musesandlyrics | 6.21. Evanescence lyrics
6.21. These wounds won't seem to heal, this pain is just too real
There's just too much that time cannot erase
My Immortal - Evanescence
Co-written with drcampbell
Patrick felt like he had been lying in this hospital room for years, not days. It was easy to loose track of time when there was nothing to do but lie there. He drew in a sharp breath, dropping his head back on the pillow as he blinked back tears that just seemed to keep trying to come. He let the breath out heavily again, trying to keep his composure as he turned his head on the pillow and watched his husband in the bed beside him. A twin ICU room, for those occasions where a married couple were both seriously ill. Patrick just found the notion morbid, even if he knew the Princeton Plainsboro ICU had a handful of rooms with more than one bed. He was grateful, though. At least he could now see Aiden with his own eyes, hear that monotonous beeping that was the assurance that his heart was at least still beating. The was too much space between them, though. Patrick couldn't touch him, hold his hand, kiss him. He could only just lie and watch, wait.
Aiden's complexion was still that horrible pale grey colour. Patrick remembered it in Lachlan after he was shot. The blood loss, despite transfusions, took their toll on the body. But at least Aiden didn't look dead, not like Lachlan had for many days in the wake of the tragedy. That had been horrible enough, but Patrick suddenly found him knowing exactly how Tara had felt back then. Aiden nearly died, and it was his fault. But with Aiden unconscious and Patrick technically alone for the moment, it was hard to fight of the urge to cry, no matter how much he wanted to try and cling to some sort of strength so the guilt didn't completely crush him. He put his hand up to his face and caught the before they fell, getting annoyed with himself when the IV tube got tangled around his wrist. It just seemed to fray the emotions that little bit more and a small sob escaped before he could stop it.
"Hey, hey... the hospital food isnae that bad, is it?" the familiar Scottish lilt came from the doorway of the room and Patrick looked over to find Lachlan there, trying to tug the baby buggy behind him from where the wheel had gotten caught on the edge of the door. He had his son nursed on his hip, the baby boy adorned in a tiny kilt with a Scotland football jersey and mini leather jacket. He was sucking on his little fist, drool dripping down over his fingers as his big blue eyes curiously took in all the surroundings. "Bollocks," Lachlan cursed and with one more firm yank, got the pram dislodged to he could push it over by the window and out of the way. But he was soon at Pat's side, sitting down on the visitors' chair and moving RJ from his hip to his lap in the process. He looked at Pat in concern. RJ soon broke into a loud, determined chorus of repeated 'Unc' over and over again, his hand reaching out in Pat's direction as he tried to do that backflip thing to reach his destination. So far, any male that wasn't his daddy was 'Unc' and at this point, it seemed to be Pat he was wanting. But Lachlan held firm, not sure if Pat was up to anything, let alone nursing a wriggling, enthusiastic ball of dribble that was his godson. "Are you in pain, buddy?" he murmured, looking over Pat's face.
"No," Patrick answered hoarsely, swallowing to try and wet his dry throat, even if that parched feeling never seemed to leave him while the medication was pumping through his veins. As if the symptoms of the illness weren't bad enough, he had to contend with side effects of the strong steroidal medicine trying to stop the symptoms. A horrible metallic taste and thirst was one of them. He managed a faint smile as he slowly reached and brushed his fingers along the baby boy's hand. "Hey, wee man. We can tell who your Daddy is, can't we, darling? Are you going to come here for a cuddle?" He could feel Lachlan's worried and questioning gaze, which he met with a small nod. "It's okay. Just stick close in case he he wriggles out of my hold."
Lachlan could hear the slur in Pat's words. It never got easier seeing his friend crash all over again with his illness, even if it was the nature of it. The night of the accident, Pat had admitted to Cameron that he had very slight symptoms before he got in the car with Aiden, and that he thought they had gotten worse abruptly, causing him to blackout at the wheel. As much as Lachlan wished it wasn't the case, MS could just do that sometimes, and Pat's MRI the next morning did indicate some new faint lesions on his frontal lobe. They just didn't know if they had been there before, or if the stress off the accident was the cause. They would never know. Either way, Pat's condition had deteriorated again. His words were slurred and lethargic, he had no feeling in his legs, his vision was a little blurred, and he was still indicating pins and needles and numbness in his upper arms and fingertips. It went unspoken at this point in things so it wasn't premature upset, but everyone, Pat included, knew whenever this happened, there was a chance he wouldn't recover and literally get back on his feet. Lachlan nudged the chair closer and the raised the head of Pat's bed a little so he was sitting more easily and then he hand his son over to Pat's arms, staying close with his hands on RJ's back just like Pat asked. He glanced over at Aiden, who was unmoving in the other bed and then cleared his throat. "He's looking a wee bit better today. A wee bit more colour in his face. Have you spoken to the doctors about his condition?" Lachlan had acted at Pat's medical proxy while his friend had been sedated, discussing both Pat and Aiden's condition in Pat's absence. Aiden's parents had arrived, but they were happy for Lachlan to continue in that capacity until Pat was able. Since then, Lachlan had just ensure he was there if he was needed, but it hadn't fallen on discussions with Aiden's doctors.
