REHAB [5SOS]

DRIVE

[A/N: I really need to do a better job of updating. Yikes. I hope you enjoy :)]

DRIVE

Calum

He hated feeling like this.

He was sitting in his room, his chest rising and falling with increasing speed, his head spinning, his breath leaving him in progressively sharper pants. He tried to curl himself into a tighter ball and calm himself down, but all he was doing was rocking back and forth, his mind going too fast and his heart racing even faster.

He could vaguely tell his fingers were getting sore, but that was peripheral. It was nothing compared to the pure, undiluted fear pumping through his veins.

Shoot.

He could hear himself whimpering, but it was background noise to the scene playing behind his tightly shut eyes.

You're a fuck up. And it's her fault. Shoot.

Calum winced, and another whine slipped through his lips. He thought he could feel hands on him, but he was too far gone. There weren't solutions to panic attacks: there was just a start and an end, with an eternity of hell crammed between.

-

The next time he woke up, he was alone.

He sat up, and he realized he wasn't in his room. There was a soft beeping noise, and that's when he registered the IV in his arm.

He flinched, shocked, and his paper hospital gown crinkled beneath him.

"Calum?"

Calum whipper his head to the side, his head throbbing with the sharp movement.

He could have sworn he heard Rose...

The door opened, and a nurse walked in, her bright blue scrubs seeming fluorescent in the harsh light. "Mr. Hood? Are you awake?"

Calum wanted to snap, no shit, but his throat was dry. "Water," was all he could manage, and she obliged, bringing him a styrofoam cup that he accepted with shaking fingers.

"What happened?" he asked after he'd downed a few cups.

The nurse frowned. "You were having an... episode, and you had to be sedated. You refused to respond to anyone. You were stuck in a state of panic for almost three hours."

Calum didn't need the heart monitor's incessant beeping to know that his heart was racing. "Three hours?" he croaked, shocked.

The nurse tried to be subtle about adjusting his IV, but a few moments later, he could feel the work of painkillers and sedatives kicking in. "No, I don't want to sleep," he mumbled.

The nurse sighed quietly. "You need to," she murmured, and Calum was too tired to protest.

And when he screamed in his sleep, the morphine pinned him down, trapping him in his nightmare.

"No, no, no," Calum moaned. This was worse. This was worse than the usual. He hated this dream.

The dream where he was his mother, watching himself pull the trigger with wide, terrified eyes.

He was on the floor, tangled up in a mess of glass and blood, hair and sweat all over as he looked up desperately at his five year old self. And, beside him, her husband, the man she'd loved. The man she'd supported. The man responsible for her murder.

He watched his father yell at his five year old self, spewing profanities and orders, red in the face. He felt his lips move, and he knew he was mouthing the words his mother had never been able to say: