the lightest, and the kind of tired that didn't make him feel like he was being dragged into sleep. There was not a long length of time that passed before his voice would come back. His pretty voice visited thrice as often as the others.
He seldom forgot the name attached to the first voice that had visited him. He made sure not to. It would be sin.
He wondered if the voices visited him while he slept. Probably. They had no way of telling whether he was awake or not.
As the days (finally, he had some way of measuring time!) went forward, the voices got more and more nervous, and the more and more they mentioned 'pulling the plug'. Whatever that meant, it made the voices anxious and wobbly, and they would stop talking and hold his hand and then the wetness would arrive. They never asked anything of him. They never asked him about pulling the plug.
Until now.
"Good morning, beautiful." Scott's voice was back again. A silent, almost invisible yay travelled through his nerves. And he had called him...beautiful? What did that word mean? Hopefully nothing bad, but Scott's voice hadn't called him anything that sounded bad before, so why would he start now? "How are you doing? The ladies at Starbucks miss you. You know Layla, the girl who always takes our orders right away, and she has the nose piercing? She keeps on getting me two coffees because I always go there with you. Double coffee. I don't think my nerves can handle it, though, so she gets me one now. On the house, too. She's really nice to me."
Scott paused his voice to make a yawning sound. After he was done, he held his hand and used his thumb to rub circles onto his knuckles. It felt nice. He wanted to open his eyes and see what Scott's voice looked like. His eyes were still too sticky.
Damn.
The one-sided conversation continued, the voice that belonged to Scott talking easily and only breaking a little every now and then, while he just listened contently. There came a point later when suddenly the pretty voice stopped and didn't say anything for a while.
"I know it has to be hard for you." Scott said. Oh, no. His voice was shaking something violent. "B-But I need you to try and come back, Mitch. They're going to pull the p-p-plug in three days and we can't stop them. Unless you move, or you b-blink, honey, they're going to pull the plug."
It came to him that pulling the plug wasn't necessarily a good thing.
"I need you to try. Okay? Can you do that? Try and move or blink?" Warmth brushed his cheek. Scott. The warmth was always Scott. "It's difficult, I know, but you have to try. I can't..." Here his pretty voice stopped and there was a sniffling sound. There the wetness was. "I can't let you go. I'm not ready. Please stay here with me, Mitch."
A familiar indifference lurked in his mind, with a slight bit of longing thrown in for good measure. It was what he always felt whenever Scott's voice pleaded with him; he wanted to appease the voice, make it so that it didn't sound like it hurt anymore, but some sort of weight held him back. He wasn't willing to push it off. Pushing the weight hurt and it was tiring and it took effort that he simply didn't have.
Or did he?
"Please try." Now Scott's voice was small, tiny, still pretty but attempting to hide its prettiness behind a mask. "I know that you can at least try. You're strong. You're strong and sassy and the best singer I know. Better than Beyoncé." Scott laughed quietly, but it carried a weird hollowness to it. His hand was held a little tighter. "You can get through this, Mitchie."
There came a noise from the door (that he had worked out was twenty or less feet away from his bed). Knocking. Somebody wanted to join.
"Hey, Scott." It was the high girly voice. She sounded strained. What was her name...oh right! Kirstie! "The doc says you have to leave now. They're running their last brain scan."
"Okay." There was quiet. Then lips pressed themselves to his forehead, followed by a whispered, "I love you, Mitch. I'll be back soon."
The two people left. Nobody was in the room with the exception of him.
It was then that he decided that he wanted to try.
He was going to try for Scott's voice.
Okay. So. How did he go about doing that?
Three days. That's how much time he had to figure this out. Three days...which was...uh...seventy two hours! That's right! One day was twenty four hours, and that times three was seventy two! Okay, okay, this was good, he was discovering things again. The beeping sped up a little. Excitement was starting to course through him. This was really good. What else could he find out before he started to try?
Mitch...god, but that name sounded as familiar as the name Scott. What did it mean? He'd always cast the term to the side absentmindedly, thinking he'd ponder over it later, but now...he had to decode it. What did it-
Bright hot pain shot through his skull. He would've winced if he could, and instead screamed very loudly inside of his head. Because he knew. He remembered. He wasn't just him, he had a name too, just like the voices.
My name is Mitch! The words floated in the front of his brain. Boldly and plain in sight and they stayed there like they were solid fact. That was his name. Even better: My name is Mitchell Coby Michael Grassi, but the voices call me Mitch!
This was so amazing! His best discovery yet by a long shot. Would the voices be proud of him? Probably. Mom had said that she was proud of him for still breathing, and breathing was only a little difficult, so maybe they'd be proud of him for something that was a lot difficult. Like remembering his name.
He remembered his own fucking name!
And he did it all by himself!
Fuck yes!
Mitch heard the beeping increase in pace as his excitement grew and grew. Although, if his name was Mitch, then why did Scott's voice call him Mitchie and honey and sweetheart and beautiful? Were those words even good? They sounded nice...they were most likely good. Mitch would have to ask Scott's voice about that.
Oh wait, he'd been so excited that he remembered his name that he forgot what he was doing. He was trying. Right. He was trying for the pretty voice that belonged to the name Scott. What was he going to try and do?
I'm going to work up the effort to squeeze his hand. More concrete thought held solid ground in Mitch's mind. The word I was becoming prominent in his brain now, instead of really detached third person narration. He wasn't ready to escape that particular cage just yet, but Mitch was getting there. I am going to squeeze the hand of the prettiest voice.
