Notes: As always, kids, thanks for reviewing! It means bunches! :) Also wanted to throw in a note that I went on something of a splurge this afternoon and bought both the "Before They Were Superstars" video and the new Forceable Entry CD. I recommend both. Besides seeing a little kid freak out to see E&C walking down his school halls *g*, there are also a few really awesome tracks on the CD. *cough*RVD*cough* End of blatant plug. But what I'm trying to get to is that I've been thinking about getting the new Rob Zombie CD, partly because Edge's theme has made me fall in love with that song, and partly because Rob isn't doing his whole "ooh, look at me, I'm all dead and gothic!" shtick anymore and I'm hoping he's going back to some of his roots. Anyone who's bought the CD, is it worth the money?
Oh yeah. Story. Right. Here ya go.
******
Hospital coffee was, in the end, all that kept Jay from screaming.
He hadn't intended to spend one of his rare days off in the waiting room of Our Lady Fatima Hospital. He had, however, made detailed plans to sleep most of the day and maybe do some sorely-needed grocery shopping. His plans were shredded by a call from a hysteric Sophie telling him that Adam was being taken to the hospital and that he should come as well.
So far, the past two hours had been spent making trips from his seat to the coffee pot across the room. The last time he had been in a hospital was when he broke his arm when he was eight, and that had been enough of an unpleasant experience to make him never want to set foot in a hospital ever again.
He'd tried pacing, reading the outdated magazines on a nearby table, even counting the beige tiles on the floor; so far, nothing had managed to hold his attention for more than a few distracted minutes. It hadn't yet fully registered exactly why he was there, though he vaguely recalled Sophie's tear-choked tale of getting Mike to force the door open and finding Adam lying in a steadily thickening pool of his own blood, unconscious and taking short, shallow breaths.
Jay admitted to himself that he'd really rather not know the details about the situation.
A sudden sharp clutching of his arm made him jump in his seat. Sophie's grip only loosened slightly once she gained his attention. Jay stifled a yelp at feeling her nails digging into his flesh and tried to make sense of what it was the doctor was trying to say. Between his sleeplessness and worry, the words all seemed to blur together and confuse him that much more. All he gathered was something about a lot of blood being lost, stable, and recommendations for psychiatric care. Jay's mind reeled as he tried to take the information in.
"--but I'd like for him to get some rest, so please keep the visit short as possible."
Jay blinked at the doctor, then turned his blank expression to Sophie. "Huh?"
"Go see him, honey. He needs a friendly face right now." She nudged him and pointed down the hallway, to which Jay nodded and began walking down with heavy feet. When he reached the designated room, he pushed the door open and peered cautiously inside as if expecting something to jump out and grab him. All he received for his paranoid thoughts was the sound of a monitor beeping a slight irregular rhythm.
At that moment, he wanted to be anywhere else on Earth than in that room, just steps away from the bed atop which his friend -- and quite possibly more, which brought more confusion to him than he cared to admit -- lay motionless and pale.
He gulped and forced himself to keep walking, one foot in front of the other until he was able to sink down into a bedside chair. Despite himself he looked down to the arm lying closest to him and almost broke down in tears when the reality of the events hit him across the face. Adam's left arm was wrapped in gauze and thick white bandages from his wrist up to just past his elbow, and the faintest traces of blood were still visible soaking through the bottom layer. Jay reached out and traced his fingers along the arm, shaking his head in something that was a mix between disgust and amazement.
As if by some secret intuition he looked up just as Adam's eyelids fluttered open. His lips, paled as much of the rest of him and nearly impossible to tell from the rest of his ashen face, opened as if to speak but closed again when no sound came out. That was just fine with Jay; he had some things he wanted to say while Adam couldn't argue with him anyway.
"You selfish, conceited son of a bitch," he started, wiping the back of an annoyed hand across his eyes. His lecture would be much less meaningful while crying like a baby. "Did you really think this was the only way to get out? Didn't you ever stop to think, even for a minute, that there were people who cared about you?" Adam closed his eyes again but Jay knew better than to believe he was simply ignoring him. He sighed and leaned forward to press a kiss to Adam's forehead. "Fine. Go back to sleep, you bastard. But don't think I'm letting you off this easy. You're gonna be doing some serious explaining later."
