Relax, Relapse (Ryden)

Seven ( Brendon)

Hospitals are fucking boring.

All you do is just lie in bed and no one talks to you or anything unless they need to assault you with stabby things. I basically just did nothing but stare at the ceiling after I woke up.

That one nurse said I'd been out for two days. She wasn't surprised. Apparently that's a very common suicide method for people my age.

Then she proceeded to loudly point out my scars and how I need to take care of myself better. For some reason she was surprised when I death-glared her out the door.

Ryan walked in just as she left.

"Hey," I said.

He stared at me like I was totally out of my head (which I was, but don't bring that up). "Hey? HEY? You got in that car and did what you did, and you made me WORRY for TWO WHOLE DAYS and the first thing you say to me is HEY? HEY like EVERYTHING'S NORMAL and you DON'T HATE ME-"

"Ry, chill. I don't hate-"

"WELL, YOU SHOULD!"

"RYAN!"

He stopped talking.

"Why do you get like this? If anything, it's my fault. I'm so fucking messed up-"

"Hey." Ryan sat down in the crappy chair by my bed. "Don't say that."

"Well, then what am I supposed to say?"

"Dunno."

"Goddamn it, Ryan, I thought you were trying to reenact every stupid rom-com ever until you said that."

He laughed. "Fuck you."

"I love you too."

His laugh faded, but the smile still remained. "I kinda wrote another song."

I sat up a bit more. "Cool! Can I see it?"

Reluctantly, he handed his notebook to me and I flipped through it until I found a song I hadn't seen. "This it?" He nodded.

I started skimming through the lyrics.

Wow.

This is some deep shit.

"What's this about?"

He took a deep breath. "You, partially. And also my dad. It's not done yet; I still need to fix the verses."

"You mean the few blank lines right before 'It's not so pleasant, and it's not so conventional?'"

"Yeah."

I thought for a moment. "What about:

This is the scent of dead skin on a linoleum floor

This is the scent of quarantine wings in a hospital?"

Ryan hastily scribbled my lines in without hesitation. "Do you want to do that for the second verse too, or something else?"

I didn't have to think about it as hard this time.

"The anesthetic never set in and I'm wondering where

The apathy and urgency is that I thought I phoned in"

"How do you come up with this stuff?"

"I just really hate hospitals."

"Tell me about it."

Ryan and I kept working on that song for at least an hour. It may have been two. I lost track of time, which is just something that happens with Ryan.

We were just about done when the hater nurse from this morning came back in. She was carrying a tray, and I was pretty certain I was about to be assaulted with a stabby thing.

Sure enough, she was one of those nurses who never seems to be able to get your vein on the first try.

Spoiler alert: I made Ryan hold my hand.