And so, Mitch learned to use what he knew was limited time as wisely as he could. He had no idea what 'pulling the plug' meant, though he was under the impression it wasn't good, and he only had seventy two hours to prevent it from happening. He could work with that. He could.
Working made Mitch feel slightly bad sometimes, because he had to store up his energy as best as he could, and to do so and build his stamina he had to ignore the voices most of the time.
He had the notion that they wouldn't mind so much after he showed them what he could do.
Hell, after practicing for a bit, the fingers on his right hand could twitch. It was hard, but he could do it. Nobody was ever there to see it happen. Mitch cherished the quiet...victory? Was that the right term?
Finally, Mitch's seventy two hours were almost up. He could tell that they were; there was a lot of buzzing outside of his door, lots of voices, some he recognized and most he didn't. The voices were angry and sad and sometimes yelling. After a few moments they quieted down and the door opened up.
Somebody scraped the chair against the floor and took the spot beside Mitch. They held his hand. Judging by the size and how warm it was, it was the hand that belonged to the pretty nice chocolate voice that called itself Scott.
Perfect.
"Hi, honey. Your beeper's been acting all weird today." Another hand that belonged to the voice of Scott smoothed Mitch's hair from his face gently. "You'd tell it to shut up if you could. It's probably really annoying."
Truer words had never been spoken.
"I really hope you've been trying, Mitchie. That you've been trying for your parents or for the band." No, Mitch wanted to say, I've been trying for you. I've been trying for your voice. "I can only stay a few minutes today...because everybody else w-wants to see you...o-o-one l-last time and I've b-been..." The pretty voice was choking. Like the words it spoke would kill it after exiting its throat. "I've b-b-been h-hoarding you. God, I'm s-such a b-bad person."
Mitch started to mentally, physically, and emotionally gather his strength. This would take a bit to build.
Scott's voice shook, and the hand that belonged to him was clutching Mitch's own very tightly. Good. That would mean the pretty voice would feel it when he clutched it back. "I w-wish I hadn't left you alone in the house th-that day a few weeks ago. I should've stayed h-home w-w-with y-you. I should've. And now you're going to...now you're going to...t-to...please don't leave me...please, Mitch, I won't make it if you..."
Give me one more moment and I will do this. Mitch grabbed his concentration and did not let it go. He didn't allow it to slip, slither, or slide. No. Not this time. He was going to try for the voice. And if he didn't do it, if he couldn't do it, and the plug was pulled, then he would take the consequences knowing he had given everything.
"Don't go...please stay...I-I'm selfish when it comes t-t-to you...please stay here..."
Here it goes. He was going to do it.
"Please..."
Summoning every single morsel of energy in his entire body, Mitch focused all of his strength on his left hand.
And he squeezed.
Scott's voice faltered. His hand froze within Mitch's grasp, unmoving, but warm and there. The entire room stood still long enough for Mitch to wonder if he had done something wrong.
"Mitch, honey, are you there?" The voice had new energy to it, new life, and the hand that belonged to Scott's voice finally squeezed back. The voice turned breathless and airy and even prettier, if that was possible. "Oh my god, Mitch? Oh...my..." It caught itself. "C-Can you...can you squeeze my hand again?"
That one single time had taken much effort from him. But now he was on a roll. Even though his head had begun to hurt like crazy, Mitch refused to let go of his concentration, downright refused, and squeezed the hand of the voice again.
"Oh my god, Mitch, oh my god..." Scott's voice sounded like it was being ripped from him. It gasped and sobbed and sounded like it was in pain. Uh oh. Had squeezing his hand been a mistake? "You're there, you're really there, you're okay, oh my god, Mitch, you're right here and-" The voice paused before calling, "KIRSTIE!"
Mitch heard the door banging open and several pairs of feet barging in. That was strange.
"What, Scott? Jesus, you sounded like you were being murdered-" That was the high girly voice.
"He squeezed my hand."
"Scott, you can't get your hopes up-"
"Kirstie, he squeezed my hand. And then I asked him if he could do it again, and he did."
"He...he what?" Her tone asked.
An unfamiliar tone that was neutral broke in. "You mean to tell me, Mr. Hoying, that Mr. Grassi is responsive?"
"Yes!" The word was almost a sob. "He is, he's in there, he squeezed my hand!"
There was a lot of shuffling and the noise of people moving around, and then the hand of the voice that belonged to Scott went away abruptly. It was replaced by a hand closer to the size of Mitch's own, cool in temperature, nails slightly sharp. That same neutral tone that seemed feminine asked him slowly, "Mr. Grassi, can you squeeze my hand?"
Mitch surprised himself by finding he was able to. As long as he held onto his concentration, he could do it. So he repeated the action.
Several gasps sucked some of the air from the room.
"Mr. Grassi, I need to communicate with you in the only way we can, okay?" The neutral tone had gained a bit of vigor. "One squeeze is yes, two squeezes is no." Her feminine voice said carefully, "Are you in pain?"
Okay, if her voice wanted him to answer questions with yes or no, then she had to ask yes or no questions. His head was killing him, but his body felt okay. How the hell was Mitch supposed to convey that? He settled for not doing anything. Because really. Come on.
"You're asking something that's not yes or no." Scott's pretty voice spoke up from a few feet away. Whoa. That was weird. Could he read Mitch's mind?
"You're right, Mr. Hoying. Mr. Grassi, does your head hurt?"
One squeeze.
