OMWGNOTE: Sometimes I say I'm going to update in a six-day time period and I don't because I get Writer's Block and stay up until two in the morning the day before my flight to try and get it done, only to fall asleep at my desk for the second time in a week and save the chapter not even halfway done. –sigh- Yes, you all have permission to murder me.
Oh, if you didn't know, I was in Disney World, which has left me with a strong desire to write a story about the boys going to Disney. Not sure how this will work out, seeing as they work for Nickelodeon. And of course I had internet connection in my room in Disney and then lost it halfway through the vacation so I was without my precious little . My heart broke.
But Monster hit the 100 review mark. I am very thankful to each and every person who reviews every new chapter. You guys made my week.
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Big Time Rush or any characters affiliated with the show. I own only Richard Rolle and Kendall's Eyebrows.
…
10. Eyebrows
Kendall, Carlos, and Logan sat by James' bedside silently, their eyes never straying from the boy on the bed. He looked much better than he had before he went into surgery, even if he died in the middle of it.
This made Kendall scared and pissed off at the same time. They had waited two hours for James' heartbeat to become stabilized so that he wouldn't die in surgery. Those two hours went to waste, because James had stop breathing, his heart had stopped beating, he had stopped living. Kendall did not know who to be more angry at; James, the doctors, or himself.
Any normal person wouldn't blame themselves for the temporary death of their best friend—unless, of course, they were the ones who put them in the hospital in the first place. But Kendall had nothing to do with James being in the hospital, and yet he still wanted to blame himself for James dying.
Kendall was strange in this way. He always wanted to help his friends out, and at this point, it wasn't even a want; it was a need. If he could not put even one ounce of help into the situation his friends were in, whatever happened to them he took as his responsibility. Even though he had nothing to do with what happened between Rick and James, he still felt responsible for absolutely everything.
Even thinking Rick's name sent anger coursing through his veins. The bastard had gotten away before the cops showed up, and now he had the opportunity to come back and do more damage to James. It scared Kendall immensely.
"What did the doctor say again?" Carlos asked, breaking the silence and causing Kendall to jump.
Logan answered in a monotone voice, never looking away from James. "He said that James died during surgery, and that they brought him back to life. He also said that when James did wake up—which should be really soon—that he would have a tremendous amount of morphine in his system, meaning that he wouldn't be in pain. But he also might be a little out of it when he wakes up."
Both Carlos and Kendall nodded, even though Carlos was the one who asked the question. It was very useful to have Logan there with them; neither of the boys actually listened to the doctor.
The only sounds in the room were the beeping of the heart monitor, and the small sob that would escape Kendall's lips every five seconds or so.
He felt extremely embarrassed that he was still crying, but his eyes flickering to Carlos and Logan for a moment, he saw the tears running down their faces as well. It had been a rough day for all of them, and the day was just beginning; it was nearing five in the morning.
Not one of them had rested yet, or even changed out of their clothes. Kendall was still basically covered in James' blood, his jeans completely ruined. Carlos and Logan also had a few splatters here and there, but their hands were clean, unlike Kendall's.
Although Dr. Drake said that James would be waking up very soon, the boys did not exactly believe him. It was hard, considering he had died a few hours before and the last time they had seen him conscious was when he was bleeding to death. So, no, they didn't really think that James would be returning to the land of consciousness any time soon.
This is why when Carlos caught sight of James' finger twitching he became shocked and excited all at once.
"His finger just twitched," the boy whispered quietly, for once not showing how much excitement he was feeling. At the sound of Carlos' words, all of the boys fell deadly silent. Kendall stopped his sobbing, and they weren't even breathing.
Kendall broke the silence with his shaky voice. "James?"
The monitor beeped in response.
"James?" Kendall asked again, this time sounding more pleading than seeing if James was awake.
It was silent for another moment, the heart monitor still the only sound in the room.
The silence was broken again by a sharp inhale. It did not come from Carlos, Kendall, or Logan. It came from the boy on the bed.
James.
Kendall reached for James' hand, shivering at the coldness of it. He waited and waited and waited for what seemed like hours, but in reality was a few seconds. The same thing coursed through each of the boys' heads: Please wake up please, please, please, please, please wake up.
The boys had always laughed and joked about how they could read each other's minds, and in that moment, it was almost like James had read their minds, because his eye opened.
A second later, it shut again.
"James?" Logan called out tentatively, reaching out and touching the boy's arm.
James opened his eye again, this time averting his eye away from the light and looking at his friends. It was completely silent for a moment, only James' breathing and the heart monitor making sounds in the room. Then a smile broke out on the broken boy's face, and he said, "Hey," as if nothing were wrong.
Kendall, Carlos, and Logan couldn't speak. They were all shocked into silence. They were silent for so long, relishing in the fact that James was awake, that the smile on James' face faded, turning into a frown.
"What?" He asked, still frowning. The other boys in the room made no move to answer him, though. They just sat there in silence.
James didn't know what was going on. "Did something happen to your vocal chords? 'Cause Gustavo won't be happy if you guys can't sing. Like, he might shit a brick." He said warily.