With RJ now cuddled securely in against him, cooing softly in baby talk and half words that made no sense, Patrick looked back over at his husband and sighed shakily. "Yeah... this morning... but I... fuck," he cursed softly with another sigh of frustration. "I don't remember what they said to me." Short-term memory loss. Another prominent MS symptom Patrick had suffered since his diagnosis. In fact, that was one of the reasons he had even ended up seeing a neurologist that led to the diagnosis. People had been telling him things, and he'd had no recollection of them. He nodded his head stiffly in the direction of the table near the bed where there was a notepad. "I got the nurse to write it down. Something about his blood pressure."
Lachlan reached over and plucked up the notepad, setting it on the side of the bed so he could flick through the scrawled notes. He nodded. "It's still low, but it's better. He had a fever yesterday... ahh, okay. They gave him another bag of blood overnight when his blood pressure dropped after a bleed in the op site. It sounds worse than it was, buddy. Common complication of this sort of thing. It was slow entry, the fever reduced and his blood pressure improved. He's due for another redressing this afternoon, when they want to do another wound analysis, but he's responding well to medication and the skin grafts are taking well. He'll have a scar on his throat, but nowhere near as severe as it would have been without the accompanied plastic surgery. He's slightly dehydrated, so they ordered more IV fluids. BNO, but that's expected and they'll probably deal with that when he wakes up." He skimmed the last few lines of notes and offered Pat a small smile. "It's a pretty good prognosis, Patto. If he keeps healing like this, he'll be awake soon. There's been no deeply worrying complications at all. In fact, there has been some response to pain stimulation, so probably sooner rather than later."
Patrick remained silent even though Lachlan had stopped talking. He looked away, over at Aiden again as he swallowed and drew his lower lip between his teeth. In his arms, his godson had discovered his own foot, and seemed to be trying to figure out how to get it into his mouth, content enough in the mission to not need extra attention for the moment. Patrick's eyes dipped down to the little blond head resting against his chest, and then were back on his husband again a moment later. He had taken in what Lachlan had said. He got the gist of it, even if he would forget the specific details. If someone came in a few hours and asked him to explain it all, he wouldn't be able to. Aiden was always the strong one, and now he seriously injured because of Patrick.
Lachlan had been watching his best friend closely, but Pat was hard to read these days, especially when he was ill. "What are you thinking, buddy?" he asked him quietly.
"It's our first anniversary... April tenth. We were going to go away... do something nice... anything..." Patrick let out a small sigh and kissed Riley's little head. "We were fighting. He wanted to talk about the surrogacy and I- I got angry again. It was right before I blacked out... at least, I think it was. It's the last thing I remember. I haven't given him a chance to really discuss it. I always got short with him, frustrated. Probably one of the most important things in his life... our life... and I haven't given him a fucking chance with it. I just... just..." He swallowed again and exhaled, hating the exhaustion setting in again. "This is why. This is exactly why I haven't."
Lachlan drew in a long breath and let it out with a rush. He cleared his throat, sitting forward and resting his arms on the side of the bed as he watched his wee boy. "Do you remember when I was in here? Only a few doors down from this very room. Just been told how fucked up I was and that I couldnae have bairns. At the time, it felt like my whole world came crashing down around me. It wasnae the bullet that did it, it was being told that. I didnae want to let Tara bear that burden with me, and I... I broke up with her. Told her I didnae love her and that I wasnae sure I ever loved her. I wanted her to hate me so she could walk away and nay regret anything. I wanted her to hate me so much so she could move on and find what I thought I couldnae give her." His wet his lips, needing to pause for a moment as the emotions choked him up and tears pricked his eyes at the memory. Even when he spoke again, his voice was hoarse and strained as he fought it. "It was the biggest mistake of my life. I took it upon myself to make that sacrifice for her without even talking to her about it, and I nearly lost her. I nearly pushed her away forever. But she came back and it wasnae easy. It was horrible, everything about it was horrible. Every single day we had to deal with it, nay know at any turn just what our future was going to hold, if I was even going to survive, and if I did, if I was ever going to be mobile again... happy again, not living in fear that every time I walked around a corner I would find a gun pointed at me... at her."
