Author's Note (Monster): Hello, our lovelies! I'll be posting every other day since my exhaustion's catching up to me. I really don't have that much time to write these days but I'm hoping to catch up on some chapters in the next few days. I'd like to announce I'll write a 3rd chapter for Types of Drunks regarding the 9Lives crew. Replies to the reviews below. Enjoy!


Beep…Beep…Beep.

The slow heart monitor beeped along with the soft beating of his heart. A droplet dripped from the top of the drip down into the puddle of salty water mixed with antibiotics to ease the pain. The pointer of the clock shifted as seconds of precious life passed. Every second could be the last one to experience. Four boys waited by the hospital bed, wasting away the seconds, minutes, even hours. It could take days before he'd wake up. Weeks, months until he'd be recovered. Years to heal.

Maybe the scars would never heal. Scars can stay forever engraved in your skin. The sun shone upon the bright yellow walls of the room, lighting the place up yet their hearts remained dark and their minds remained shrouded in a cloud of concern. Worry for their companions.

It had been a day since Da Kurlzz dragged Charlie out of the fire before they both fainted. Both had yet to awake. Their screamer friend lying in the bed in front of them, but visitors weren't allowed in the rapper's room. Da Kurlzz just had to wake up, get checked up and he'd be free. Charlie had to survive on the intensive care, get checked and then they would be able to form a conclusion on his wounds.

He might not ever wake up.

Danny leaned his head into his arms and drew up his knees as he sat against the wall. He silently begged for Da Kurlzz to wake up soon, yet he also begged for the doctor to bring them good news about Charlie. Both could happen any minute now.

Johnny hadn't been doing anything but staring out of the window since he'd got there. He could see a tree from where he was sitting, slowly dying, like his hope for a full recovery. His heart refused to acknowledge that thought and he prayed to God to save Charlie and to let Da Kurlzz wake up already.

J-Dog sat down at the end of the bed and kept silent. Funny Man was placed next to his boyfriend on the ground. None of them said anything. None of them wanted to break the precious silence as if it would cause them to kill Da Kurlzz.

The drummer lied there, immobile. His eyelids quivered now and then as if he was trying to wake up, but he didn't. A tube sticking out of his mouth that provided him with fresh air as he had breathed in the smoke of the fire. A part of him didn't want to wake up. A part of him thought he was going to survive Charlie. He didn't want to live without his fiancé. He wanted to die before he could receive the news that his boyfriend had died. Yet that wasn't what fate had in mind for the boys.

That much was obvious when a light shone through the comfortable darkness of his own mind. He squinted his eyes open, only to receive too much light and close them again. He blinked a few times before he opened them and gurgled around the tube. The whole room came into action when he did.

J-Dog immediately called for a doctor and the nurse came rushing inside to calm Kurlzz down. Danny and Funny Man jumped upright to see what was going on with their friend and Johnny turned his head away from the dying tree into the direction of his very much alive friend.

At first Da Kurlzz was disoriented. He didn't know where he was. He didn't know what had happened. The nurse removed the tube in his throat and told him to remain calm. Reality came crashing down in his mind as he remembered how frightened he had felt when his beloved was inside that burning piece of metal. He couldn't remain calm. He burst out in a panic and demanded to know if Charlie was still alive. He had to know. The nurse couldn't tell him anything since she wasn't assigned to the intensive care. She eased the screamer and told him the doctor would come by any moment now. "Let me check your wounds. Maybe time will pass more quickly if I do. Then you don't have to wait that long. I know the long wait is excruciating but you've got burnmarks too."

"OK", Da Kurlzz whispered in a raw raspy voice. His four friends gathered around him for support and expressed their hopes as the nurse took Da Kurlzz away to a different chamber.

Danny sighed and felt as if he had aged a lot in the last few months. "Charlie's gonna make it, right?"

"What if he does but he's not in a good condition? What if he's alive but paralyzed?" J-Dog mused.

Funny Man nodded along, not daring to reply to that.

Johnny did reply. "Then we'll take care of him. He'd be alive and that's the only thing that counts right now. We need him in our midst. He's our super glue."

"Do you think he'll be OK?"

"I know he will. We're talking about Charlie", Johnny weakly smiled before turning his gaze back at the dying tree. God had answered his prayers of Da Kurlzz' awakening. Now he had to answer his second prayer. Johnny only hoped that he'd fulfill another wish instead of one wish for each.

Half an hour later Da Kurlzz got back to his room. He had a few burns that would heal with time. Only one would have trouble healing but it was on his shin so it didn't matter that much. It wasn't much of an obvious spot to see it anyway.

His friends and a doctor were waiting for him and he knew what it meant. The doctor was about to tell them Charlie didn't make it. He was about to hear how his beloved had whispered his last words, blew out his final breath and died. He couldn't bear it.

Yet that wasn't what the doctor had to say.

The man in the white coat straightened up and checked his board. "Jordon Terrell's friends?"

"Yes", the five confirmed.

He swallowed thickly. "He has suffered a lot of injuries. He's got burns from a wide range. From first degree to third degree. The area affected most is his torso. His shoulder's got a nasty third degree burn we'll have to perform surgery if he ever wants to feel again. His nerves are wrecked there. Another badly hit spot is his left arm. We'll have to perform surgery there too as well as on his right cheekbone. We'll have to implant a few skin grafts to heal the scorched skin. He might not ever fully recover. The accident will surely leave scars."

As soon as he had finished speaking, their comments flowed in. Relief filled their hearts yet they still feared Charlie's mental state. That was a different matter they had to get information on.

"Is he awake?" Da Kurlzz asked.

The doctor shook his head. "We're keeping him unconscious until we've performed surgery. Then we'll let him wake up and you'll all be able to see him."

"Poor Charlie", Danny mused.

Johnny closed his eyes and thanked the dying tree Charlie wouldn't follow him in his fate.

"What about his mental state?" Funny Man asked.

The man sighed and shook his head. "We can't tell for sure what might happen to his mental state because he's unconscious right now, but seeing how he's doing right now, I'd say minor damage. His head didn't take much."

"But how will he handle those skin grafts?" J-Dog asked.

"We don't know. His body might refuse them but we don't know for sure."

J-Dog shook his head. "No, I meant how will he react when he wakes up only to find his body in this state."

"Reactions depend on the personality of the patient. You know better than I do how Jordon might react to his physical state", the man stated.

J-Dog sighed, lowered his head. "He might panic."

"He'll be fine", Danny whispered, leaning against Funny Man for comfort.

"I'll let the news sink in", the doctor said before leaving the room. Da Kurlzz felt tears prickle in his eyes. "Charlie is alive."


Please Review, they're our heavy fuel!

HUshipper: Yes, he was a pyromaniac. You'll figure out more about the "shady end" in next chapter.

Guest: "Great chapter as always" sounds too familiar for you to be a random guest... Who are you?

Krash-n-Ace: Thank you for proposing that idea since my mind's near the end this week. I barely got a few hours of sleep these days combined so I'm really running low on energy and just about everything hurts right now. I gotta get some sleep before writing shit again. THANK YOU! I was waiting for someone to be that surprised.