Jay, true to his word, was the first thing Adam saw when he opened his eyes again. The second was the officer standing on his right with a disapproving look. Jay, needless to say, was the one he chose to keep his eyes on.
"Hey," Jay greeted quietly with a shaky smile, obviously having gotten some sleep to take the harsh edge out of his voice that had been there hours earlier. Adam tried to return the greeting but was too distracted by the sudden realization there was something making his arm feel like it weighed ten pounds. He picked it up a couple inches off the mattress, stared at it, then dropped it carelessly back down and went back to staring up at the ceiling.
"It didn't work."
Jay pulled his chair closer to the bed and leaned his elbows on the metal guardrail. "No, it didn't, which is pretty good 'cause I haven't been paid yet and I can't afford flowers for the funeral." He forced a tight grin, reaching over to pull a stray piece of hair from Adam's face, stunning both of them with the innocent but touching gesture. "Uh . . . yeah. So anyway. How d'ya feel?"
Adam didn't answer right away, just thought the question over carefully. "Useless."
"Besides that."
"Dumb. Unwillfully alive. Pissed off. Get me a thesaurus and I can keep going."
Jay sighed and leaned back in his seat. "Just so you know, you've upset a lot of people who actually care about you." He paused to look down with feigned interest at the frayed knees of his jeans. "Myself included."
"Do you have any idea what it's like not being able to do anything right? I even managed to fuck things up with a brand new razor."
"Do you know what it's like sitting out in a waiting room for two and a half solid hours because you don't know if the guy you just slept with is going to live through the night or not?" Jay asked angrily, pushing a hand through his hair and huffing. "Jesus Christ, man, I'm sorry if I was so bad you had to try to kill yourself. I'll buy a book and get better, promise."
"Is this some kind of big joke to you?"
"No. I'm telling jokes to keep my sanity . . . and to keep from killing you myself," he added after a moment to think. "Now. I think you owe me at least some kind of reasoning for all this." He noticed Adam's eyes travel towards the officer and he nodded. "Alright. I'll tell the rent-a-cop to get lost if you'll talk. Deal?" Adam shrugged indifferently; Jay optomistically took that as a good sign. He looked up and cleared his throat to get the officer to look at him. "Uh, can you, like, leave for a few minutes? Please?"
"I have orders to stay here, sir."
"From who?"
"I'm not allowed to say."
Adam cursed under his breath. "You're in my room, so either you think I'm gonna dive out the window or kill someone else, now I think it's only fair to tell me who gave you the permission to invade my goddamned personal space. I'm a psycho, you idiot! Crazy, see?" He asked, waving his right hand around wildly. "So, Officer--" he grabbed the officer's wrist and pulled him closer, then pulled him down by his shirt, squinting, "--Watts, you wanna tell me why you're here and who rented you?"
Jay ducked his head, though some bizarre interest kept him watching as the officer's face flushed a dark red color from either embarrassment or anger. Jay didn't particularly want to know which it was. Adam was evidently showing off what a brat he could be, but it seemed to be working since the officer took a step backwards and smoothed his shirt down indignantly.
"Mr. David Copeland. He's filing charges and asked me to stay here so you don't leave."
"I've got an IV hooked in my arm and fifteen pounds of bandages on the other. Exactly what in the hell kind of threat do I pose?"
Jay, however, was more concerned with the former part of the response and held up his hand, palm-first. "Hey, wait a minute -- charges?"
Officer Watts nodded solemnly. "Aggravated assault."
Jay's mouth dropped open, but Adam only gave an insane little grin and looked back to the ceiling. "I was hoping it'd at least be attempted murder or something. Maybe malicious wounding. Did he mention anything about a deadly weapon at any point?"
The officer shook his head, then pulled the door open. "No. And if he by chance happens to ask, you were unconscious when I left."
"No problem, Andy. Tell Aunt B I said hi if you see her in the hallway."
"Dude, this isn't *even* funny!" Jay scolded once the door swung shut. Adam laughed in reply. "What -- Adam, you're insane. What's wrong with you?"