Some tears spilled over and he took another bracing breath. "But it was only when I stopped thinking, and just let each day take care of itself, nay thinking too far in the future because we dinnae know what's going to happen... look what happened," he said in barely more than a whisper, resting his hand on his baby son's head and stroking his fine, blond hair. "I thought I had this chance ripped away from me, Patto. I didnae think I would ever be a father. I know you get frightened of the disease and what it could do to you in the future, but it hasnae killed you yet. Dinnae let it take that away from you. If you, deep down, want a chance at this, take it. Let Aiden take it with you. You know there isnae any of us who are going to let you bear any pain alone. If something happens and you get ill, you and your family are never going to be alone. As long as I'm living and breathing, I'll do anything for you... just like you've always done everything you could for me. And you know what, buddy? Once you're a father, it doesnae stop if you shave an eyebrow off, it doesnae stop if you're hungover, it doesnae stop if you have an argument with your better half, it doesnae top if it rains, it doesnae stop if Paris Hilton gets arrested... and it doesnae stop when you're ill. You're a dad, nay matter what, til one of you leaves this world and that right there is reason enough to do it."
"I want it," Patrick found himself saying in a whisper before he even realised that everything had rushed back up inside him. He was crying again, once again feeling like he would never be able to stop. He knew he had always wanted it, he had just done exactly what his best friend had done with Tara and tried to take the high road, ease the burden on the person he had fallen so deeply in love with it ached in both a good way and bad way when everything went wrong. He had spent nearly a whole year telling himself that he didn't want it so there wouldn't come a time where Aiden's life was ruined because he was burdened with not only a disabled husband but trying to single-handedly nurse him and raise a child while he had worked hard to build a successful company and make a name for himself. The guilt over all of that had been crushing before any of it even happened. He had never once stopped and just let each day come, he had been too caught up in trying to see the future and assuming the disease really was going to end his life before he ever had a chance to enjoy it. The pained sobs wracked his weak body and nearly came ten-fold when the baby boy started wailing in response when he realised his godfather was unhappy and when Patrick felt a little hand grip around his thumb, it just felt like the flood gates opened and something, somewhere inside him, just uncoiled and released a tension he had been bearing since he had been diagnosed with the lifelong illness.
Word Count | 2,598
There's just too much that time cannot erase
My Immortal - Evanescence
Co-written with drcampbell
Patrick felt like he had been lying in this hospital room for years, not days. It was easy to loose track of time when there was nothing to do but lie there. He drew in a sharp breath, dropping his head back on the pillow as he blinked back tears that just seemed to keep trying to come. He let the breath out heavily again, trying to keep his composure as he turned his head on the pillow and watched his husband in the bed beside him. A twin ICU room, for those occasions where a married couple were both seriously ill. Patrick just found the notion morbid, even if he knew the Princeton Plainsboro ICU had a handful of rooms with more than one bed. He was grateful, though. At least he could now see Aiden with his own eyes, hear that monotonous beeping that was the assurance that his heart was at least still beating. The was too much space between them, though. Patrick couldn't touch him, hold his hand, kiss him. He could only just lie and watch, wait.
Aiden's complexion was still that horrible pale grey colour. Patrick remembered it in Lachlan after he was shot. The blood loss, despite transfusions, took their toll on the body. But at least Aiden didn't look dead, not like Lachlan had for many days in the wake of the tragedy. That had been horrible enough, but Patrick suddenly found him knowing exactly how Tara had felt back then. Aiden nearly died, and it was his fault. But with Aiden unconscious and Patrick technically alone for the moment, it was hard to fight of the urge to cry, no matter how much he wanted to try and cling to some sort of strength so the guilt didn't completely crush him. He put his hand up to his face and caught the before they fell, getting annoyed with himself when the IV tube got tangled around his wrist. It just seemed to fray the emotions that little bit more and a small sob escaped before he could stop it.
"Hey, hey... the hospital food isnae that bad, is it?" the familiar Scottish lilt came from the doorway of the room and Patrick looked over to find Lachlan there, trying to tug the baby buggy behind him from where the wheel had gotten caught on the edge of the door. He had his son nursed on his hip, the baby boy adorned in a tiny kilt with a Scotland football jersey and mini leather jacket. He was sucking on his little fist, drool dripping down over his fingers as his big blue eyes curiously took in all the surroundings. "Bollocks," Lachlan cursed and with one more firm yank, got the pram dislodged to he could push it over by the window and out of the way. But he was soon at Pat's side, sitting down on the visitors' chair and moving RJ from his hip to his lap in the process. He looked at Pat in concern. RJ soon broke into a loud, determined chorus of repeated 'Unc' over and over again, his hand reaching out in Pat's direction as he tried to do that backflip thing to reach his destination. So far, any male that wasn't his daddy was 'Unc' and at this point, it seemed to be Pat he was wanting. But Lachlan held firm, not sure if Pat was up to anything, let alone nursing a wriggling, enthusiastic ball of dribble that was his godson. "Are you in pain, buddy?" he murmured, looking over Pat's face.