"Nurse Roberta, could you get some fresh bandages, and a few milligrams of mild head trauma medication?" More shuffling commenced. Was that the sound of crying he heard? "Can you hear me properly?"
One squeeze. The more Mitch did it, the easier it became.
"Last question for now, Mr. Grassi, last question; do you know who or where you are?"
That was also a mixed question. He truly didn't know. All Mitch knew about himself was his name, and all he knew about where he was located was the fact that it smelled sharp and stale and he was on a bed in a room with an awful contraption next to him that never stopped beeping. But to put it simply...
Two squeezes. He really, really didn't.
"That's quite alright, Mr. Grassi, that's to be expected. You don't have to know right now." The voice beside him assured. It wasn't as pretty as Scott's voice. None of the voices were. And their hands never made him feel as safe, either. "I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to ask you all to leave. I know that this is a very exciting and happy thing, but Mr. Grassi has just confirmed that he is in no mindset to process the amount of data your presence brings. And his head is in pain. That must be dealt with right away."
"How long will that take? How long until we get to see him?" Deep-as-the-ocean voice asked quietly.
"We can't be sure just yet. A few weeks at best. The doctors will come in, check on him often, and run a tests. At this rate, after patients gain minor motor control, their control over their body greatly increases within a short span of time. In a few hours, he might open his eyes." There was another collective gasp, and a few more sobs. "That's only if he's lucky and able, folks. Moving is tiring. He's going to be highly confused. We'll have to test his memory and cognitive skills. It's going to take time." Here her voice hesitated. The voice lightly squeezed his hand back. "But it's a start."
Mitch's head felt a lot better. Whether or not that was because he didn't hear the voices talking to him and their tones and names didn't constantly ring bells inside of the part of his mind that hurt, or because somebody had given him pain medication, he wasn't sure. It was probably a mix of both.
Oh, and someone had gotten rid of that damn beeping machine. Thank god. Its shrill beeps no longer rang through Mitch's ears anymore, and had been replaced by a quieter beep that didn't get underneath his skin.
Many more people cluttered around his bed these hours. They rarely spoke, and if they did, it was seldom to him and mostly to each other on the occasion they brought another voice with them. One of the voices, that same feminine serious tone, held his hand and explained part of what was going on; that his name was Mitchell Grassi (which he'd already figured out), and that he'd taken a nasty fall down the stairs, and now he was in the hospital. It took him a while, but he remembered what a hospital was. He had no idea he'd fallen.
He slept less and was aware more. It was a change that wasn't all good and wasn't all bad.
Mitch missed the pretty nice chocolate voice that belonged to Scott, whomever he was. Sometimes he spent hours pondering over what the person the voice belonged to might look like; were they short and thin, tall and thick, did they have green eyes or brown ones, what did their smile look like, how was one to describe the way they held themselves or they way they stood, was their appearance as pretty as their voice, and more than anything he wondered what the pretty voice sounded like when it sung. What Scott's pretty voice sounded like when he was singing.
That content fueled many of his daydreams.
However, what also consumed many of Mitch's thoughts was the curiosity of sight. He still had yet to open his eyes, and ever since his hand had first squeezed, he found his eyes becoming less and less sticky. Should he try? What could it hurt?
The serious feminine voice was holding his hand, saying nothing save that she was just going to check his vitals (what were those?), when Mitch squeezed her hand particularly tightly and did not let go for a solid ten seconds. It was the only way he could get her attention.
"Mr. Grassi? Are you alright?"
I'm more than alright. Mitch had grown used to his thoughts being distinct and unmovable unless he ordered them away. He liked the power he was slowly learning to command over his mind. The pain in his head fought him a lot, and sometimes it won, but Mitch was winning a few battles as well. I am going to open my eyes and hopefully it won't kill me.
So he did what he had done he-had-no-idea-how-long-ago (Mitch assumed only a couple days had passed since he'd first squeezed the hand of the prettiest voice); he gathered his energy, carefully peeled the tape from his eyelids, and opened his eyes.
Okay, ow, BRIGHT-ASS LIGHT! OW OW OW!
THIS WAS IMMENSLY PAINFUL.
Mitch wanted to close his eyes as soon as he had opened them. His eyes painfully retracted at the sudden brightness, a blinding white crispness he wasn't used to, but after he blinked many times his eyeballs ached less and things came into focus. Wow. Blinking felt nice.
"Mr. Grassi, can you tilt your head to the side so you can see me?"
Oh, god, he'd already opened his eyes, now he had to move, too?
Mitch turned his head slower than a sloth would've, to look at the space next to him. He was going to see who the feminine voice belonged to! For the first time ever, he was going to see what people looked like when you paired their voice with their appearance!
The serious voice and the cool hand belonged to a middle-aged-looking woman. Her hair was light brown and pulled up into a bun, and her almond-shaped, light brown eyes were gazing back at him steadily, her thin mouth caught between pursing or curling. She wore a long white coat that had a pocket in it filled with pens and pencils, and attached to said pocket was a tiny picture of her and her name. She seemed a little blurry around her edges.
He stared at the words for a moment in an attempt to decipher them. He read them over and over. They didn't register in his head. They were just there. Which meant Mitch wouldn't know her name unless she told him.
He didn't have to worry.
"Hello, Mr. Grassi." Her mouth lifted in a small smile. She lifted her other hand so that it was clasped on top of their joined ones. "My name is Dr. Rosin. I'm your temporary doctor." She nodded slightly at him. "You're doing really well so far. Do you know if you can speak?"
