Hey guys :) First off, I am so sorry that I'm so late posting this, but I do have an excuse! I was stuck in hospital for the last five days 'cause I hurt my back but I'm just home now, and furiously typing! I nearly cried when I found out there was no Wi-Fi in the hospital but it's all good now :)
Thanks so much to everyone who reviewed the last chapter! : happygirl57, Glee Club Rock 1251, GhostGirlMD, Anonymous Skrtle, Channylover26, MyHeroRaven, jug, SweetPeaKiller, bubzchoc, FreakierThanFreaks, TheWritingFreak, CountryPeach05, Angsty Clockwork, ArianaArmy, FanfictionRulesMyLife… :D
Disclaimer: I do not own Big Time Rush. Sorry for any mistakes!
O.o.O.o.O.o.O.o.O.o.O.o
Logan rubbed his forehead tiredly as he stared out of the moving car's window. He recognised all the buildings and streets that they passed, and the familiarity was comforting. He winced and shrank back though when he saw a large SUV approach the car, paling when he remembered how Carlos had cut up his face, just from the simple act of pressing his head against the window.
James, who was sitting next to him, noticed it, and looked out to see the SUV too. Logan felt his friend tense up beside him, and breathed a sigh of relief when the car indicated left and was soon gone from sight. It didn't stop the shivers that ran down his spine though.
The radio was on, and playing some song that Logan didn't know, but was apparently a recent release. Mrs. Knight was silent in the front of the car, and it didn't escape Logan's attention that she kept sneaking glances back at them in the mirror.
He knew that it was stupid, but Logan was just as tense as James, if not more. He was forcing himself to breathe normally, but his arm was aching inside the cast, and it was almost impossible to not wrench the door open and jump out. Everytime another car approached them from a different direction; Logan would either shut his eyes or look the other way and try not to have a panic attack.
Logan just wanted out of the car.
Finally they pulled up to the Palm Woods, and he and James were out of the car within seconds. Then they were pale and shaking on the pavement, and half of the Pam Woods residents were staring at them. Mrs. Knight got out slowly, and stood with her back to the group of their friends, her eyes only on Logan and James.
"We're fine, Mrs. Knight," Logan blurted out quickly, seeing James nod in agreement out of the corner of his eye. "It was just… hot in the car. We needed some air. But we're totally fine now."
It was obvious from her expression that Kendall's mom didn't buy Logan's lame excuse, but she didn't press the matter, and stepped back to let Katie run out from the crowd, and enclose them both in a hug. Then the rest of the people started to hesitantly come forward, and Logan soon found himself right in the middle of a dozen hugs, with people asking him how he was every two seconds.
James smiled at him from over Camille's head, and hugged Tyler, and Logan could see that James was feeling better already. Then Guitar Dude asked where Kendall and Carlos were, and Logan felt a small bit of his good mood evaporate, "Oh, they, um, they're still at the hospital. But they'll both be home in a few days, and they've got each other in there." Logan let out a nervous laugh, and was thankful when James took over.
"Yeah, and we only came home to shower, eat, and change, so we're heading back out to the hospital in like an hour or whatever."
"Well, you boys can try and catch a few hours of sleep in your own beds before we go back to the hospital," Mrs. Knight cut in with a motherly smile, "Carlos and Kendall will be fine without you for a few hours. And you're both looking exhausted, so let's get you two up to the apartment."
Logan and James both groaned in unison, "But Mama Knight…."
"No buts!"
Their friends all laughed in sympathy, and even more hugs were exchanged before Logan and James reluctantly trudged back to their apartment. While neither of them would probably admit it, it did feel really good to be alone in peace and quiet in 2J. Mrs. Knight bustled around, making them both sandwiches, while Katie had stayed down at the pool, to give them both space.
Not even thinking about eating or showering, Logan and James simply walked into one of the bedrooms as if on autopilot, and both lay down on the beds. They were asleep within seconds, Logan curled up on his bed, and James sprawled out on Kendall's.
Mrs. Knight, not hearing a response to a question that she had just asked, crept into the room, and smiled upon seeing the two boys fast asleep. She hurried into the sitting room, and got two thick blankets, laying one over Logan and then turning to a sleeping James and doing the same.
