"A Sanctuary Safe and Strong"(Marianas Trench)

Chapter 10

Forty-five minutes later, Josh had signed his release paperwork at the front desk and both men were sitting in Matt's car outside the singer's condo, just as they'd done approximately seventy-two hours prior. The blond had made another stupid joke and Matt had actually laughed this time, finally easing the tension between the pair. 

"Are you sure you don't wanna come stay with me?" Matt offered for the third time during the ten minute drive from the hospital. "You know I have the room and it's cool with me if you take up the extra space." 

Josh watched the windshield wipers swish back and forth in front of him, smearing and blurring everything beyond the glass. It was a sight he was more than a little familiar with. October in Vancouver meant that clear skies were a myth. He thought about Matt's question intently before deciding that he would be fine. He'd call the cops and have them meet him so they could collect their evidence or whatever the fuck they had to do, and then he'd sleep. Just...sleep. He'd be okay. "Nah, dude, thanks, though. I'm good. I'm just gonna crash. I'll call you in the morning, though. I'm still gonna need a ride to the studio, if you can do it. We lost three whole fuckin' days of work because of me." 

"Man, no... No," the guitar player objected, taking his hands off the steering wheel and turning his body to face the singer. He shook his head quickly. "Take some time. Heal up a little. Rest first, then we can get back into the studio. If the album release date has to be pushed back a while, it's fine. People'll understand."  

"What did I just fuckin' tell you back there? Let me do this my way, Matt. Please." Josh reached across his body and shoved the door open with his left hand before twisting and stepping out of the car, frustrated, but not exactly angry.  

He heard Matt sigh and watched as the younger man faced forward again, staring through the windshield and avoiding Josh's eyes. "You can't keep pretending like nothing happened..." 

"Shit, Matt," the blond said quietly, dragging his pointer finger through a raindrop along the edge of the roof as he stood just outside the door, getting soaked in the mist. "I'm not. I'm just...I'm...fucking exhausted. It's been a hell of a week, you know? But...thank you. For everything. I'll call you, okay? Around noon?" 

The brunet nodded wordlessly, pulling out of the parking lot seconds after Josh had slammed the door and moved away from the car. He hadn't even waited for the blond to get to the door before he was out of sight.  

Once Josh was standing in front of his condo, he leaned his head lightly against the frame. "Fuck," he groaned when he realized he'd forgotten the empty travel bag, brown paper bag with his old clothes, and the medication in the back seat of the younger man's car. The bag and ruined clothing, he could do without. But, the medications...fuck, fuck, fuck. He was sure he would be in desperate need of those before the night was out. That stuff was crucial. His shoulder and ribs were already starting to throb a bit and it hadn't even been that long since Josh had left the hospital, but he'd be damned if he'd drop his pride long enough to call Matt just to ask the guitar player to drive back to his place for that after the handful of words they'd exchanged.  

Neither man would consider what had happened just then a fight of any kind. They'd certainly fought before, and this was nothing in comparison. The singer really was just easily irritated as well as mentally and emotionally worn out. Who wouldn't be? When he was at that point, even Matt couldn't make it better, and it didn't pay to make things worse. What he needed was his own bed and time to himself. But first, he had to stand huddled under the overhang to his condo while he made the obligatory phone call to the police station and waited for Officer St. Ledger and the rest of his crew to show up.  

It didn't take long for the officers to show up, finally allowing Josh to get out of the rain and step foot inside the house for the first time in days. The second he walked in, the smell of old blood and vomit hit him like nothing ever had before, and it went straight to his stomach, leaving him just barely hanging on. 

That alone had him apologizing to the officers for not being able to stick around before disappearing straight into the kitchen where he sat hunched over the table with his fingers laced together, his head resting against his hands and his eyes closed, strongly willing himself to keep it together. Once or twice, he nearly found himself reaching for the garbage can as his stomach started to flip around itself. The stale air did nothing to help his horrific headache, and strong twinges of pain shot through his body each time his belly lurched, but Josh knew that following through with the action would hurt much, much worse, so he swallowed hard and tried to breathe as shallowly as possible until he could do something about changing his surroundings. 

While it took less than fifteen minutes for the police officers to show up at his front door, it wasn't until roughly two o'clock in the morning that they were finally finished with their investigation. By the time they'd left, they had tracked congealed bloody footprints all over the living room rug, apologizing for the mess. The blond managed to leave the kitchen long enough to meet the cops at the door, waving off their apologies, just hoping to get them out of the house as fast as possible. He thanked them for their hard work as they left, he and St. Ledger each promising to call the other if any new information came up. 

As soon as the last person in uniform was gone, the door locked securely behind them all, the singer opened every window in the condo, not giving a shit about the chilly breeze that blew through. He just needed to air the place out for the night, deciding that he'd worry about calling some kind of cleaning crew to take care of the mess in the morning after he'd slept for as long as possible. Josh felt certain that there were people out there who would take care of this kind of thing.