Mitch simply looked at her. Speak? As in, open his mouth and use the vocal chords he could feel there, vocal chords that hadn't vibrated in so long they resembled dusty reeds? She wanted him to use those?
Two squeezes. He wasn't sure yet.
"That's fine." Dr. Rosin nodded again. "It's very good that you're responding, and it's good that you opened your eyes, too. Can you move your head more?"
For the next hour or two, Mitch worked with Dr. Rosin on rolling his neck, popping certain stiff areas (doing so made him start a little but cracking those spots made him feel a lot better), and blinking. It was tiring exercise. However, by the end of it, Mitch was able to move his head any way he wanted, which was quite useful for seeing things, and it no longer hurt to use his eyes to look around. Occasionally his arms sizzled, control of the nerves there sparking, and he had the vague notion that soon he'd be able to move his arms as well as his head.
That was actually kind of exciting.
Dr. Rosin was pleased. "You're doing a lot better than most patients do at this point, Mr. Grassi, especially with the amount of trauma your brain went through during the aftermath of your fall. Does it pain you to move your head or blink?"
Two squeezes.
"Excellent."
Mitch didn't know what that word meant, but he found that the people like Dr. Rosin, with their long white coats filled to the brim with pens and pencils, told him that a lot over the course of the following days. Because instead of the usual laying down in bed all day, holding the hands of voices, unmoving and unresponsive, now Mitch's days had flipped dramatically.
Now, whenever he woke up from sleep that was a lot less forced than it used to be, his quieter beeper would flash a little purple light and soon a doctor (he figured out that they were the ones who worked in hospitals) would enter the room. Most of the time it was Dr. Rosin. They would grasp his left hand if they needed to ask a question (their touch was never as gentle or welcoming as the touch of the voices before them. Speaking of which...he missed them) and ask clipped yes or no inquires that if he didn't respond fast enough to, they asked again. Mitch preferred the nurses over the doctors, especially Nurse Roberta, because at one random point of the day she would sit down and talk with him. Or rather to him.
Mitch was working on overcoming the next major obstacle that stood in his way; speech.
He was working on other things, too. Because when the doctors or Dr. Rosin came to see him in the morning, they made him work. Work on moving his head, and then his neck, and then lifting his aching head off of his pillow in order to change the bandages on it (no wonder his brain always felt so tight). Once he had conquered moving his head, he learned to tilt his shoulders, and he was soon able to lift his arms as well as his torso. It took a lot of time, effort, and pain, but he could do all of it.
In his spare time (Mitch had wads of it. Not as much as before, but still wads), he took it onto himself to memorize the room he was in. It wasn't as hard as he thought it was going to be, as he'd already predicted where the door was and where his bed was in relation to the door, and soon he could describe the entire space in detail; white tile on the floor that was only slightly scuffed, a table beside his bed, a wooden chair that looked very uncomfortable that somebody or other always yanked into a spot next to him (and yet somehow managed to wind up ten feet away), his bed in the middle of the room against the wall, a couple cabinets, and of course the medical equipment that was cluttered to his left and right sides. Mitch was vaguely proud of himself for being able to memorize his room. It was a good brain exercise.
Mitch's spare time wasn't just used up memorizing. The doctors frequently took advantage of the fact that he could do nothing but lie around all day and had taken to playing a few brain games with him. These things he came to know as 'flash cards' were shoved in his face a lot, and he rarely learned anything from them. He tended to shut his eyes or look away whenever a doctor would bring them out. They were boring and he didn't absorb a single thing from them. The words beneath the pictures made no sense. Eventually the doctors stopped with the flash cards, but swore that he'd have to look at them again soon enough.
In the parts of the day where Mitch wasn't resting, or doing grueling...what did Dr. Rosin call it...physical therapy, or being chatted to by kind Nurse Roberta, he thought of the voices.
Specifically the pretty one that sounded like chocolate, with its semi-deep hum and smooth undertone. He missed it and the others. They had talked to him without knowing he was there. Mitch had the inclination that the voices knew him somehow, even though he had no idea who they were, and couldn't squash the curiosity of finding out. They didn't visit him though. He had the feeling the doctors kept them out.
This frustrated him greatly.
Dr. Rosin said that he was getting better. Mitch didn't understand what she meant by that (besides being told he had fallen, he didn't even know why he was in the hospital in the first damn place), because hearing the voices would make him better. He could see who the voices belonged to now. That would make him super better.
God, he missed the voice that belonged to somebody with the name Scott.
"Okay, Mr. Grassi, let's try again."
Mitch ground his teeth together in irritation. On top of gaining mobility of his body back, emotions were starting to come back to him as well. The most he'd felt so far were annoyance, a dash of pride, thoughtfulness, curiosity, impatience, and indifference. He could name them all now. He briefly pondered over what it would be like to feel a huge burst of an emotion called happy, or another feeling he'd heard Nurse Roberta explain, called love. They both sounded nice.
For about the fifteenth time, Mitch cleared his throat, opened his mouth...and nothing came out.
Dr. Rosin pursed her lips in dissatisfaction. She did that a lot. "I think we're going about this the wrong way. Instead of trying to speak and project noise, maybe you should whisper instead. Something a little less intense. Try and do that."
Whispering. That actually sounded appealing. And possible.
Mitch cleared his throat once more. He closed his eyes, concentrated, and breathed in and out, letting it whistle through his lungs. Well, trying was at least worth a shot. Why not try? Trying had gotten him this far.