Then she went back out to the kitchen, sat down at the table, and cried with relief.
/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/
Kendall laughed loudly at Carlos' joke, drawing the attention of a nurse from the hallway at the sound of his laugh. "You boys okay in here?" She opened the door, and looked in to see Carlos grinning smugly and Kendall red in the face.
"Oh, we're fine," Carlos snickered, "But do you want to hear the worst joke ever?" She nodded with a slight smile gracing her features, and Carlos continued to tell the joke again, "What's a frog's favourite drink…? Croaka cola!"
He watched Carlos' face light up when the nurse got the joke and started laughing with him, and wondered for the millionth time just how Carlos did it. Time after time Kendall had watched his friend take a completely sombre or not hopeful occasion, and turn it around with a full blown grin and a terrible joke. It worked every time, and Carlos could always make a bad situation better.
It was just something that he did.
After listening to a few more awful jokes, the nurse finally said that she had to leave, and she promised to bring them back chocolate pudding from the cafeteria later. Having Carlos around was defiantly a good thing if he could score them both free chocolate pudding.
Kendall stifled a yawn and tried his best to stretch out nonchalantly for the third time. He had taken James' bed in Carlos' room, because he was a lot better now, and he had refused to go back to his old room... And because Carlos had looked crushed at the thought of being alone in the hospital room with Logan and James going home.
Not that Logan and James had gone back to the Palm Woods willingly. It had taken half an hour of persuasion on Mrs. Knight's part to even get them to consider the idea. Then James had caught sight of his hair in a mirror, and he'd suddenly been that bit less reluctant to leave.
Logan, not one for being able to stand his ground alone for long had then rolled eyes and fussed over Carlos and Kendall, and then left with Mrs Knight.
With any luck, Carlos would be good to go within the next day or two. As mug as his friend insisted that he was fine, Kendall knew that the doctors were still keeping an eye on his broken ribs, and besides, Carlos wasn't going far on that leg.
He hoped that he'd be allowed home soon too. Kendall still got tired very quickly, but he was getting gradually stronger since the moment that he had woken up. And it wasn't too bad, he realized, being this useless in front of Carlos.
His friend had started to almost coach him in a way, encouraging Kendall to keep going even when he was exhausted so that he could stay awake and build up his stamina in a way. ("C'mon, man, just stay awake for ten more minutes, that's it just keep your eyes open... Now try and pick up that glass of water with one hand...That's it, Kendall, you're doing great! Just one more minute now— okay you can go to sleep... See you when you wake up.")
That combined with all the encouragement that Logan and James were giving him, he felt much better already. Carlos had read the whole card of messages out to Kendall when they had both woken up that afternoon - Carlos was still fatigued, but Kendall knew that he also just loved being able to fall asleep whenever he wanted and not get in trouble.
Kendall had been completely overwhelmed by the things that people at the Palm Woods had written. For one thing, the card in itself was just less than three foot tall, and every inch of space had been written on. Some of the people that they hadn't know that well had simply gone for the whole 'Get well soon!' message, accompanied by smiley faces and stuff like that, but most who had signed the card had put real time and effort into signing it.
Guitar Dude had seemingly absentmindedly drawn music notes all around his section of the card, and Kendall was 90% sure that scribbled music notes on the back of the card were the opening bars of their song, Halfway There. The Jennifers had each written a small get well soon message, that were all made out to Carlos. They had included a joint message between the three of them that was for all four boys as well, but Kendall could tell that Carlos was most pleased with his own personal ones.
Even Bitters had signed his name, though Kendall could picture the slightly annoyed look on his face.
Then, still in the middle of thinking about the card, Kendall found his eyes shutting, and it was just too hard a struggle to keep himself awake. In a last ditch attempt to stay awake, Kendall looked over at Carlos, who just grinned at him, "Its fine, man, go to sleep. You stayed up for all of this morning which is the longest yet, so go for it. I'll be here pretending that the stupid TV in the corner works until you wake up."
Kendall smiled slightly before he let himself relax; Carlos had been moaning about the broken TV since the moment that Kendall had started sharing a room with him.