"I'm insane. You just told me."
"I am so damn close to just choking the life right out of you," Jay threatened, hands already forming a rounded shape and nearing Adam's throat.
Adam looked up, locking eyes intensely with Jay's. "Do it."
The force behind his demand stopped Jay in his tracks. He sat back down in his seat and dropped his elbows again onto the metal railing. "So. Talk." He held a hand up to stop Adam's protesting groan. "Don't start that 'I'm keeping it all inside' bullshit. I got rid of Dudley Do-Right over there, the least you can do is tell me why you're here."
Adam sighed softly, trying to push himself up into a sitting position but crying out sharply at the searing pain that shot through his bandaged arm. He fell back onto the bed and blinked the tears from his eyes while Jay wrapped an arm about his shoulders and helped him make another attempt at sitting up, this time with more success. "Fine. He was mad, as you can imagine, when I got home. We got in a fight in my room and things just went downhill from there. H-He started hitting me and I was . . . I don't know. I saw my old baseball bat and I lost it. I grabbed it and hit him as hard as I could." He stopped abruptly to scratch at his ear. "I was standing over him and . . . and I honestly don't know what stopped me from just bashing his head in. I wanted to."
"I can't fault you for that one."
If he'd heard the comment, Adam ignored it and went on. "I saw him breathing and I knew he was still alive, and much as part of me wanted to kill him, I-I couldn't. And I knew if I let him live he'd just keep going after everything and everyone important to me until there just wasn't anything left. I knew he'd take it out on you and I didn't. . . didn't wanna see that. Didn't wanna put you through that."
Jay's eyes widened. "So, pretty much, you slit your wrist over me?"
"Pretty much," Adam agreed with a faint shrug. "I never meant to drag you into this."
"Well, Romeo, that's romantic in a sick sort of way, I guess."
Adam glanced down at his arm and sneered. "If I was trying to be romantic, I woulda used a bigger blade."
"That's not funny."
"It wasn't supposed to be."
Before anything else could be said on the matter, the door came open to admit a flustered Officer Watts and David right behind him, a thick bandage on the right side of his head. Jay jumped up so suddenly his chair overturned.
"What are you doing here? Get out! Get him out!" He ordered to the officer, jutting a finger toward the door. "It's his fault this entire mess started! Get him out!"
David never so much as glanced at Jay, just looked over to his son and absently put a hand to the bandage on his head. "I hope you've had time to think about what you've done."
"You've got a lot of fucking nerve, you asshole!" Jay cried, anger flaring instead of simmering with time. Adam made a thwarted attempt to yank him back down into his chair -- still on the floor -- and closed his eyes against the verbal assault that was giving him a headache. "I wish he *would've* killed you! It would've been a public service!"
David waved Jay away with a careless hand and came to stand beside Adam, watching him with narrowed eyes. "I'm dropping charges, just so you know. I thought you might have learned a lesson about consequences so I really saw no point in going through with it." He paused to glance up thoughtfully at Jay. "I had a talk with your doctor and, even though it took quite a bit of pursuasion, I talked him into releasing you. You'll be sore for a while but he assured me that will ease. He also gave me the names and numbers of some of Toronto's finest psychiatrists. And you know me, Adam -- nothing but the best for my boy."
Jay balled his left hand into a fist and reached over with his right hand to pull the back of Adam's hospital gown open. "Look at this! Look!" He demanded of Officer Watts, fuming. "This is what pushed him into it! This is what this sick bastard does for a hobby! And you're just gonna let this happen?"
Adam swore and squeezed his eyes shut, praying the officer wouldn't ask him the inevitable questions he didn't want to answer.
"Is that true, son? Did he do this to you?" The officer asked, the appalled note in his voice evident. Adam locked eyes with Jay and made a small despairing noise before responding.
"No."
"You moron, don't take up for him!" Jay ordered harshly. "You don't owe him anything!"
"I get into bad fights at school," Adam went on even while he could see from Jay's eyes he was breaking his heart with every word. "That's all."
"Adam . . ." Jay pleaded quietly. "Don't give in like this. He'll kill you if you go back."
