Melt Your Headaches, Call It Home

The first thing I noticed when I woke was that somebody had opened the blinds. Bright sunlight was streaming through the window, and when I opened my eyes I was blinded for a minute.

Slowly my eyes adjusted and I saw Jon slumped over, face down on the sheets. I'm surprised he could even breathe. He was sweet like that and I didn't want to disturb him. He probably needed the sleep almost as much as I did.

After about five minutes of watching him sleep, someone walked into the room carrying a coffee tray. It was Alice.

When she saw that I was awake she pitched a fit, "Charlotte Reese Labelle, don't you EVER do anything like that again!!!!!"

Jon just had time to start and look around panicked before he was shoved out of the way by an Alice who was determined to hug me. Luckily, after she had set down the coffee…

"I'm so glad you're ok, are you ok? Does anything hurt? Are you cold? Do you want more blankets? Do you need more drugs? Do want some water? Are you hungry? Actually you probably aren't hungry; the doctor said the medicine –"

"Alice!" I interrupted before she could fire off any more questions.

"What?"

"Calm down. I'm ok, but my head hurts, so no more squealing."

She replied indignantly, "I was not squealing!"

"Uh, yeah," Jon interjected rubbing sleep out of his eyes, "you were."

"Well, I'm sorry for being concerned," she retorted sarcastically.

"Hey," I said in a softer tone, "Thanks for all the concern, but just try to keep the volume down. Kay, Al?

"Yeah sure," she apologized, "I'm sorry, I just got a call since you had me as your emergency contact and it was awuful…”

"Thanks."

She looked exhausted, like she had been up all night. I realized she must have been really worried and knew I was lucky to have met her.

I looked at Jon. "So when do I get to meet my other knights?" I asked him.

"Let me go see," he said and walked out of the room.

Alice looked confused, "Your knights?"

"Yeah," I smiled, in much better spirits (the pain killers were starting to kick in), "I was a damsel in distress so they were my knights in shining armor."

Alice rolled her eyes, "Seriously…?"

"Hey," I said, "Jon came up with it, not me."

At that moment Jon and two other boys came walking into the room. One had dark brown hair, big brown eyes, big lips, and was smiling a nice smile. He had a split lip (which made it look even bigger) and an obvious limp. The other had light brown hair, blue eyes, and a round face. His injuries consisted of some scrapes on his chin. They were both cute.

The one with the fat lips sauntered up to my bed (as well as one can saunter while limping) and stuck out his hand, "I'm Brendon."

"Hey," I replied shaking his hand as best I could. "Charlotte."

The other one gave a little wave. "You're Spencer." I guessed.

He nodded.

"Ryan's coming in a second," Brendon said as he saw me looking for the fourth guy, he wiggled his eyebrows, "He'll be excited to find out that he rescued a major hottie."

I blushed but tried to come up with something clever, "I'm just glad that such handsome guys rescued me," and failed.

"Awwwww," Brendon pretended to be embarrassed and hid behind Spencer who didn't act like this was at all odd.

Then the one with those eyes stepped into the doorway. He had brown hair (which stuck up everywhere), honey brown eyes, a pale complexion and the body structure of a string bean. He looked lost in hospital gown top and baggy sweatpants. His injuries were by far the worst; on his left arm he had a cast that stretched from almost his shoulder to his hand where it also enveloped his thumb. Around his eye was bruised and he hunched over slightly, as if it hurt to breathe.

He hung back, unsure, until he looked at me. It was silent for a minute before I looked him straight in the eye and said simply, "Thank you."

He nodded, everybody turned to see who I was talking to and grew silent.

Still maintaining eye contact, I searched him for any sign of anger of resentment for his injuries, but I couldn't tell what he was thinking.

After a minute of silence Alice spoke up, "Hey guys, don't you feel like going to buy a sandwich."

"Yeah," piped in Spencer, "We could get these two some real food."

"Definitely," agreed Brendon.

Jon put in, "I'll help carry everything."

"We'll see you later," Alice said as everybody quickly filed out the door leaving just me and Ryan.

We both stared at the floor for a few seconds before, "Well, that wasn't awkward or anything..."

I looked up; he was smiling slightly so I patted the seat that Jon had occupied last night.

As he sat down, I desperately thought of something to say to him, what do you say to a total stranger who saved you from being mugged? One who happens to be quite attractive?

"So do you have a name so I can build a monument in your honor?" I said, officially sounding like an idiot. I didn't want to come off as a creeper though, already knowing his name.

"Ryan Ross." He answered.

I couldn't quite place where I had heard that before. "That sounds familiar, but it's probably just me."

Silence.

"It's Charlotte, right?"

"Yeah."

Another awkward silence.

He said with a small smile, shaking his head slightly (probably at how dumb we were being), "So what exactly what were you doing walking through that part of the city by yourself at night?"

This question launched a whole conversation about my stupidity and held a lot of groveling and excuses on my part. We mutually agreed that I was an idiot for not calling my cell phone from a work phone to try and find it.

Pretty soon, we turned to questions about ourselves and after discussing our music tastes (which were surprisingly similar although his were a little stranger) I told him about the internship I had with the newspaper.

"Jon said you were here for work, what kind of work do you do?" I asked curiously.

Ryan averted his gaze and looked embarrassed, "Um. We - um."

"What? Do you travel with a strip club or something?" I laughed at the thought.

He blushed.

Shocked, I backtracked, "Do you!?! Are you serious? You travel with a strip club?"

"Not really, I mean there are dancers sometimes..." he trailed off, "But it's mainly about us."

I was confused and horrified at the same time; I just couldn't imagine Ryan or any of them dancing at one of those clubs. To clarify I asked, "So what exactly do you do?"

"I'm in a band."

"Ohhhh." Managed to dodge that bullet.

"Yeah..." he said weirdly.

"What are you guys called?" This was pretty odd; most people want you to know what band they are in so they can get their name around.

"Um..." He scratched his head.

"C 'mon maybe I've heard of you guys. If you’re touring you guys got to be good,” I said reassuringly.

He hesitated but then said, "I'm in Panic! at the Disco."

I stare at him. He plays in Panic at the fucking Disco. And Jon was singing a Panic song last night. He's in the fucking band! They all are. That's where I heard Ryan's name. He's that Ryan Ross. I single handedly managed to injure everyone in the band.

I was speechless for a second, and then I smiled, "You guys are fantastic!"

He looked at me with those honey eyes and grinned for the first time, "Thanks."