-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-
Carlos drummed his fingers on his cast and tried to convince himself that he wasn't bored out of his mind. It didn't work.
He was bored, and not tired at all, and hungry for chocolate, and wished the TV worked, and wanted company that wasn't a snoring Kendall, and he was really much more bored than he thought he'd ever been in his whole entire life. Is it possible for someone to die from boredom?, he wondered, and looked back over at his friend, rolling his eyes impatiently.
Kendall had only just gone to sleep, so that meant that he'd be out like a light for at least an hour. Stupid coma that still made Kendall tired even though he was out of it. Logan had explained to him once why Kendall was still so tired, but Carlos hadn't really been listening. There had been a really cute nurse outside the window, and Logan had a tendency to ramble on when he was explaining things.
Carlos groaned aloud in frustration, wishing that someone would just come in already so he'd have someone to talk to. And he could even convince whoever it was to go but him some chocolate from the vending machine that was down the hall.
Then Carlos' eyes landed on the crumbled heap of bills and coins that Logan had taken out of his pocket and left beside Carlos 'for emergencies only,' and he smiled. A quickly glance to his right confirmed that the wheelchair that had been beside his bed was still there, and Carlos leaned forward to pull the chair towards himself.
He was bored almost to tears from just lying in his bed all day, and it was high time that he went out and started doing something productive. Like buying himself and Kendall as many bars of chocolate that he could.
When he was certain that he was going to go through with it, Carlos moved as close to the edge of the bed as he could. Then, thinking back to the last times that he had been helped into the chair, he tried to come up with the most painless way of doing it by himself. With one hand on the furthest armrest of the wheelchair and the other bracing himself on the bed, Carlos lifted himself slightly so that he was off the bed, and then let himself drop into the wheelchair.
He slammed into the chair, his casted leg bouncing off the floor as he didn't have enough strength to hold it up, and Carlos had to bite his lip hard to stop himself from making any noise. The pain subsided after only a few minutes, and Carlos found himself grinning in spite of the situation, clearly he was getting better if it didn't hurt as much as it had before.
Carlos pulled up the hood of James' hoodie that he had borrowed over his head, and looked over to check that Kendall was still fast asleep. Satisfied that his friend wouldn't be waking up anytime soon, he gripped the wheels of the wheelchair and started to push himself over to the door.
It was tiring and painful for his ribs, but Carlos made it out into the corridor out of pure determination and a craving for sugar.
The vending machine seemed further than he remembered, but he reached it eventually, ducking his head low whenever a doctor or nurse passed him by. He had come too far to be sent back to his room without chocolate. When he got to the machine, he smacked his hand off his forehead when he realised that the buttons were too high up for him to reach while still sitting in the wheelchair, cursing his bad luck.
But he had a plan. He decided what chocolate he wanted while sitting in the chair and counted out the change in coins that he would need, before reaching his arms out and gripping the machine tightly and standing up.
Carlos balanced on one leg in front of the machine, wobbling dangerously, but managed to fit the coins into the slot and press the appropriate buttons, before collapsing back into the wheelchair, breathing heavily. He reached down and grabbed the chocolate out, beaming with excitement at it, before shakily standing and repeating the whole process again.
He had gathered up quite a stash of chocolate in the hoodie pocket before he felt a hand on his shoulder, and he jumped. His balance, which was already unsteady, disappeared altogether, and he spun around as he fell, all the chocolate bars spilling out of his pocket and onto the floor. Carlos grabbed desperately onto the person as he fell, in an attempt to stay standing, but they both ended up crashing to the ground in a tangle of limbs and chocolate bars.
"What the hell are you doing, Carlos?"
O.o.O.o.O.o.O.o.O.o.O.o
Hopefully that extra long chapter made up for the long wait! I hope that you guys liked it :) I'm hoping to get the next chapter up before Christmas :) So keep an eye out! And to answer TheWritingFreak's question, yeah, I think that this story is coming to an end! Probably only a few chapters left… Which makes me sad 'cause I've really liked writing this!
Review…?
Thanks for reading,
ArmedWithMyComputer xx