The three boys were dumbstruck. Did James just so happen to forget absolutely everything that happened over the course of the last ten hours?
Logan decided to voice this. "James," He began. "Do you remember anything…at all?"
"Nope," He said, his mouth popping on the 'p.' "I feel like I'm high, man. Not that I know what being high feels like. But geez, if I ever smoked pot it would feel like this."
Kendall and Carlos stared at their friend worriedly, not knowing what to do. Logan, however, did, because he's Logan and he always knows what to do.
"Kendall, hit the call button." Kendall gave him a look that said, Me? Why me? I don't know how to press a button. Make Carlos do it! Logan glared at him. "It's right next to you. Just hit it." Kendall did as he was told.
James became even more confused. "Why are we hitting buttons? I want to hit a button." The boys said nothing.
No more than two minutes later, Dr. Drake walked into the room. "Good, you're awake." He said upon seeing a conscious and confused James. He turned to the boys. "What seems to be the problem?"
Kendall and Carlos still couldn't find the words to speak, but Logan responded in a calm voice. "He's not remembering anything. Is that good or bad?"
Dr. Drake looked slightly uneasy. "That depends," he said, moving to the other side of James' bed. He knelt down next to the boy, whose gaze had followed him the moment the doctor entered the room. "Hello, James. I'm Doctor Patrick Drake. How are you feeling?"
James smiled at the man before him. "Weird. Can I have an eye patch?" He pointed to his eye, which was still swollen shut. "Personally, I like ninjas. But if I have the chance to be a pirate, I should jump on it now."
The doctor laughed lightly. "Well, I don't have any eye patches. But can you elaborate on the feeling of 'weird?'"
"Well," James began. "My head feels all floaty, or fuzzy. I can't decide. And every time I breathe it hurts. And I look like I got beat up, from what I can see of myself. Shouldn't I be in pain or something?"
Patrick glanced at the boys opposite him before responding. "You're on morphine, which takes away the pain. Do you remember anything that happened last night?"
James' eyebrows furrowed, and he looked to be very deep in thought. After a few moments, he let out a sigh. "No, everything is still all fuzzy. Is it the morphine doing that?"
"Most likely," Patrick said. "The only other cause for it would be the minor head damage you received earlier, but your hippocampus wasn't affected at all. So yes, it's the morphine."
"Hippocampus?" Carlos questioned, speaking for the first time in minutes. James turned his head at the sound of the boy's voice. He seemed surprised that Carlos could even talk.
Patrick laughed again. "It does sound funny, doesn't it? It's the part of the human brain that has to do with memory."
"How do you remember the parts of the brain?" Carlos asked again. As much as he disliked doctors, Patrick didn't seem all that bad.
"I use a trick to remember it," Patrick said. "Whenever I forget, I use a trick I made up. 'What? I don't remember there being a hippo on campus!' Then I remember it's the hippocampus, and that it has to do with the memory."
"That's amazing," Logan breathed, smiling. "Did you learn that in medical school?"
"No," Patrick told him, smiling. "I learned it in AP Psychology my senior year."
Don't get him wrong. Kendall would just love to sit here and talk about hippos and medical school and shit, but he really just wants to know if James isn't going to spontaneously combust or something. "So is James okay?" He asked quietly, interrupting Carlos telling Dr. Drake how cool hippos were (traitor).
"Yes, he's fine." Patrick told him, smiling. He spoke as if James weren't in the room, and James didn't like it. But when Patrick addressed him, James quickly forgave the doctor. "When your head clears up or you start feeling pain, press the call button, okay? I'll be back to give you a little bit more morphine, but only a little bit. You'll have to deal with a little pain."
James' eyebrows furrowed. "Why?"
"Because morphine is very easy to get addicted to," Patrick said. "I'll see you later, alright?" And without another word, Patrick left the boys to talk amongst themselves.
After watching his doctor leave, James turned back to his friends. "So what did you do with it?" He asked, crossing his arms and looking pretty pissed.
Now it was Kendall, Carlos and Logan's turn to be confused. "What?" They spoke simultaneously.
"My lucky comb," James said, as if it were obvious. "Seeing as I'm wearing the latest in hospital fashion, which of course is a gown, it's obviously not in my back pocket. If you could be so kind to tell me where it is, that'd be freaking great."
Carlos and Logan looked to Kendall, who could feel the lucky comb burning a hole in his jeans like it was a branding iron. He sat forward and pulled the lucky comb out from his back pocket, handing it to James and saying, "Here,"
Instead of thanking Kendall, James took the small comb and scrutinized it with his functioning eye. After staring at it intently for a few moments, he turned to Kendall and demanded, "Have you been using it?"
"No," Kendall said honestly. The only thing he had done with that comb was hold a conversation, and he's pretty sure James would be a bit freaked out if he mentioned that. "Why do you ask?"
James sniffed the comb once, earning strange looks from his friends. "Because it smells like you, it looks like there's freaking blonde hair in the teeth, and your eyebrows look pretty tamed."
"What does your comb have to do with my eyebrows?" Kendall asked.