Adam turned his head slowly to see Jay staring at him with begging eyes. He started to reach out to touch his face, then stopped and instead went back to looking at his bandaged arm. When he gave his next whispered remark, Jay had to lean forward to hear it but wished he hadn't. "Just like I said, I know my place."
Jay turned on his heel and stalked out of the room without another word.
Oh yeah. Story. Right. Here ya go.
******
Hospital coffee was, in the end, all that kept Jay from screaming.
He hadn't intended to spend one of his rare days off in the waiting room of Our Lady Fatima Hospital. He had, however, made detailed plans to sleep most of the day and maybe do some sorely-needed grocery shopping. His plans were shredded by a call from a hysteric Sophie telling him that Adam was being taken to the hospital and that he should come as well.
So far, the past two hours had been spent making trips from his seat to the coffee pot across the room. The last time he had been in a hospital was when he broke his arm when he was eight, and that had been enough of an unpleasant experience to make him never want to set foot in a hospital ever again.
He'd tried pacing, reading the outdated magazines on a nearby table, even counting the beige tiles on the floor; so far, nothing had managed to hold his attention for more than a few distracted minutes. It hadn't yet fully registered exactly why he was there, though he vaguely recalled Sophie's tear-choked tale of getting Mike to force the door open and finding Adam lying in a steadily thickening pool of his own blood, unconscious and taking short, shallow breaths.
Jay admitted to himself that he'd really rather not know the details about the situation.
A sudden sharp clutching of his arm made him jump in his seat. Sophie's grip only loosened slightly once she gained his attention. Jay stifled a yelp at feeling her nails digging into his flesh and tried to make sense of what it was the doctor was trying to say. Between his sleeplessness and worry, the words all seemed to blur together and confuse him that much more. All he gathered was something about a lot of blood being lost, stable, and recommendations for psychiatric care. Jay's mind reeled as he tried to take the information in.
"--but I'd like for him to get some rest, so please keep the visit short as possible."
Jay blinked at the doctor, then turned his blank expression to Sophie. "Huh?"
"Go see him, honey. He needs a friendly face right now." She nudged him and pointed down the hallway, to which Jay nodded and began walking down with heavy feet. When he reached the designated room, he pushed the door open and peered cautiously inside as if expecting something to jump out and grab him. All he received for his paranoid thoughts was the sound of a monitor beeping a slight irregular rhythm.
At that moment, he wanted to be anywhere else on Earth than in that room, just steps away from the bed atop which his friend -- and quite possibly more, which brought more confusion to him than he cared to admit -- lay motionless and pale.
He gulped and forced himself to keep walking, one foot in front of the other until he was able to sink down into a bedside chair. Despite himself he looked down to the arm lying closest to him and almost broke down in tears when the reality of the events hit him across the face. Adam's left arm was wrapped in gauze and thick white bandages from his wrist up to just past his elbow, and the faintest traces of blood were still visible soaking through the bottom layer. Jay reached out and traced his fingers along the arm, shaking his head in something that was a mix between disgust and amazement.
As if by some secret intuition he looked up just as Adam's eyelids fluttered open. His lips, paled as much of the rest of him and nearly impossible to tell from the rest of his ashen face, opened as if to speak but closed again when no sound came out. That was just fine with Jay; he had some things he wanted to say while Adam couldn't argue with him anyway.
"You selfish, conceited son of a bitch," he started, wiping the back of an annoyed hand across his eyes. His lecture would be much less meaningful while crying like a baby. "Did you really think this was the only way to get out? Didn't you ever stop to think, even for a minute, that there were people who cared about you?" Adam closed his eyes again but Jay knew better than to believe he was simply ignoring him. He sighed and leaned forward to press a kiss to Adam's forehead. "Fine. Go back to sleep, you bastard. But don't think I'm letting you off this easy. You're gonna be doing some serious explaining later."
Jay, true to his word, was the first thing Adam saw when he opened his eyes again. The second was the officer standing on his right with a disapproving look. Jay, needless to say, was the one he chose to keep his eyes on.
