Deal With It - Sidemen Fanfiction

Chapter 17 - The Old Days

J•O•S•H

As much as his touch warmed me, I wanted nothing more than for Simon to get out of the damp basement. I couldn't move properly, my brain a mess of stops and starts, memories intercepting one another, contradictions burning the mental images that at first seemed clear as day.

I knew my name, I knew who my friends were, I knew I loved Simon but I couldn't remember a lot.

I didn't know how I got to where I was. I didn't know who had hit me on the head. I didn't know how to fix it.

I tried not to let this show; the perplexed frown pushed to one side in favour of a reassuring mask, willing Simon to break his intense, worried eye contact with me. Closing my eyes offered no escape, not from his anxiety and not from my memory. In fact, in the pitch black darkness of my eyelids, the fragmented memories became a torrent of unstoppable water, flooding my senses.

"What do we do?" Harry asked, weakly lifting his head from his knees having buckled over from the overwhelming, winded nausea that took control of his body. Simon barely spared him a glance, not out of malice, but instead out of continued concern for me. He murmured a reply but seemed to think better of making it audible for the rest of us. Maybe he was finally thinking about leaving me behind. He had tried to move me at first but my head couldn't even hold its own weight above my shoulders. In an odd way, I felt as if I didn't really have a head, it was numb, leaving just my disoriented conscience to float above my useless body.

"We get everyone out of here," Tobi elected to speak for Simon, "We just need to get Josh up when he's strong enough."

"That isn't going to happen any time soon," I tried to persuade him as he turned away, hoping that having his back to me was enough to deafen him to my comments, "It would be better if you all left and got help from outside." Simon immediately shook his head, joined by everyone else as they mirrored his expression.

"What did I just tell you?" he replied in exasperation, "Never leaving you alone again implies that we both have to leave this basement at the same time Josh." I held my painless arm up in surrender, shaking my head slightly but agreeing nonetheless.

"So what do we do?" I asked pressingly, "I have to sit up sooner or later or my head hurting will be the least of our problems." I gestured at the water that hugged my body with a chill that had initially travelled through my spine but now blanketed my entire, shivering figure.

"Do we just lift you quickly?" Tobi asked doubtfully, "It doesn't seem like a good idea to force you to get up too soon bro." Vikk immediately agreed, explaining that it was a bad idea to move people with amnesia until they have a full grasp of their surroundings.

"Well we're in a dark, cold basement in London," I reeled off the facts Simon had drilled into my uncooperative brain until they finally stuck, "We are below Tobacco Dock where Deji and Joe have taken over with a bunch of security guards that no one recognises. JJ is a lying snake; Tobi's words, not mine; and decided to take advantage of our trust again as if he hasn't done that enough recently."

"Alright Josh," Simon stopped me with a small smile, "We get that you are no longer as disoriented." I nodded contentedly, looking up at the scratched patterns that were etched into the roof, trails of water occasionally dripping from the deeper grooves and landing with a light splash around my body.

"You know, I really hate being the difficult one," I muttered suddenly, unsure why this came to mind at that point. Simon frowned softly as everyone jumped in to reassure me.

"You're not being deliberately difficult," he eventually spoke above the others, "We'd rather you were here than trapped somewhere else Joshy."