"No," Patrick answered hoarsely, swallowing to try and wet his dry throat, even if that parched feeling never seemed to leave him while the medication was pumping through his veins. As if the symptoms of the illness weren't bad enough, he had to contend with side effects of the strong steroidal medicine trying to stop the symptoms. A horrible metallic taste and thirst was one of them. He managed a faint smile as he slowly reached and brushed his fingers along the baby boy's hand. "Hey, wee man. We can tell who your Daddy is, can't we, darling? Are you going to come here for a cuddle?" He could feel Lachlan's worried and questioning gaze, which he met with a small nod. "It's okay. Just stick close in case he he wriggles out of my hold."
Lachlan could hear the slur in Pat's words. It never got easier seeing his friend crash all over again with his illness, even if it was the nature of it. The night of the accident, Pat had admitted to Cameron that he had very slight symptoms before he got in the car with Aiden, and that he thought they had gotten worse abruptly, causing him to blackout at the wheel. As much as Lachlan wished it wasn't the case, MS could just do that sometimes, and Pat's MRI the next morning did indicate some new faint lesions on his frontal lobe. They just didn't know if they had been there before, or if the stress off the accident was the cause. They would never know. Either way, Pat's condition had deteriorated again. His words were slurred and lethargic, he had no feeling in his legs, his vision was a little blurred, and he was still indicating pins and needles and numbness in his upper arms and fingertips. It went unspoken at this point in things so it wasn't premature upset, but everyone, Pat included, knew whenever this happened, there was a chance he wouldn't recover and literally get back on his feet. Lachlan nudged the chair closer and the raised the head of Pat's bed a little so he was sitting more easily and then he hand his son over to Pat's arms, staying close with his hands on RJ's back just like Pat asked. He glanced over at Aiden, who was unmoving in the other bed and then cleared his throat. "He's looking a wee bit better today. A wee bit more colour in his face. Have you spoken to the doctors about his condition?" Lachlan had acted at Pat's medical proxy while his friend had been sedated, discussing both Pat and Aiden's condition in Pat's absence. Aiden's parents had arrived, but they were happy for Lachlan to continue in that capacity until Pat was able. Since then, Lachlan had just ensure he was there if he was needed, but it hadn't fallen on discussions with Aiden's doctors.
With RJ now cuddled securely in against him, cooing softly in baby talk and half words that made no sense, Patrick looked back over at his husband and sighed shakily. "Yeah... this morning... but I... fuck," he cursed softly with another sigh of frustration. "I don't remember what they said to me." Short-term memory loss. Another prominent MS symptom Patrick had suffered since his diagnosis. In fact, that was one of the reasons he had even ended up seeing a neurologist that led to the diagnosis. People had been telling him things, and he'd had no recollection of them. He nodded his head stiffly in the direction of the table near the bed where there was a notepad. "I got the nurse to write it down. Something about his blood pressure."
Lachlan reached over and plucked up the notepad, setting it on the side of the bed so he could flick through the scrawled notes. He nodded. "It's still low, but it's better. He had a fever yesterday... ahh, okay. They gave him another bag of blood overnight when his blood pressure dropped after a bleed in the op site. It sounds worse than it was, buddy. Common complication of this sort of thing. It was slow entry, the fever reduced and his blood pressure improved. He's due for another redressing this afternoon, when they want to do another wound analysis, but he's responding well to medication and the skin grafts are taking well. He'll have a scar on his throat, but nowhere near as severe as it would have been without the accompanied plastic surgery. He's slightly dehydrated, so they ordered more IV fluids. BNO, but that's expected and they'll probably deal with that when he wakes up." He skimmed the last few lines of notes and offered Pat a small smile. "It's a pretty good prognosis, Patto. If he keeps healing like this, he'll be awake soon. There's been no deeply worrying complications at all. In fact, there has been some response to pain stimulation, so probably sooner rather than later."
