In His Arms Again [boyxboy]

Chapter 1

Picture is inspiration for the character Shane.

“Hey, Shane! Thought you weren’t coming today. You’re late!” the nurse calls to me as I enter Joshua’s hospital room. He’s still in a coma, but he’s getting better. His wounds have healed. After all, it’s already been a year. Yep, an entire year has gone by. As a matter of fact, in two weeks from now, it’ll be the day I first started camp.

They closed that camp down after the incident that happened with Taylor. A lot of the guys were distraught and upset and everything; that camp had been a summer home to most of them, but we all move on. I only see Alexander and Sam from the camp. Steven and Alex are off on a world wide adventure, doing who knows what. We keep in contact with texting though. We met with Danny at Taylor’s funeral. He gave me a big apology and now we text also. Though, I don’t really hang out with him. Those are the only people that I’ve kept in touch with at the camp. Everyone else either didn’t bother from the start or just drifted.

“How was work, Shane?” the nurse, Leslie, asks me.

“Um… ya know, the same old shit, different day. Nothing special happened today. Any changes?” I ask, hoping something good has happened while I was working.

She shakes her head and frowns. I smile to reassure her that it’s okay and she leaves the room to go do the nurse thing that nurses do.

“Ah! Shane!” Alexander runs into the room and tackles me onto the floor, hugging me too tight, “I missed you!”

I fell on my side with my arm lifted to give room for Alexander to wrap his tiny arms around my waist.

            “A-Alexander…you just saw me this morning…” I laugh, ruffling his hair.

            “GASP! Shane! Do not touch thy hair! It took me hours just to get it perfect! I even got gel in my eye and burned myself on the straightener…” he pouts, his bottom lip poking out. I chuckle more.

            “Where’s Sam at?”

            “He’s still at work. They got him working the evening shift tonight. Said somethin’ about his coworker being sick and him needing those hours. I dunno,” he slides off of me and sulks on the floor.

            “Things still not going good with you two?” Alexander and Sam have been together on and off for the whole year. Sam can’t take Alexander’s trust issues anymore and Alexander keeps getting fed up with the way Sam flirts with his coworkers. Sam has always been a flirt, mainly due to his past. He’s never been able to hold onto a relationship for longer than a month, but with Alexander, he’s somehow lasted a year. Though, it’s been on and off, they’d still mess around when they weren’t together. There’s this boy that Alexander goes to school with that hits on him constantly. He doesn’t like it, but he’s too nice to do anything about it. Either way, it’s just a big messed up drama filled relationship.

            “No, Sam’s coworker, Mike, asked him out on a date.”

            “He told you?”

            “Of course not. I was there…” Alexander sighs, “like right there, holding Sam’s hand, clinging to him. And that butthead still gets asked out. It’s like I don’t exist or something. What’s up with that nonsense?”

            “Are you serious? That’s fucked up. What did Sam say?”

            “Ya know, his usual ‘that’s kind of you to offer, but I’m currently dating someone.’ The guy didn’t even realize he was talking about me.”

“You mean he didn’t give any hint that it was you he was dating.”

            “He never does,” he giggles. One thing Alexander is good at is hiding his pain. It’s usually through his bubbly personality, but now that we’ve been best friend’s for an entire year, I can see right past it. He’s knows this, but it’s a habit for him. Plus, I think he usually fools himself into thinking positive about it.

            “Hey guys,” Sam walks into the room two hours later and plops himself down in one of the chairs.

            “Hey,” Alexander and I both say in unison. I notice that neither of them make an effort to show any kind of affection to each other. I wonder if this is eating Alexander alive, meaning if it’s causing him a lot of pain. I wonder if Sam cares or not.

            Sam and I aren’t as close as Alexander and me. Alexander is my best friend and I can read him like an open book. Sam and I are just close friends and we’ve never actually taken the time to really get to know each other.

            This is how we’ve all been for the last year. Sam and I got jobs and Alexander still goes to school for his senior year. Everyday after work and school, we come to visit Joshua and stay until closing hours. Then we all go back to my house, where my parents have let both of them stay until Alexander graduates and finds himself a decent job.

~

Whose POV is this…? POV stands for Point Of View

            My eyes are closed and my body feels heavy. I feel rather numb and yet I feel cold. My mouth won’t open, my eyes won’t open, my nose can’t take in a deeper breath. Everything’s functioning as it should, but I can't change it at all.

I hear odd sounds coming from what seems to be far away. They’re hushed and just above a whisper. I can’t make out what they’re saying, but they sound familiar. I wonder if I know these sounds…

I feel something on my arm, poking at it, itching it. I want to scratch it so bad, but my body won’t move. This isn’t fair; I can’t see, I can’t talk, I can’t ask who the sounds belong to and I have an irritating itch, but can’t scratch. What a life.

Ah, maybe that itching is the numbness I feel. I wonder if anyone can tell me where I am. Though, I can’t ask, so I don’t think they’ll know to tell me. Maybe if I push myself I can do it, yeah?

I start with working on my eyes. Let’s get these buggers open. Buggers? Really? I make myself ‘lol.’ Shit, did I just say ‘lol?’ Oh, I think I'm feeling my eyes open. Come on…open…! YES! I blink a couple of times; my vision is super blurry. I see figures standing over me; I think they’re humans. Well, at least I wasn’t abducted by aliens, ‘lol.’ Fuck, I ‘lol’ed again!

“Joshua!” I manage to hear. There’s so much noise and I can’t really understand anything anyone is saying, but I could make out that name. So these guys were the odd sounds I heard, but why do they sound so distant? And who are they?

And who the fuck is Joshua?