Checkmate (Joshler AU)

Chapter 14

Josh's POV

I was wrestled back into the waiting room for twenty minutes, just filling out his basic information forms, before the female nurse from before came back out.

"You can come visit him now."

I practically threw myself from the chair and ran to her.

"What room," I asked quickly.

"Twenty-one, last one on the right," she says, moving out of my way as I run to his room and throw the door open.

I instantly regret not preparing myself for what might have been behind this door.

Tyler lays, paler than before, with bags under his eyes, IVs in his arms, a patch over the bullet wound on his chest, and a life support machine besides him.

My tears in my eyes instantly spill out.

"No, Tyler, babe. You've gotta be okay," I cry, standing besides his bed. There was a knock at the door.

"You must be the boyfriend. I heard you gave our nurses quite a time," the doctor says, picking up Tyler's clipboard.

"C-can you tell me what's wrong," I ask, wiping my tears away.

"He was shot extremely close to the heart and he had died. He's still extremely unstable not mention his previous heart conditions-"

"Previous heart conditions?"

"Um, it said on his record that at the age of two, Tyler here, had surgery on his heart due to major complications from birth that doctors neglected to treat until his toddler years. He was also hospitalized for two years afterwards due to his extremely weak immune system also due to the negligence of treatment."

By the end of the doctor's spiel, I was crying all over again.

"T-that can't be..."

"It says it right here," she says, handing me the clipboard as she starts checking on Tyler.

I read the words, once, twice, twenty times. I couldn't wrap my mind around it.

"Excuse me, sir... Sir. Excuse me," a nurse called out, trying to get my attention as the doctor finished Tyler's check up.

"Yes?"

"We've contacted his mother. She's on the next flight out here."

"Also, he's okay for right now. He won't wake up until the morning, if he wakes up, but if he does then we'll keep a close eye on him for a couple hours after because of his instability," the doctor adds on.

"Okay, thank you," I sigh. They both quickly leave and I pull a chair up to the side of Tyler's bed.

"I know you can't hear me, Tyler, but I'm going to tell you a story. I'm going to tell you the story of how I fell in love with you," I say as I put my hand on his, a shaky breath leaving my lips.

No one knew this story. Now he'd know. Even just subconsciously.

"It was my first day at high school. It was yours too. I knew who you were, you didn't know who I was and it doesn't help that we had no classes together. I saw you around though. You were pretty. Sophomore year we had two classes. Junior year it was four. This year, it was five. I saw you for about seventy percent of my day, I was blessed with beautiful Tyler Joseph for seventy percent of my day.

"Then you noticed me second period during announcements when you caught me staring at you. I think it was the first time I had looked you directly in the eyes. I thought I was in love. I-I hoped it was love. Then everything happened... I was so scared of losing you. I'm still so scared of losing you. So now I know I'm in love with you so you're not allowed to leave me.

"C'mon, Tyler. Wake up, win the championships, graduate, go to college, t-then we can get married, maybe even adopt kids. We can be happy, you just gotta stay alive. Stay alive for me."