James rolled his eye. "Don't play dumb, Kendall. I know you used my comb to attempt to make your eyebrows look less bushy. And I appreciate your desire not to have eyebrows that take up your entire forehead, but if you could use your own comb instead of mine, I would really appreciate that attempt more."
Carlos and Logan burst into laughter, the gesture almost foreign to them with all the drama that had occurred earlier. Kendall was far from laughing.
"What? My eyebrows are not big."
"If they weren't so big, then I wouldn't have written a song about them."
"You wrote a song about them?" Kendall demanded, angry and hurt at the same time. Carlos and Logan continued to laugh.
Bastards, Kendall thought.
Between laughs, Carlos said, "Dude, sing it."
Kendall shook his head violently. "Carlos, he is not going to sing that stupid song. I mean, he's barely coherent and he obviously doesn't know what he's saying," Kendall tried to reason. "And besides, he probably didn't even write a song."
Before Carlos or Logan could say anything, James interrupted. "I'm coherent! And I did write a song about your eyebrows, Kendallicious." The three uninjured boys exchanged a look. Kendallicious? "It's called 'Kendall's Eyebrows' and it goes to the tune of 'Stuck.' Gustavo already put the song you and I made up on the album, and then tweaked it to sound like 'A Shot In The Dark,' so I'm thinking that if I get more of the song done besides the chorus he'll put it on the album."
"Why don't you sing it to us?" Logan suggested, ignoring the daggers being sent by Kendall as he gestured to himself and his friends. "You know, so you can practice before singing it to Gustavo. You need to get it perfect for the, uh, man beast." Although Logan referred to Gustavo as a man beast many times, he didn't really mean it after today. Gustavo had showed today that he actually had a heart instead of the black hole the boys believed was in the place of the organ, and Logan greatly admired him for it. However, if James didn't remember what happened just yet, then Logan sure as hell wasn't going to bring it up. Logan would tell James that he didn't think Gustavo was a man beast when James wasn't high on morphine.
But James didn't even notice Logan's inner-ranting, even if Logan looked quite distracted. Instead, James beamed at his friend, obviously pleased with the suggestion he was just given. He cleared his throat, and then began to sing, facing Kendall. "Your eyebrows are so big, big," he sang, and Kendall's face flushed in embarrassment that would only intensify as the song went on.
"And they'll never be small, small," James continued. "In the middle of a perfect day people see your eyebrows and run away. I don't want to hurt your feelings, but your eyebrows are so freaking huge, huge and they'll never be small, small."
It was silent for a moment, until Carlos and Logan broke that silence with their loud guffawing. Kendall was the only one who chose to remain silent, his expression stony. His glare was directed at the wall, for he couldn't decide who he was angrier with. He decided he was angrier at Carlos and Logan, only because they laughed at the song. He couldn't really be mad at James at the moment, if only because of what had happened and why James was loopy enough to come up with the song in the first place.
"You two sound like hyenas," Kendall told Carlos and Logan, turning to them. They were both laughing so hard tears sprang to their eyes.
James' face lit up at this, seemingly forgetting about how Carlos and Logan were supposed to tell him what they thought of the song. "Hyenas? Like in 'the Lion King?'"
"Yes," Kendall said. "Just like 'the Lion King.' Because the hyenas are evil, and so are Carlos and Logan."
Logan shook his head, still laughing a little bit. "We're not evil. Knight genetics are evil for giving you such huge eyebrows."
Kendall sighed in frustration as Carlos and Logan proceeded to laugh more. Sure, he was glad that the depressing atmosphere that was engulfing them a mere ten minutes before seemed to have disappeared as quickly as it came, but he wasn't too happy that his eyebrows were the reason for this change in mood.
But looking up at James, smiling and laughing with his two other friends, Kendall couldn't help the small smile that spread across his face just then. After all they had been through in the course of the last few hours, they all deserved to smile.
And seeing James happy and alive rather than on the brink of death, Kendall started to laugh a bit himself.
…
OMWGNOTE: This chapter is the shortest thing I've written, and it's also pretty stupid. I really don't like it, but it could be because there's almost no angst in the entire thing and, as we've all learned, angst is my drug.
Before leaving, I'd like to recognize a few things. For those of you who didn't know, today, July 19th, is the first day of filming for season 2 of Big Time Rush. It's awesome. Second, I want to wish a happy belated birthday to Mr. James Maslow, who turned twenty on July 16th.
Many of you asked about the song that inspired me to finish both C9 and C10, and that song is called Konstantine by Something Corporate. It's nine minutes and thirty-six seconds long, so you don't have to listen to it or anything. But it's seriously very touching, even if it does have nothing to do with Monster.
Lastly, the dedication of this chapter is split in three ways: One goes to EpicInTheLibrary, who I have recently discovered is my soul mate and brought on James being loopy in this chapter. Two goes to Sam Temple, who leaves the most amazing reviews and leaves me beaming after every one and every update of her stories. And last, The Lion King, for again saving me from horrible Writer's Block.
I bid you all adieu. Prepare yourselves for more angst.