Kut! (JoostxReader)

XII

I felt pain, I felt the cold. I felt the dark without opening my eyes. I do not remember how long it took me to fully gain consciousness again, but there were still blood drops falling down my eyebrow. It was either my hammering head, the metallic smell in my nose or a combination of both that was making me sick to my stomach. I still did not know what happened but I was finally clear enough to feel some adrenaline kick in. Even though I could barely hold my eyes open, I could see the silhouette of my phone laying right next to me.

I slid it closer to me. There was a message from Joost blinking brightly. Without thinking about it I clicked on it to then click on the call icon next to his name. It only took one ring before Joost picked up. It was a bit too fast for me to instantly perceive Joosts first words.
"[Y/N]?", he asked again, a bit louder this time. I took a deep breath before answering.
"Something happened", was the only thing coming out of my mouth. My voice was broken and I nearly flinched from pain under the booming sound of my words. There was a moment of silence on the call, as if Joost had to process what I just said.
"What happened?", he asked. "Should I come over? Are you okay? I can be there in ten minutes." Joost sounded alarmed but did his best to remain calm. I whinced under the pain shooting through my head. It felt like an electric shock and my body froze up, anxious of triggering it again.

"What is happening [Y/N]?", Joost repeatedly asked while he was obvouisly audibly running now.
"There was someone here", I finally was able to say, but my voice was now shaken by the fear. The fear of this stranger who knocked me out. Was he still here? Suddenly panic took over my brain. Tears were swelling in my eyes.
"I'm nearly there", Joost panted, before there was some rustling noise. I could hear faint shouting in the call but I could not hear what was said, or even which language was spoken. Again some rustling before Joost spoke again. "Just stay with me."
My brain kind of fainted back to some state of unconsciousness, but that did not last long.

I heard the door click, footsteps, faint talking. The call ended the same second Joost came running down the staircase, falling to his knees next to me.
"Fuck what happened", was the first thing he said rather to himself than to me. I sobbed, his presence being a relieve but not for the increasing headache.
"It's okay, I'm here now, Tantu just called an ambulance", his voice sounded forcably calm. His eyes darted over my head, my face and finally my arms, before he quickly wrapped his hands around mine. There were more footsteps and Joost said something to Tantu, before turning back to me.
"What happened?", he then asked, gently wiping some blood off my forehead, stopping it from running further through my face.
"I don't know", I said, fully being overwhelmed by the situation now.
"It's okay", Joost said with a soft voice, his hand gently stroking over my hair. "The ambulance will be here soon."

I closed my eyes again, just wanting to rest them but I must have fallen unconscious again, since I could not remember the arrival of any paramedics or the police. I opened my eyes, only to squint them shut again, being painfully blinded by the light. My headache got a lot worse before it slowly got better, soothed by some heavy painkillers before being transported to a hospital. A lot of things happened in a short amount of time but I did not remember most of it. In the end it took a full day and another night in the ICU for me, to be stable enough for the normal station. During this time no one was allowed to see me, but I honestly did not mind. I got to stay on those heavy painkillers for those 35 hours and slept at all times except for examinations and regularly throwing up.

A nurse let me know that the time was 10:15 and that they would bring me onto the normal station now. When I got rolled into another spacious sterile white room there were already Joost and Max waiting for me. Max immediatly got up from his chair and came over to me. He looked extremly tired but agitated, giving me a painfully forced smile. It was difficult but I gave my best to smile back without triggering any pain.
"Hi", he said, sighing more than actually saying anything. "How are you?"
I pressed my lips together, slightly shaking my head. I felt absolutly naseous and wanted to throw up immediatly. Some nurse said something and Joost answered her before translating it to Max. The nurse showed Max where supplies like tissues and sick bags were stored at. He instantly got up and came back to me with the latter, no second too late. Throwing up felt brutal, having nothing left in my stomach. But I did feel a bit better after it, although ashamed. Max handled it like a professional with the help from the nurse. I really wanted to fall back into a deep sleep but Max sat on his chair right next to me, holding my hand and obviously wanting to talk to me.
"How are you doing?", he asked in a low gentle tone.
I inhaled deeply. "Okay", I then said, my voice being stronger than I expected. "Is my brain okay?"
Of course I realized that I had a big head trauma. During my stay on the ICU I was almost always informed about how I was doing and what would be done in the examinations, but I barely remembered anything right now. Max laughed a bit and nodded.
"Yeah, your brains fine, they said theres no swelling but they had to monitor that for way longer than we wanted", he said. "You broke three fingers though." I looked down to my side, seeing a big splint on my left hand, encasing my wrist and all my fingers. "At least it's my left hand", I said, laying my heavy head back into the pillow. So far I did not feel any pain from those alleged broken bones and neither could I now. The painkillers still did their job.
"Listen, there are some people from the police outside, they wanna talk to you about what happened, it would be very important but you need to feel good enough for some questions", Max suddenly said. He nervously stroked my hand with his thumb. It honestly felt terrible to remember anything about how I got here. It gave me a physical headache. But I just slightly nodded so Max could get those police guys and then leave the room with Joost. The questioning went by fast, since I was able to concentrate for a bit and the officers were coming prepared. They had no suspect yet but they were actively searching, thinking it was a robbery gone wrong. I did not know what to think of that yet but that was something for future me to do, since the talk still exhausted me a lot. By the end my pain level had increased a fair bit and I was relieved when the officers left.
A few minutes later Max joined me again, but that did not make any difference anymore since I was already sliding into a deep sleep.