sweet as a flower. (Joshler)

🌼 twenty four

~day forty eight~

Josh had been going every single day for almost a week now, 8 am until 8 pm when visiting hours were over, but nothing seemed to change. He would come in the morning on the dot, fix himself a fowl cup of hot coffee in the cafeteria, and head to Tyler's room. Granted he only sipped it a few times and ended up throwing away three fourths of it twelve hours later, but that didn't really matter. The nurses had to fight to get him out the door, usually with either the threat of not being welcome back the next day or the promise of the privilege to spend the night sometime soon, but they were never actually pursued.

Today, Josh felt something was off.

"I'm being dead serious, please, let me spend the night here tonight."

"You know I can't do that, Josh." The doctor sighed, dark circles beginning to seep under his eyes from trying to fix this since day one. "I'm sorry."

"There's something wrong, doc," he almost whined, flailing his hands around like they would create a convincing argument to help him. "What if this is Tyler's last night?" His voice cracked like his dehydrated faded lips, "how would you feel knowing you sent me home and Tyler had no one here when he took his last breath? Huh?" His desperation was turning into anger, into fury.

"Josh, I'm not the one sending you home here, the rules are. It won't be on my hands, it'll be on the hospitals. Stop trying to guilt trip me."

"Stop fucking trying to send me home!" He burst out simultaneously with his eyes, which started to seep pathetically small almost dry tears, if that's possible. "Stop telling me to leave Tyler here alone! Stop trying to tear me away from the only person I've ever felt things for!"

"Josh please-"

"Don't fucking 'Josh please' me!" He mocked hatefully, "You're.." he almost started to call names, insult, but then he paused. Tyler wouldn't want him to. Tyler hates violence.

"I'm what, Josh?" He crossed his arms starting to show anger too.

He sighed. "I'm sorry. I just- I'm worried, you know? I have this feeling in my stomach-"

"Josh. Don't worry yourself into a breakdown, alright? I still have my neurologists focused specifically on his brain activity. He's okay. Just go home, take a shower, eat, rest, read, whatever relaxes you, alright? I have this handled." He offered a soft smile, even after Josh's outburst, because he understands. Most doctors would call security and have him banned, but he in particular knows Josh's emotions. He knows how it feels to sit in a hospital room with the love of your life and watch the life slowly drain from their dull eyes. Specifically from a poison being pumped into their body to try and hope it mostly kills the right cells; chemo.

Josh and Tyler remind him greatly of him and his wife when they were young. Young, dumb, and so very in love.

Josh returned the smile, though frail, and nodded.

He walked out of the room without another word for another rather sleepless night.

______

Josh jolted upright with cold sweat running from under his hairline, his scarred white knuckles tangled deep in the sheets clenching onto what was Tyler's shirt in his dreams.

Yet another nightmare, another scenario his fucked up brain came up with of how he could lose Tyler, lose the other half of his being in some tragic and traumatizing accident.

He looked at the clock, four am.

He breathed out, brought his hands to his face to try and calm his heart rate, then pulled the too-hot sheets from his pale legs. Legs that he swung over the edge of the bed to stand, sway on, then drag to the kitchen for some cold water to contradict his burning skin.

In that time he was able to collect what sanity he had left in him to walk back to his tangled sheets, crawl underneath them, mumble a goodnight to the boy half a mile away in a separate, probably cold bed, then drift back into a dreamless sleep.

~day forty nine~

Routinely, Josh showered, dressed, brushed his teeth, and pulled on his shoes. He always walked to the hospital, it wasn't that far anyway, so he could mentally prepare himself for what's to come when he walked through those familiar front doors. He could probably work here as a trained nurse at this point, knowing where everything is, knowing most of the staff by name and face, knowing the general steps to taking care of a patient like giving shots and changing IV tubes. Most of it Josh leaves unsaid and unseen, he always waits outside for more personal things like changing catheters and bedpans.

He sighed softly as he entered the cafeteria with a wave to the sweet lady with a black hairnet like always, and made his bitter cup of coffee. It just tasted like sanitary hospital rooms.

He stirred it with a flat straw and made his way down the hall;

Left turn.

Right turn.

Four rooms down.

His eyes were barely open as he walked like a zombie, from both the lack of sleep and instinct on how many steps he knew he had to take before each turn, then arrived at Tyler's strangely open door.

He looked to his bed, and froze, as it was fucking empty, a nurse fluffing a fresh looking pillow above fresh blindingly white and mint colored sheets. No wires. No cords. No steady beeping. No Tyler.

But then, his eyes shifted to the left of his bed, where he wasn't sure if he was hallucinating or if he just finally lost his mind,

But there was Tyler. Sitting upright, in a wheelchair, blinking at him, breathing on his own, snacking on a chocolate pudding cup as the nurse changed his sheets.

The nurse looked up the second Josh's hands betrayed him and dropped his coffee cup on the floor, droplets escaping the small opening of the lid onto the white patterned tile.

"Oh my God, Tyler," he spoke so relieved, so happy, so ecstatic he could barely breathe, and he rushed over to the small thin frame across the room.

He leaned in for something he was desperate to feel again after three months of torture, searching, discovering, waiting, screaming, crying, hoping; before Tyler's soft cold hand set against his chest and stopped him from coming even an inch closer.

Sunken, confused eyes stayed on his face, skimming it. There was exhaustion behind them, almost fear, oblivion, Josh hated that he couldn't deny seeing something more; but there was pure unknowing.

"I'm sorry.. but w-who are you?"

______

A/n: heck

~trash