Disclaimer: I don't own anyone.
Rated: M
Warning(s): Slash, Self-Harm, Suicide Attempt(s), etc.

Ten hours. John shifted in his chair, looking over at the now empty coffee carafe just a few feet away. Randy had been in surgery for ten hours…

He'd tried to read. He'd tried to watch TV. He'd tried to sleep. The relief was always fleeting. Because every time he'd tear his eyes away from the book or the screen, every time he stirred from his already restless sleep, there was no doctor standing by to let him know that the surgery had been a success and Randy had been stabilized.

As much as he hated to admit it, he was beginning to lose hope. His stomach clenched and threatened to rebel at exactly what that meant. He firmly reminded himself that Randy had stepped in front of a fucking truck, and with the damage he'd sustained to his body, perhaps it was selfish for him to want Randy to survive. Some wounds never healed.

And then he silently cursed himself for thinking that way. That wasn't right. The fear and anxiety were beginning to get to him, that was all. He wouldn't just give up that easily. Randy wouldn't just give up that easily.

He got up and started making another pot of coffee. The carafe was about halfway full when there was a soft knock on the door. John almost jumped out of his skin, having gotten so used to the silence. But when he turned around, his breath caught in his throat. It was the doctor. He looked just as tired as John did.

"Are you the family of Mr. Orton?" He asked. John felt his heart freeze in his chest – he tried to swallow, but it got caught in his throat. In the end, all he could do was nod weakly.

"Yes, I'm… I'm his…" What exactly was he? They weren't dating anymore, Randy had gone to great lengths to make sure that John understood that. "I'm his emergency contact." He finished lamely.

The doctor nodded. "Well, Mr. Orton pulled through surgery just fine. It was touch and go for a while there, but we were able to stabilize him." John's relief was practically palpable. "However, I'm afraid his run of operations is far from over."

The doctor explained that this operation had merely been to fix internal damage caused by the collision. He'd had a fairly nasty bleed that they'd had trouble locating, and he'd lost nearly two pints of blood by the time he got to the OR.

The problem was that he had an array of second degree contact burns all over his body from the grill of the truck, some so severe he'd need skin grafts to fix them. In addition to this, he'd need an operation to repair his shattered femur and ulna. Those two bones had taken the brunt of the collision, and the pain had caused him to black out.

"You can see him." The doctor said, not even waiting for John to ask the question. "He's just coming out of anesthesia, so he might not be awake. And even if he is, with the pain meds he's on, he'll most likely be pretty out of it."

John shook the doctor's hand, trying to force back tears. "Thank you so much, doctor. For everything."

"Don't mention it." The doctor smiled easily. "Just take good care of him. He's going to need it."

"Mr. Orton?" The nurse gently pushed the door open, peering inside the small, private room to look at the man lying on the bed. "You have a visitor." There was no reply.

John tried not to let this concern him. After all, the doctor had told him that he was just coming out of the anesthesia and was on some pretty heavy pain meds, so he was probably pretty out of it. The nurse moved out of the way and gave him a comforting smile, before motioning for him to go inside. John hesitated for one second, before going in.

No amount of prepping from the doctor could have prepared him for what he was going to see inside that room.

"R-Randy…" John choked back a sob, looking at his ex-boyfriend with watery eyes. The tears started to fall before he could stop them.

Randy was on a ventilator, and John distantly remembered the doctor saying something about having a hard time locating the source of his internal bleeding. From the two-inch incision on his chest, John had a fairly decent guess as to what happened. A piece of his rib cage had broken off and impaled one of his lungs, causing the bleed. Randy couldn't breathe on his own.

Randy's blue eyes were hazy, and John realized that the pain meds he was on not only kept the pain at bay, but they were also keeping him calm. Nevertheless, those hazy eyes followed John as he crossed the room and sat in the only available chair. It was right next to his heavily bandaged thigh, and John couldn't help but stare.

"Oh, God, R-Randy…" John took his good hand and squeezed it. "Randy… w-why would you d-do this? What could make y-you so upset t-that y-you'd try to k-kill yourself?"

Randy blinked several times, and then, much to John's surprise, pointed to a small whiteboard, marker, and eraser that was sitting on his bedside table. Confused, John grabbed it and handed it to him.

Randy wrote: I wanted to be with you.

Upon reading that, more tears fell. John was practically shaking at this point. "We could've been t-together, baby. I c-came to you a-and t-told you how I-I felt about y-you. How I s-still do. You t-turned m-me down."

Randy wrote: It's not that simple.

"S-So killing y-yourself was the o-only answer?" John choked out, looking every bit as miserable as Randy felt.

Randy wrote: Didn't exactly work, did it? This only seemed to further upset John, so he erased it and wrote instead: I couldn't let you get hurt.

John's eyes widened, "D-Don't you get it, R-Randy? K-Killing yourself would've killed m-me too!"

There was a long pause, before Randy finally wrote: I couldn't hurt you anymore.

So he thought that the only answer was to kill himself? How he did think that that would solve anything? Because John had realized in that waiting room that, if Randy didn't pull through on the other end, John would be right there with him. Losing Randy to another man was one thing, but losing him entirely? John knew that he couldn't handle that.