"Let's start with something easy. Your name. Mitchell Grassi." Dr. Rosin said the last part with emphasis.
"Mit...chell..." Mitch was so shocked that he almost stopped breathing. His eyes widened, but he continued. He'd gotten that far already. "Gra...ssssss...sssi."
"Good! Try again."
"Mitch...ell Grasssssi."
"Once more, Mr. Grassi."
"Mitchell Grassi." He whispered in his softest voice. The words were raw despite their gentleness, making his tongue curl and morph into a distinctly familiar position and then settling. But they felt good. "Mitchell Grassi."
Mitch's throat closed up as wetness greeted his own eyes. Something new. He sniffled, interested, and allowed the tears to spill over and land on his hospital shirt. That's what they were called. Tears. He was crying tears of wetness, just like the voices had. He was crying because it was hitting him that he had a voice. He had a voice.
He had a voice.
And he could use it.
"Well done, Mr. Grassi." Dr. Rosin was smiling. "Well done. I know that was hard for you." She paused, plucking a pen from her pocket and fiddling with it. She did that a lot too. "I know that's difficult for you to do, but you're going to have to practice." She watched as more tears plunked onto his gown. "At least practice whispering, okay? We'll do less physical therapy now and focus on your voice."
His voice.
He had a voice.
That night, while most of the other patients slept, and while he usually would be sleeping, Mitch practiced his voice. He skidded his eyes over every object in the room and quietly repeated what their name was to himself. Over and over. He dug deep past the burn in the back of his mind that he knew resided beneath his tight head bandage to remember words for objects he didn't know.
That night, he whispered the entire night. Mitch cried more that night as well.
Because after all this time, only now had he discovered that he had a voice too.
"Need help." Mitch whispered. He held a slightly shaky hand out to Dr. Rosin, who grasped his entire arm instead. He knew that she meant well yet couldn't resist the slight rolling motion of his eyes. He just needed somebody to hold his hand. Then he would be alright.
Carefully, the middle-aged temporary doctor assisted him as he eased out of bed, stood on his own two feet, and wobbled. Mitch bit his lip as he focused. In the following second, his equilibrium had been regained, and his spine straightened decisively. His hospital shirt billowed at his hips, inviting cold air to rush up his stomach. Mitch shivered and wrapped an arm around himself. He'd never get used to how freezing it was in the room. Even with the doctors coming and going as frequently as they did, the temperature fluctuated and seldom remained semi-warm.
"You're sure you're going to go on your own, Mr. Grassi?" She asked, her voice serious as ever.
Mitch nodded. It had been about two weeks since he'd quietly spoken his name, one and a half since he'd decided that he wanted to get up and go to the bathroom by himself, seven days since he'd gotten up for the first time, and four weeks since he had last heard the pretty voice. Way too long. He was determined to fix that. If he could walk, then maybe the doctors would let him see the voices.
Taking a single step forward was hard. Taking multiple steps forward was even harder. But he was going to try.
So Mitch breathed deeply to center himself, let go of Dr. Rosin's hand, and moved his left foot forward.
No problem.
He moved his right foot forward.
Nothing but okay-ness so far. Walking by himself would take time to master. He knew that. He'd given it a week, and now the excruciating pain was paying off.
Several minutes went by until Mitch's hand slapped firmly against the doorframe of the bathroom. Tilting his head, he gave the owner of the feminine serious voice the tiniest of smiles and a thumbs-up. She gestured for him to go in. He did so, stepping inside of the bathroom five feet away from his bed (all by himself!) and closing the door behind him.
Immediately Mitch leaned against the door for support, sucking in air and feeling his head spin dizzily. Maybe that wasn't as effortless as he'd made it seem. His head gave a mild throb and he reached a hand up to clutch at it. The bandages had been removed a few days ago, so there was no longer a weird tightness constricting his head, yet another improvement in a short space of time. Instead of feeling the bulky cloth of bandages, his fingers came in contact with several small cold lines. He had been informed that these things were called staples.
He winced. While he was massaging the spot on the back of his head that was hurting like crazy, Mitch's eyes lifted.
An unfamiliar stranger gazed back at him.
Mitch started at the sight, his heart jumping a bit as he moved his hand from his scalp to his chest to clutch where the organ was thumping speedily. Staring at him with eyes was wide as his own was a young man, so young he could've been in his early twenties, also grabbing at his chest and gasping air as quietly as possible.
They continued to stare at each other. Neither moved. That is, until Mitch took a hesitant step towards the young man.
The action was copied.
Another step forward. Copied yet again. Soon Mitch and the other man were as close as they could get due to the...the...oh, damnit...the sink blocking their way. What was highly interesting was that the young man blinked whenever Mitch blinked, breathed whenever he breathed, moved whenever he moved. He lifted a finger and pointed it at the young man. He pointed right back.
Realization suddenly flooded Mitch. He was in a bathroom. Bathrooms had reflective glass. That reflective glass was called a...a mirror! Which meant the young man he was seeing in front of him was him!
Dark eyes so dark that they were almost black stared at Mitch. They were framed by two deep brown eyebrows, arched while carrying a few hairs that ruined what would've been a flawless curve, and surrounded by a barrage of thick lashes (good, he hadn't ripped anything off when he had opened his eyes). Purple dusted underneath the obsidian orbs, as prominent as the bags that hung underneath the pupils as well. Sharp cheekbones, slightly pointed chin, olive skin, and a bit of stubble around his colorlessly full mouth and jaw. Hair that matched his eyes was long enough that it covered one halfway, and the side of his head was shaved and growing in a little.