"Hey," Jay greeted quietly with a shaky smile, obviously having gotten some sleep to take the harsh edge out of his voice that had been there hours earlier. Adam tried to return the greeting but was too distracted by the sudden realization there was something making his arm feel like it weighed ten pounds. He picked it up a couple inches off the mattress, stared at it, then dropped it carelessly back down and went back to staring up at the ceiling.
"It didn't work."
Jay pulled his chair closer to the bed and leaned his elbows on the metal guardrail. "No, it didn't, which is pretty good 'cause I haven't been paid yet and I can't afford flowers for the funeral." He forced a tight grin, reaching over to pull a stray piece of hair from Adam's face, stunning both of them with the innocent but touching gesture. "Uh . . . yeah. So anyway. How d'ya feel?"
Adam didn't answer right away, just thought the question over carefully. "Useless."
"Besides that."
"Dumb. Unwillfully alive. Pissed off. Get me a thesaurus and I can keep going."
Jay sighed and leaned back in his seat. "Just so you know, you've upset a lot of people who actually care about you." He paused to look down with feigned interest at the frayed knees of his jeans. "Myself included."
"Do you have any idea what it's like not being able to do anything right? I even managed to fuck things up with a brand new razor."
"Do you know what it's like sitting out in a waiting room for two and a half solid hours because you don't know if the guy you just slept with is going to live through the night or not?" Jay asked angrily, pushing a hand through his hair and huffing. "Jesus Christ, man, I'm sorry if I was so bad you had to try to kill yourself. I'll buy a book and get better, promise."
"Is this some kind of big joke to you?"
"No. I'm telling jokes to keep my sanity . . . and to keep from killing you myself," he added after a moment to think. "Now. I think you owe me at least some kind of reasoning for all this." He noticed Adam's eyes travel towards the officer and he nodded. "Alright. I'll tell the rent-a-cop to get lost if you'll talk. Deal?" Adam shrugged indifferently; Jay optomistically took that as a good sign. He looked up and cleared his throat to get the officer to look at him. "Uh, can you, like, leave for a few minutes? Please?"
"I have orders to stay here, sir."
"From who?"
"I'm not allowed to say."
Adam cursed under his breath. "You're in my room, so either you think I'm gonna dive out the window or kill someone else, now I think it's only fair to tell me who gave you the permission to invade my goddamned personal space. I'm a psycho, you idiot! Crazy, see?" He asked, waving his right hand around wildly. "So, Officer--" he grabbed the officer's wrist and pulled him closer, then pulled him down by his shirt, squinting, "--Watts, you wanna tell me why you're here and who rented you?"
Jay ducked his head, though some bizarre interest kept him watching as the officer's face flushed a dark red color from either embarrassment or anger. Jay didn't particularly want to know which it was. Adam was evidently showing off what a brat he could be, but it seemed to be working since the officer took a step backwards and smoothed his shirt down indignantly.
"Mr. David Copeland. He's filing charges and asked me to stay here so you don't leave."
"I've got an IV hooked in my arm and fifteen pounds of bandages on the other. Exactly what in the hell kind of threat do I pose?"
Jay, however, was more concerned with the former part of the response and held up his hand, palm-first. "Hey, wait a minute -- charges?"
Officer Watts nodded solemnly. "Aggravated assault."
Jay's mouth dropped open, but Adam only gave an insane little grin and looked back to the ceiling. "I was hoping it'd at least be attempted murder or something. Maybe malicious wounding. Did he mention anything about a deadly weapon at any point?"
The officer shook his head, then pulled the door open. "No. And if he by chance happens to ask, you were unconscious when I left."
"No problem, Andy. Tell Aunt B I said hi if you see her in the hallway."
"Dude, this isn't *even* funny!" Jay scolded once the door swung shut. Adam laughed in reply. "What -- Adam, you're insane. What's wrong with you?"
"I'm insane. You just told me."
"I am so damn close to just choking the life right out of you," Jay threatened, hands already forming a rounded shape and nearing Adam's throat.
Adam looked up, locking eyes intensely with Jay's. "Do it."
