You Can't Win This Fight

Johnny awoke with a start, heart beating all too fast and sweating, in a hospital. The smell was sharp and clinical, stinging his nose and the walls were painted a clean, stern white. He raised his head off of the pillow (starchy and crinkly, obviously not made for comfort) and caught the eye of a kindly nurse as she left his bed for the next on the ward. She nodded to the sleeping bodies arranged on chairs beside him and held a finger to her lips, whispering, "They've been waiting for you to wake up for ages."

She turned away and Johnny let his head fall back on the pillow, enjoying the sound of the air rushing out of it. When he looked up again, Matt's eyes were open and studying him. His hands were resting on his legs and he looked like a ghost from lack of sleep. There was no movement or words uttered, but Matt concentrated his gaze into a stare that coaxed the words out of Johnny. "I'm sorry-" There was more to come, but another voice cut him off.

"You should be asshole." Jimmy sat up straighter in his seat and brushed Brian causally off of him, knocking the guitarist into a slump; hunched double over himself. "We nearly died. You nearly died from exhaustion." Calculating blue eyes, old with wisdom and lacking their usual youthful sparkle flickered between Matt and Johnny. "You're lucky Matt was awake to save us."

"Jesus Johnny, why didn't you tell us you needed the night off?" Zacky's voice, agitated and sharp, cut through like electricity. He sat up taller in his seat, and joined the other two in watching him squirm for an answer.

Johnny couldn't breathe properly. Every inhale brought a wheeze with it and filled his constricted chest to the bursting point. His vision blurred until he could only make out the unmoving figure of Matt. Someone -- Zacky? -- leapt up and handed him water; drinking that gave him sweet relief from a dry throat but only procrastinated in fixing the reason for his wheeze, explaining. "New kid on the block, I guess?" Even to him the excuse sounded stupid, and Brian's disdainful snort from the corner confirmed it.

Brian's sleeping body lurched forward and almost off his chair, saved only by Jimmy's quick reactions. No-one spoke for a long moment, then Jimmy ended the conversation with a short, curt sentence. “You’re an idiot, Seward.” He sounded as though he was holding himself back, but Johnny knew he’d get the full lecture later on.

The conversation steered on to Johnny’s recovery and tomorrow’s show, laughing and joking at Brian as he slept as though nothing had happened. But as Johnny was discharged later that night, he couldn’t shake the feeling that Matt was staring at him, watching his back intently.