His frame was nothing particularly interesting (none of him looked particularly interesting), just as thin and razor-sharp as the rest of him. What captured Mitch's curiosity were the colorful designs that spiraled up and down his arms. Squinting, he saw that a bright yellow character resided on his left arm, and a bit of equally bright pink peeked from underneath his hospital shirt.
Mitch lifted the shirt sleeve to reveal a bubblegum pink starfish smiling cheerily. Surrounding it was a red crab, what appeared to be a squirrel dressed in a white suit and a helmet, a grumpy-looking blue squid wearing a hat, and a tiny one-eyed creature that was shaking its little nub of a hand in anger. Intrigued, he pushed his sleeves up until they stuck at his shoulders, and almost gasped. So many pictures covered his arms; a small cat, a bundle of cyan crystals, a black circle with a plane-like thing trapped inside, a...what was that plant called? Well, there was a plant followed by a few words he couldn't read, and some sort of bug. After a closer examination of his hands, Mitch found that he had a tiny skull on one finger and a paperclip around that area as well. One last cartoon figure was being bonked on the head with several colored circles. That was all.
He wondered if there were any more pictures on his body he had yet to know about. He hesitated, but lifted his shirt over his head. Mitch noted that there was another cartoonish character just above his heart. Every other inch of space on his body was blank.
When had all of this happened? Did the pictures come off?
He rubbed at them. They remained there.
I put art on my body. Mitch examined the skull on his finger. I decorated it with pictures. And I like them.
A smile that he hadn't expected perked his lips upward. So he wasn't as uninteresting as he thought he'd been. He was still unattractive, that much was obvious, but he had unique pictures on his body that he could at the very least take glee in.
The brunette slipped his shirt back over his head and cast his reflection a final glance. That was what he looked like. Brown hair, brown eyes, neutral skin, and a short stature. What did he expect, though, honestly? More than half the time people's voices fit their appearance. He barely had a voice; it sounded nearly silent and rather plain, so it was only fitting that his looks matched that description. Oh, well.
Mitch used the bathroom (after all, that's why he had entered the space in the first place), washed his hands, and opened the door. Dr. Rosin was talking with another doctor that owned greying hair and lines around his grave mouth. He tried his best not to shuffle and his best to instead walk towards the two, silently focused on not falling over. He'd tripped twice before and those times had not been fun.
Dr. Rosin and the other doctor stopped conversing the moment Mitch joined them. Her serious eyes flicked from him to the other doctor, before she finally said, "Mr. Grassi, this is Dr. Eaton. He's a neuroscientist."
"Okay." He whispered, settling his pupils (which he now knew were brown) on the new voice that he had yet to properly hear.
Dr. Eaton, he found out, had tone composed of pure grit. "Mr. Grassi, you've been making fairly well progress when it comes to physical recuperation." Here the new doctor paused. "Your mental progress isn't going as smoothly as we would've liked. You refuse to learn using the flash cards, fail at many of the psychoanalysis games my interns attempt to initiate you in, and your memory is rather worse for wear."
Mitch couldn't comprehend the words exiting Dr. Eaton's gritty expanse. They were making him uncomfortable, whatever they were. "O...kay?"
Dr. Rosin sighed through her nose. That meant she was going to simplify something for him. "Dr. Eaton is saying you're doing good with your body, but bad with your mind when it comes to getting better."
"Oh."
"We believe that at the rate you're going, which is to say, nowhere..." Dr. Eaton nodded at Mitch. "We're going to give your brain a push by allowing it to be exposed to something new, in the hope it may spark more memories in your mind and assist you in gaining knowledge."
Mitch stared at him blankly. Um. What?
"What Dr. Eaton is saying, Mr. Grassi, is that we think it might be good for you if you saw your friends again."
The brown-eyed man turned his blank stare on his temporary doctor. He had no friends. No visitors. The doctors kept them out. The only people that were remotely close to being his friends were the voices that seemed to know a lot about him even though he knew absolutely and utterly nothing about them. He hadn't heard their tones in weeks. Maybe they didn't exist, maybe they weren't here anymore, maybe after learning they wouldn't be able to hold his hand for a long time they had shrugged their shoulders and left for good. That made a lot more sense than the impossible alternative; that the doctors were going to let him see the voices for the first time, they were going to let him see and talk to and listen to the voices, and the voices (especially the prettiest one) would be there because they were waiting for him.
That wasn't what they were saying. Not really.
"Mr. Grassi? Are you alright?"
Dr. Rosin's words sounded like they were at the end of a long...a long...tunnel. That's it. They echoed and bounced and did cartwheels around the part of his head that was starting to throb painfully. They weren't actually going to let him see the voices, not the voices that he had listened to and that had brought him contentedness, they weren't going to let him see the pretty nice chocolate voice that had made him try to squeeze his hand, no they weren't, no they weren't no they weren't no they weren't, because if they were, that would mean he would get to see the motherfucking voices and talk to them and holy fucking shit.
Mitch swayed on his feet unsteadily. He saw Dr. Rosin reach for his arm as a white fuzz edged its way into his vision, the back of his head burning like crazy, tears racing down his cheeks. In the next second he was sitting on his uncomfortable bed, feeling as his own wetness began to cover his wrists. He breathed unevenly, shutting his eyes in a feeble attempt to cool the ache in his head. But it didn't go away.