The force behind his demand stopped Jay in his tracks. He sat back down in his seat and dropped his elbows again onto the metal railing. "So. Talk." He held a hand up to stop Adam's protesting groan. "Don't start that 'I'm keeping it all inside' bullshit. I got rid of Dudley Do-Right over there, the least you can do is tell me why you're here."
Adam sighed softly, trying to push himself up into a sitting position but crying out sharply at the searing pain that shot through his bandaged arm. He fell back onto the bed and blinked the tears from his eyes while Jay wrapped an arm about his shoulders and helped him make another attempt at sitting up, this time with more success. "Fine. He was mad, as you can imagine, when I got home. We got in a fight in my room and things just went downhill from there. H-He started hitting me and I was . . . I don't know. I saw my old baseball bat and I lost it. I grabbed it and hit him as hard as I could." He stopped abruptly to scratch at his ear. "I was standing over him and . . . and I honestly don't know what stopped me from just bashing his head in. I wanted to."
"I can't fault you for that one."
If he'd heard the comment, Adam ignored it and went on. "I saw him breathing and I knew he was still alive, and much as part of me wanted to kill him, I-I couldn't. And I knew if I let him live he'd just keep going after everything and everyone important to me until there just wasn't anything left. I knew he'd take it out on you and I didn't. . . didn't wanna see that. Didn't wanna put you through that."
Jay's eyes widened. "So, pretty much, you slit your wrist over me?"
"Pretty much," Adam agreed with a faint shrug. "I never meant to drag you into this."
"Well, Romeo, that's romantic in a sick sort of way, I guess."
Adam glanced down at his arm and sneered. "If I was trying to be romantic, I woulda used a bigger blade."
"That's not funny."
"It wasn't supposed to be."
Before anything else could be said on the matter, the door came open to admit a flustered Officer Watts and David right behind him, a thick bandage on the right side of his head. Jay jumped up so suddenly his chair overturned.
"What are you doing here? Get out! Get him out!" He ordered to the officer, jutting a finger toward the door. "It's his fault this entire mess started! Get him out!"
David never so much as glanced at Jay, just looked over to his son and absently put a hand to the bandage on his head. "I hope you've had time to think about what you've done."
"You've got a lot of fucking nerve, you asshole!" Jay cried, anger flaring instead of simmering with time. Adam made a thwarted attempt to yank him back down into his chair -- still on the floor -- and closed his eyes against the verbal assault that was giving him a headache. "I wish he *would've* killed you! It would've been a public service!"
David waved Jay away with a careless hand and came to stand beside Adam, watching him with narrowed eyes. "I'm dropping charges, just so you know. I thought you might have learned a lesson about consequences so I really saw no point in going through with it." He paused to glance up thoughtfully at Jay. "I had a talk with your doctor and, even though it took quite a bit of pursuasion, I talked him into releasing you. You'll be sore for a while but he assured me that will ease. He also gave me the names and numbers of some of Toronto's finest psychiatrists. And you know me, Adam -- nothing but the best for my boy."
Jay balled his left hand into a fist and reached over with his right hand to pull the back of Adam's hospital gown open. "Look at this! Look!" He demanded of Officer Watts, fuming. "This is what pushed him into it! This is what this sick bastard does for a hobby! And you're just gonna let this happen?"
Adam swore and squeezed his eyes shut, praying the officer wouldn't ask him the inevitable questions he didn't want to answer.
"Is that true, son? Did he do this to you?" The officer asked, the appalled note in his voice evident. Adam locked eyes with Jay and made a small despairing noise before responding.
"No."
"You moron, don't take up for him!" Jay ordered harshly. "You don't owe him anything!"
"I get into bad fights at school," Adam went on even while he could see from Jay's eyes he was breaking his heart with every word. "That's all."
"Adam . . ." Jay pleaded quietly. "Don't give in like this. He'll kill you if you go back."
Adam turned his head slowly to see Jay staring at him with begging eyes. He started to reach out to touch his face, then stopped and instead went back to looking at his bandaged arm. When he gave his next whispered remark, Jay had to lean forward to hear it but wished he hadn't. "Just like I said, I know my place."
Jay turned on his heel and stalked out of the room without another word.