Randy wrote: Do you realize how hard it was to turn you down that night? To not just open the door and let you in and make things the way that they used to be? I needed to hurt you, John. So you'd finally see.

"Y-You broke m-my heart, Randy." John stumbled over his words, desperately wiping tears off his face. "A-And I'm s-still here."

Randy wrote: I don't understand why.

John's already broken heart practically shattered at those words. "B-Because I love you, R-Randy."

Randy wrote: I love you, too.

Despite the current situation, John felt his heart soar at those words. Randy still loved him. Despite everything that had happened, everything they'd been through – Randy still loved him. Randy watched a series of complex emotions flash across John's face, while the tears continued to streak down his cheeks.

This wasn't the way this was supposed to go. He wasn't supposed to be here to see the fallout. But sometimes, things didn't work out the way that they were "supposed to". Maybe there was a reason that he hadn't died when he'd stepped in front of that truck. Maybe there was a reason he was here, face-to-face with his everything – the man he'd loved, the man he'd hurt.

Maybe he needed to see just how broken John was at the thought of losing him, to realize just how much they both needed each other. To realize just how much he needed John.

"I can't l-lose you, R-Randy." John choked back a sob. "I c-can't…"

Randy wrote: I'm not going anywhere.

"Why did you have to save me?" Seth hissed, chocolate brown eyes narrowed at his two former lovers. "Why couldn't you just let me die?"

When the doctor had warned them that Seth had woken in a particularly volatile mood, they certainly hadn't been expecting this. Seth was angry at them for having saved his life. Wasn't that the reason that he'd written the letter? Seth had gone and put the letter under their door, apologizing for what he'd done to them. And now he was saying he wanted to die?

Roman frowned. "And why would we do that? Did you just expect us to leave you in that bathtub?"

"I had made my peace with the fact that the two of you weren't going to forgive me." Seth said softly. Although he was trying, he found it very difficult to look either man in the face – in the end, he ended up looking directly between them.

"Whether or not we forgive you and whether or not we want you to die are two very different things, Seth." Dean said firmly. "We couldn't just leave you in that bathtub. Not after everything we've been through together."

"Just because we left, didn't mean we wanted to." Roman said. "This hasn't been easy on any of us. We thought that you deserved better – a fresh start far away from this mess." He continued firmly.

Dean nodded in agreement. "We left because we wanted to help you, but it only ended up hurting all three of us."

Apparently, that was all it took for the dam to completely shatter. Streams of hot, thick tears began to pour down Seth's cheeks, and he huddled in on himself as much as his current condition would allow. As much as they'd tried to ignore it, this brought his heavily bandaged arm to their attention. He had more stitches in that arm than he cared to admit.

Roman and Dean exchanged a look. They both knew what needed to happen, but neither was sure that now was the best time to bring it up. Finally, Dean reached into the pocket of his sweatshirt and began to produce the pill bottles. There were three in total, and, just as he'd suspected earlier, they were completely full.

"Seth…" Dean trailed off. He sucked in a deep breath, before pointing at the bottles, "We found these in the medicine cabinet at the hotel." Seth was staring at the bottles with wide eyes, "Why haven't you been taking your meds, Seth?"

"I…" Seth trailed off, finding himself at a loss for words. What the hell was he supposed to say to that?

"Seth, we're not trying to start a fight. We know what you've been through. We don't want to hurt you." Dean said. "But you're not trying to help yourself."

Seth lowered his eyes to the bed. "I… I haven't been…" He swallowed hard. "You were gone. Roman and I were hurt, and you were gone. My wrist hurt so bad, but the pain of everything else hurt one thousand times worse."

Dean frowned. "That doesn't explain why you stopped taking the pills."

Seth sighed. He really didn't want to be having this conversation right now. "Actually, I never started."

He explained that he'd been filling the prescription so that nothing would look out of the ordinary, but had flushed the pills down the toilet instead of taking them. Lately, with everything that had gone down, he'd gotten slack on it and had started to accumulate the bottles. He'd never meant for Dean to find them.

"Seth…" A calloused thumb rubbed the tears away from Seth's cheeks. "Why would you do this to yourself?"

Seth finally met Dean's eyes, "Why? Because, just like you two, I did something that I thought would help. I signed a contract that practically signed my life away, and screwed over any relationship we might be able to rebuild."

Both men frowned. "What do you mean, Seth?"

Seth looked down at his hands, "My new contract with WWE means that we can't be together. That's why I did it. Happy now?"

How could that be possible? That couldn't be legal, to make someone sign a contract that stipulated who they could and couldn't be in a relationship with. Dean and Roman wanted to tell him that no contract was worth losing his life, no relationship was important enough to make him think he deserved to be left in a bathtub.

But in the end, they didn't say anything at all. Instead, Dean sat down on the bed beside Seth, pulling the other man tight to his chest and squeezing reassuringly. Roman wrapped his arms around both men, pulling them both into his chest and allowing Seth to cry it out. He drew his fingers through Seth's tangled locks reassuringly.

They'd solve the mystery of this contract he'd signed, and maybe then, they'd finally have peace.