"My head." The words barely made any sound.
"Dr. Eaton, if this is what you meant by progress-"
"This is exactly what I mean. Recalling data a brain has lost is painful to a degree that neither you or I can understand. But recalling data, feeling that pain, that's good because it means his brain is remembering."
Rubbing his hands up and down his arms, the brunette repeated, "My head."
"Of course, Mr. Grassi. I'll page Nurse Roberta and get you some medication." Her serious voice gained what sounded like spikiness. "Dr. Eaton, perhaps he should wait two weeks more to see them, it's not like they're expecting to see him right away, we told them it might take weeks-"
"No." Mitch grasped her arm blindly. When he felt her firm bone beneath his fingertips, he lifted his head and glared at her with blurry eyes. He whispered fiercely, "Want to hear the voices. See them."
He had a chance. No way in hell was he going to let it go. They would have to throw him off a cliff before he let the doctors retract their word.
"He's ready, Dr. Rosin. He needs it. His brain needs the psychological push."
"My patient is fragile, doctor. You can already see what merely mentioning his friends does to him. It's not safe and it's not smart. His brain might crack."
"He needs the push."
Mitch gripped Dr. Rosin's arm so tightly he could almost feel her blood gushing through her veins. She finally looked at him, an undecided expression flitting across her face momentarily. He echoed Dr. Eaton's words in his faintest tone. "I need the push."
That made her eye him with consideration. Dr. Rosin seemed to be examining the tears on his cheeks, the pained expression he wore, and the iron grip he had her arm in. After a moment of thinking, she let out, "Only if you agree to a deal, Mr. Grassi."
A deal? Just a deal? That was it? No other catch besides a deal? Mitch nodded as quickly as his throbbing head would allow. At that moment, with the prospect of seeing and hearing and talking to the voices so close, he would've agreed to anything. He'd even let them bring the annoying beeping machine back in his room if that was what it would take, and he hated that thing with a passion.
"Dr. Eaton says you refuse to learn. Is he correct?" The brown-eyed man nodded with less enthusiasm. "Then here is your deal; if you're allowed to see your friends again so soon, then you must get them to agree to help you learn. As in, using the flash cards-" Here Mitch couldn't help but twist his mouth into a displeased line. Ugh, those horrible blobs of color with the words underneath them he couldn't read? Oh, god. He hoped the voices would dislike those things as much as he did. "-and playing games with you to help your mind get better. They'll be a newer kind of therapy."
So not only was she shoving more new stuff down his throat, but she also wanted to use the voices as therapy? What kind of crap deal was that?
"No using the voices." He muttered, his hold on her arm starting to tire him. He let Dr. Rosin go.
"We are not using them, Mr. Grassi. We'll talk to them about helping you first, and they'll have to agree." She explained. Wait a minute. There was a chance that they wouldn't agree? As in...say they didn't want to talk to him anymore? What? "Then you can not only get better by seeing them, but also get better because they'll help you to learn better. Socialization is a good kind of therapy. A kind of therapy you need."
Mitch didn't know what the word socialization meant. He didn't bother asking, though, he wouldn't understand what it meant even if it was explained to him. Words like socialization floated around his mind briefly before exiting, not tied to the ground and therefore were never seen again. Unless, of course, somebody repeated it, and then the entire confusing ordeal happened all over again. He had the feeling it wasn't normal to simply not comprehend every third word coming out of somebody's mouth, yet he had grown used to it. What could he do about it, really?
Back to the current topic that made his head hurt. The deal. When the brunette really thought about it, it wasn't too awful. And hell, if the voices didn't want to talk to him anymore after they saw him this once, then at least he'd get to hear them one more time.
He was going to hear the pretty nice chocolate voice one more time.
Maybe more times than just one. But that was only if he was...hmm...what was the word? Angry? No, no, that wasn't it. Happy? Ugh, no, that wasn't it either. It ended with the ee sound, Mitch knew that much. L...L...luck...luck! Lucky! That was the word.
"Okay." Mitch cast his eyes towards his bed, longing to lay down. Learning what he looked like, finding out he was going to not only hear, but see and feel and talk to the voices (the prettiest voice. He was going to see what the prettiest voice looked like), and discovering the word lucky had taken a lot from him. His arms shook as he used the remains of his strength to heave his body into a comfortable position on the uncomfortable bed and tug the paper-thin sheet over him. He gave Dr. Rosin a look that said, I'm going to sleep, and she nodded. Earlier she'd explained that it was normal for people like him to go from energized to tired rather quickly.
He'd given a puzzled expression when she had told him that. Others like Mitch? With no voice and boring brown hair and dull eyes to match? Whomever those people were, he had the distinct feeling that it sucked to be them.
"Excellent." Dr. Eaton said. Mitch still had no idea what that word meant either. He'd probably never know. "How soon do you think he'll be ready to see them, Dr. Rosin?"
It was bright inside of his room. The brunette had gained the ability to tell time now, at least quasi-properly, and had the inclination that the light meant it was early in the...night? What was the opposite of night? Oh, right, morning. It was early morning. He needed to be around the voices as soon as possible. A single word puffed past his lips.
"Tonight."
He wasn't aware of the response either doctor gave. Mitch went dark then.
Well, he partially did.