Patrick remained silent even though Lachlan had stopped talking. He looked away, over at Aiden again as he swallowed and drew his lower lip between his teeth. In his arms, his godson had discovered his own foot, and seemed to be trying to figure out how to get it into his mouth, content enough in the mission to not need extra attention for the moment. Patrick's eyes dipped down to the little blond head resting against his chest, and then were back on his husband again a moment later. He had taken in what Lachlan had said. He got the gist of it, even if he would forget the specific details. If someone came in a few hours and asked him to explain it all, he wouldn't be able to. Aiden was always the strong one, and now he seriously injured because of Patrick.
Lachlan had been watching his best friend closely, but Pat was hard to read these days, especially when he was ill. "What are you thinking, buddy?" he asked him quietly.
"It's our first anniversary... April tenth. We were going to go away... do something nice... anything..." Patrick let out a small sigh and kissed Riley's little head. "We were fighting. He wanted to talk about the surrogacy and I- I got angry again. It was right before I blacked out... at least, I think it was. It's the last thing I remember. I haven't given him a chance to really discuss it. I always got short with him, frustrated. Probably one of the most important things in his life... our life... and I haven't given him a fucking chance with it. I just... just..." He swallowed again and exhaled, hating the exhaustion setting in again. "This is why. This is exactly why I haven't."
Lachlan drew in a long breath and let it out with a rush. He cleared his throat, sitting forward and resting his arms on the side of the bed as he watched his wee boy. "Do you remember when I was in here? Only a few doors down from this very room. Just been told how fucked up I was and that I couldnae have bairns. At the time, it felt like my whole world came crashing down around me. It wasnae the bullet that did it, it was being told that. I didnae want to let Tara bear that burden with me, and I... I broke up with her. Told her I didnae love her and that I wasnae sure I ever loved her. I wanted her to hate me so she could walk away and nay regret anything. I wanted her to hate me so much so she could move on and find what I thought I couldnae give her." His wet his lips, needing to pause for a moment as the emotions choked him up and tears pricked his eyes at the memory. Even when he spoke again, his voice was hoarse and strained as he fought it. "It was the biggest mistake of my life. I took it upon myself to make that sacrifice for her without even talking to her about it, and I nearly lost her. I nearly pushed her away forever. But she came back and it wasnae easy. It was horrible, everything about it was horrible. Every single day we had to deal with it, nay know at any turn just what our future was going to hold, if I was even going to survive, and if I did, if I was ever going to be mobile again... happy again, not living in fear that every time I walked around a corner I would find a gun pointed at me... at her."
Some tears spilled over and he took another bracing breath. "But it was only when I stopped thinking, and just let each day take care of itself, nay thinking too far in the future because we dinnae know what's going to happen... look what happened," he said in barely more than a whisper, resting his hand on his baby son's head and stroking his fine, blond hair. "I thought I had this chance ripped away from me, Patto. I didnae think I would ever be a father. I know you get frightened of the disease and what it could do to you in the future, but it hasnae killed you yet. Dinnae let it take that away from you. If you, deep down, want a chance at this, take it. Let Aiden take it with you. You know there isnae any of us who are going to let you bear any pain alone. If something happens and you get ill, you and your family are never going to be alone. As long as I'm living and breathing, I'll do anything for you... just like you've always done everything you could for me. And you know what, buddy? Once you're a father, it doesnae stop if you shave an eyebrow off, it doesnae stop if you're hungover, it doesnae stop if you have an argument with your better half, it doesnae top if it rains, it doesnae stop if Paris Hilton gets arrested... and it doesnae stop when you're ill. You're a dad, nay matter what, til one of you leaves this world and that right there is reason enough to do it."
"I want it," Patrick found himself saying in a whisper before he even realised that everything had rushed back up inside him. He was crying again, once again feeling like he would never be able to stop. He knew he had always wanted it, he had just done exactly what his best friend had done with Tara and tried to take the high road, ease the burden on the person he had fallen so deeply in love with it ached in both a good way and bad way when everything went wrong. He had spent nearly a whole year telling himself that he didn't want it so there wouldn't come a time where Aiden's life was ruined because he was burdened with not only a disabled husband but trying to single-handedly nurse him and raise a child while he had worked hard to build a successful company and make a name for himself. The guilt over all of that had been crushing before any of it even happened. He had never once stopped and just let each day come, he had been too caught up in trying to see the future and assuming the disease really was going to end his life before he ever had a chance to enjoy it. The pained sobs wracked his weak body and nearly came ten-fold when the baby boy started wailing in response when he realised his godfather was unhappy and when Patrick felt a little hand grip around his thumb, it just felt like the flood gates opened and something, somewhere inside him, just uncoiled and released a tension he had been bearing since he had been diagnosed with the lifelong illness.
Word Count | 2,598