Drugs & Candy

Chapter Twenty

December 28th 2013

(JACKS POV)

I dread the hospital sign that I'm now face to face with. They told me to go to the main entrance and not the ER entrance.
"Hi, I'm here for Alexander Gaskarth...I just got a call...He's the John Doe that they're trying to identify positively as him...I have his wallet here with me, I'm his boyfriend, Jack." I explain in a long winded rush.
The brunette receptionist nods her head, picking up her phone and calling someone.
She hangs up after a moment of quietly speaking, words that I can't be bothered to pay attention to. I need to see Alex. 
"Someone will come get you shortly and take you to him. Please take this and take a seat." She hands me a sticker with a room number on it. I put it on my shirt and sit down, tapping my foot impatiently against the thin carpeted floor of the waiting lobby.

"Jack?" A female voice calls. I look up and standing by the doors is a blonde woman in light blue scrubs. I get up and approach her "That's me." I say calmly, despite my anxiety being at a level ten. 
"Do you have any identifiers?" She asks me and I nod, "I have his wallet with his ID photo, credit cards...So I hope that'll work. His work key card is in there too." I follow her into a dimly lit room.
There's a man blocking the bed, but I hear the low beeping of the monitor and I see the IV bag hanging down, I look to my left towards the end of the bed and I see two little bumps where his feet are, covered up by the blanket.
"Dr. Harrison, this is Jack Barakat, we called him to identify our John Doe." The blonde says calmly.
Dr. Harrison, a tall, redheaded doctor turns to face me with a calm smile. Doctors are always so good at that smile. I would know. I give it to my own patients frequently.
"Hello." I say quietly, "I have his ID...I'm not really sure what to do." I admit.
Dr. Harrison nods, "Well first, I need you to take a look at his face and tell me if this is him. He's a bit swollen, his nose got broken and he's got a few cuts on his face, but hopefully you'll still be able to ID him." He steps to the side.
I step closer and I nearly choke. There he is. My beautiful Alex. My unique, crazy, intelligent, witty, fun, sweet Alex. 
Dr. Harrison was right. His face is swollen, his entire right cheek is littered in little cuts and scrapes, his nose is swollen and under his eyes, bruises are beginning to form. His pretty eyes.
"That's him." I whisper, taking his ID out of his wallet and handing it over.
"And if you look on his left arm, there's a rose tattoo and a skeleton tattoo...Behind his right ear is a skull tattoo..." I get my phone out and scroll through all of the pictures of Alex and I, finding the ones where the tattoos are showing and I want to break down right there. 
He's so happy in these pictures.
I pause on one where we're outside, he's laying on his stomach in the grass by the pool and I'm sitting up next to him. He's scrolling his phone and he glances back at me, I take the picture of him right as he smiles. That's the picture that shows his tattoo behind his ear. It's also my favorite picture of him. 

Dr. Harrison hands the ID to the blonde, "Scan this and enter his information into his chart." He looks at me next, "We need to talk about what happened. Would you like to stay in here with him or talk in the hall?" It's nice that he's giving me options, but I'm not leaving Alex. 
"Here is fine." I sit down on the chair next to Alex's bed and carefully take his hand. His head is wrapped in bandages and all I want to do is magically fix him, make him better.
Dr. Harrison sits in the chair next to mine, "What we know from footage of the accident is that a truck came upon the right side of his car, we saw Alex try to swerve away from it, but the truck struck the side on the passenger door. It pushed his car hard enough to cause it to roll three times. It stopped by a side rail and when paramedics got to him, it was apparent that his head had cracked the windshield and that his seatbelt failed. It snapped, which is why he was able to go through the windshield in the first place. Because of this, his chest is very bruised from his body bouncing around the car and the seatbelt putting so much pressure on him until the moment that it failed. He had obvious skull fractures, so we took him in to repair them and found a hemorrhage, causing a slow bleed near the hippocampus. We tried to let it stop by itself, but we quickly realized the bleed was a little too far past being able to stop. We fixed it and stopped the bleed, but with any sort of brain surgery, there are risks. The surgery was a complete success, but I do have to say that the brain is a finicky organ and there may be some complications. We're hoping for the best, but he had a lot of trauma. He could have temporary memory loss, permanent memory loss, some loss of motor functions...We just won't fully know until he's awake and can show us himself." 
I'm living in a fucking nightmare. This can't be happening.
Wake up, Jack. This isn't real. Wake up.
Sadly, it's all too real. I look at Alex, and he looks so peaceful. If only he was peaceful at home, in our bed like he should be, rather than a hospital bed covered in injuries and the possibility of brain damage. 