Going dark seemed to last fewer hours than it had before he'd opened his eyes. When he went dark, that was it. His mind welcomed a solid, pure blackness that was heavy, thick, and resilient. All thoughts were silence, all ponderings quieted, all questions frozen in the middle of them being asked. The ground faded away, and so did the words attached to them. Darkness brought forth a limbo of nothingness that lasted both several hours and a few seconds. It was escape.
These days the darkness wasn't darkness anymore.
These days the darkness was color. And pictures. And voices and people and newness.
The color pictures voices people newness played in front of Mitch's eyes on repeat. Sometimes when he fell into sleep, he'd see the same thing. Other times he was presented with something different. They interested him in the fact that unlike when he was awake, he had absolutely no control over what he saw and didn't see.
Sometimes it was a little scary.
During this particular fleeting nap, a tiny ball of grey was curled up on his legs. The brown-eyed man was sitting on something soft and cushy that gave way to his figure. The ball of grey moved every so often, but stayed laying on top of him.
Curiously Mitch lifted his hand and touched the ball of grey.
It started, whipping its head around to stare up at him, the black pupils of its eyes surrounded by a pale green. It blinked at him while he blinked right back, before picking itself up to stand on four legs. Upon closer examination Mitch realized that it was some sort of animal, a hairless one with a thin tail and ears that were a little too big for its wrinkly head. Despite its weird appearance the brunette grinned and raised his hand to pet it.
The animal vibrated against his fingers, closing its eyes for a moment, then adding to the gesture by butting its head to his palm. As the pets continued, the animal continued to rumble contentedly.
Mitch sighed at it. "You're so weird, Wyatt. One minute you're looking at me like you want to claw my eyes out and the next you're purring your feline ass off. What's up with that, queen?"
Wyatt. Somehow he knew that was the name of the animal. It was a name that suited it. Did it have a voice too?
The ball of grey named Wyatt opened his mouth to let loose a soft, "Meow."
So it did have a voice. Intriguing. Then again, everybody and everything besides Mitch had a voice and knew how to use it, why should Wyatt be any different?
"I love you, kitty." Mitch gathered Wyatt in his arms and pressed his face to his little head. "Even when you drive me crazy. I still love you."
Then, as Wyatt started up his purr engine once more, the colors and sensations washed away until all of it was gone and nothing was left except for the black. Blank, pure blackness that swallowed his mind whole. What a terrifyingly interesting prospect.
After who knew how long, the darkness of sleep gave way to a shady greyness. It was then tinged with a reddish-white. Mitch felt his brain pulled into consciousness slowly; he soon became aware of the light chill of air flying across his skin, of the sharp smell of his hospital room, and the distinct heaviness of reality. His nap was over. That had been quite the show his mind had conjured up. What did it mean? And what was that grey animal thing by the name of Wyatt? Whatever it was, Mitch found himself missing it a little, it would've been nice to keep as a pet. It had been so cute.
The brunette blinked awake. Light no longer poured through the window of his room, not even rays of orange that he had sometimes seen. Meaning that it was night. He'd slept the entire day away. Perhaps the limits he'd been pushing his body to meet the past week were taking their toll on him. Dr. Rosin wasn't lying; moving around really was tiring.
He'd have to get used to that. People moved. And spoke, and had voices, and saw, and felt-
Mitch gasped and sat up too quickly in bed. Immediately his head protested the action and gave a faint throb. The voices. It was nighttime. He was going to hear them.
He was going to hear the pretty voice.
But wait a minute...it was night. It looked to be rather late at night.
Oh shit!
What if he had slept too late? What if the voices weren't waiting for him? What if they were packing their bags and leaving right this very minute and he didn't even know because he'd been passed the fuck out on his hospital bed? What if they had already left and he'd missed them he'd missed his chance to hear them they were gone they weren't coming back and he'd never get to see them or talk to them ever never ever because his lazy ass had been in bed thinking up some grey ball thing with pale green eyes that purred!
There was a new emotion flooding through him. Something fresh. It made his breathing speed up and his hands shake and his heart speed by. What was it called? What was it called? If he couldn't have the voices, he was at the very least going to figure out what the fuck this new damn emotion was called. Not sadness...not anger...not irritation...all wrong, they were all wrong and he couldn't figure it out.
The door to his room opened. Dr. Rosin stepped in, her hair undone from its usual bun, the number of pens and pencils in her pocket looking significantly fewer than they were however many hours ago. Why was she here? Oh, yeah, the purple light must've winked. Right.
"Mr. Grassi, what's wrong?" She crossed the room in a few strides. In the next second she was at his bedside.
Mitch struggled to find words. Fucking words. There were so many of them, so many to choose from, so many options, so much to select. He whispered, "Are...they gone?"
"Are who gone?"
"The..." The brown-eyed man swallowed unsteadily, clutching his hands together to try and stop their almost violent trembling. No wonder he couldn't recall the word that described how he was feeling. There must not be one. "The voices. Gone?"
Dr. Rosin got a confused expression to her face. It only lasted a second, though, before it was replaced with understanding. "Your friends, you mean? No, they're not gone, Mr. Grassi. They're not even here yet. If you were worried about it being so late at night that they left, don't worry, it's early in the evening. I was on my way to wake you up because they'll arrive soon." Her own brown eyes watched him. "We can always send them back if they're too much for you to handle. Are you sure you're ready to see them?"
Mitch gave her the same blank stare he'd offered Dr. Eaton that morning. His hands stopped shaking, his breathing evened out, and his heart slowed.
"Doesn't matter." He whispered to her emotionlessly. "I need the push."