A Rush of Blood to the Head

Chapter 28

A/N: This one's a doozy to say the least. 

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Chris sat upright in his hospital bed, zoned out.

His ex had just left the room after a heated, tense, and emotional conversation about what happened in the past few days. It almost seemed like she knew what had actually transpired inside his mind. The doctor had been nice enough to check in on him for one last time before going home herself.

He looked outside. It was dark.

This was the first time he was truly alone with his thoughts after his episode back in his flat. He didn't want to think about it, but his mind drifted back to Jonny.

As always...

This time he began thinking about a certain concert they had done in Toronto. It was during the X&Y era. He remembered being pretty hungover during the event and he had messed up a piano part during a song. Right after his screw-up he'd completely choked up and didn't know what to do. He kept singing while trying to figure out his next move without realising that he'd screwed up his timing and almost ended half a bar early than he should have had. Just when he thought about giving up completely, Jonny had generously covered his mess up with a rather shreddy improvised guitar solo while keeping his ambient style of playing intact. Jonny was all about clean tones and light distortion. Ambient guitar is the term he gave to his style of guitar playing. It was similar to Radiohead's Ed O' Brien's style but Jonny's playing had a certain taste to it that no one else's did. A certain brand of Jonnyness that Chris could recognise.

But that wasn't the only screw up that happened during the same concert. Jonny had messed up too, but only slightly, nowhere near the catastrophic screw up that Chris had done. Yet it could be heard to the ears of the keen listener. So like the good old bloke he is, Chris had done a few piano tricks, one of which was a sweet glissando, to cover up Jonny's dead note. It wasn't nearly as enough as Jonny's help but it somewhat returned the favour. He had looked up to see whether Jonny noticed it. And he did. He caught the guitarist smiling at him gently like he always did, his green eyes beaming. He had mouthed the words 'Thank you' at him. It made Chris's heart burst with happiness. None of them had acknowledged their fails and subsequent cover ups after the concert but they knew. At least Chris knew. That they had each other's backs no matter what would happen.

He smiled thinking about the good old days when they were young and free and their entire concert wardrobe constituted of black outfits and white sneakers.

Fun times...

He was shaken back to reality, when the door slid open and Guy and Will walked in. Guy looked like he was a five year old kid who'd just been told that Santa isn't real. Will looked confused to say the least.

"Hey, how are you keeping mate?", Will asked gently, "Rough time with the ex?"

"Nah she was... fine", Chris spoke sincerely, "Where have you guys been? And why does Guy look so down in the dumps?"

"We've been in the visitor's area... I don't know about him though...", Will gestured at Guy

"I don't wanna talk about it...", Guy spoke, sullen, as he plopped down on a couch.

Chris smiled at them, slightly amused.

"So you're doing better now?", Will asked

"Yeah a lot actually... It feels so much--", Chris began but was cut off