Dr. Harrison leaves me alone to be with Alex. There are rounds of nurses coming to check on him every so often, they run all sorts of tests on him to make sure he's still got his reflexes intact, they're checking his pupils, his blood pressure, everything. They told me that they're looking for any stroke indicators. Apparently strokes aren't all that uncommon after brain surgery. Not common enough for them to be a huge worry, but just enough to have them checking routinely. I appreciate them being thorough with him.
"I love you Alex, you have to wake up babe...You have to wake up, and you have to be you...You can't not be you...I need you, Lex." I kiss the back of his hand, "You have to be okay." 
I don't bother looking at the clock, the time doesn't matter anyway. Alex matters.
All I know is that it must be morning when I feel Alex's hand moving in mine. There's sunlight coming in through the windows.
Alex grunts a tiny bit, followed by a little moan.
I rub the back of his hand with my thumb, "Alex...Lexy wake up, you can do it." I say enouragingly.
It takes him a moment but he opens his eyes, they're a bit bloodshot. He looks around before he stops to look at just me.
"Hey." I say with a small smile.

Dr. Harrison comes in with his nurses and they're running all sorts of cognitive tests on him. Dr. Harrison asks Alex to squeeze his fingers, and he does. He asks Alex to follow his little flashlight, and he does. He asks Alex to grasp his pen, and he does. Next he asks him his name, and Alex can't even speak.
He opens his mouth but all that comes out are slurred sounds. Dr. Harrison comforts him and tells him to try again, and he can't. He looks terrified. Instead of speaking, he's asked to nod yes or no. That he can do.
They ask if he knows his name. He shakes his head no. They ask if he knows his age, and he shakes his head no. They ask if he knows and understands where he is, and he nods his head yes. They ask if he knows what happened to him, and he shakes his head no. 
They tell him his name and how old he is, and he seems to gather that much.
They carry on with these types of basic questions until he looks like he can't take anymore, so they tell him to rest a bit.
I look at him with a sympathetic smile, "Hey, do you know who I am?" I ask, not thinking that he would if he doesn't even know who he is.
Alex eyes me for a moment before shaking his head. My heart sinks, but it isn't his fault.
"I'm Jack. I'm your boyfriend. Wanna see?" I smile. Alex nods.
I get my phone out and go through some pictures of us. He smiles, so that's a nice feeling.

I leave him alone for a while to use the bathroom and get something to eat from the cafeteria while he sleeps, he's been asleep for a few hours now. I decide to take a walk just to calm my own nerves, and by the time I get back he's awake again, and he's actually speaking.
"Alex, I'm going to ask you to identify something that's the color red in this room okay?" Dr. Harrison asks, testing his memory more, I suppose. I lean against the wall, giving them their space.
"Uhm..." Alex looks around. There's a red stripe across the wall, Dr. Harrison's shoes are red, I'm wearing a red hoodie.
Alex takes a wild guess and points at the orange sticky note on his chart that the nurse is holding.
"Good try. That's orange. It's in the same family as red. This is red." He points to his shoes.
Alex nods "Oh...Okay." He mumbles, but his speaking is still a bit off.
 I sit down next to him again with a small smile, "Hey, it's okay. You'll get it down."
He nods shyly at me. I wouldn't have pegged Alex to ever be shy, but here we are. 
"You know, at home you have this whole closet filled with tons of clothes, and you always wear this red hat with Mickey Mouse on it. It's one of my favorites." I smile at him, getting a picture.
"Who's Mickey?" He asks, looking at my phone curiously.
I show him a picture and point at the patch, then pull up a picture of Mickey Mouse, "He's a cartoon character for a kids TV show. He's probably the most well known cartoon in the world. He's pretty popular." I chuckle a little at his confused face. He knows next to nothing, and it makes me sad, but it's nice to see some things click in his head. Like he didn't question what a cartoon was, so he either doesn't care to question it, or he could figure it out.

Alex does well throughout the night, and I leave him to go home when visiting hours are up. I was told by Dr. Harrison that the way he's managing to pick up on small things, this should be temporary, that he should start remembering things more and more as time goes on, and not to worry. Of course I'll worry, though. It's my job.
It's also my job to help him, so that's exactly what I'll do. This is going to be hard.

December 30th 2013.

Alex is like a lost puppy when I bring him in through our house.
"This is all of your stuff," I explain, showing him all of his guitars and equipment, "You like to make music, and you sing a lot. You're a really good singer." I smile.
"What kind of music?" He questions, and I pull up my phone with some songs that he's helped, I play a couple.
He makes a face "I make that?"
I have to laugh "I never said some of the songs you work on are your favorite genre. You just work on them. You do sound production. You mix the music and all that. Basically, you're the guy who takes every bit of a song, from the beat, to the vocals and you put it all together and you make the song what it is. Then it goes off to be mastered, and boom. You've helped create a song. You've got credits with some of the world's biggest artists, too. So I think that's pretty cool. You also recently sang on a track that's due to come out soon. You're supposed to star in the music video for it too. I only have the demo of the song, but do you want to hear it?" I ask, pulling up the email with the demo of Up In Flames.
Alex nods at me, so I put it on.
"That's me singing?" He questions curiously.
I nod, "It is indeed you singing." I smile.

This is going to be a long road to recovery. I can feel the stress and exhaustion already. 
I'm going to get him there. I have to.