Breathe Me Back To Life •Patrick Stump+Fall Out Boy•

Chapter Fifty Four: So Progress Report: I Am Missing You To Death

||Cole Wentz|| First Person||

I know the world's a broken bone

But melt your headaches

Call it home

Hey Moon,

Please forget to fall down

Hey Moon,

Don't you go down

Pain. Complete and utter pain is the first thing to catch my attention. The burning sensation at the back of my head is unbearable, and it feels like a hot metal rod is melting and prying the skin open, digging into me. The next thing to catch my short spanned attention is the unbelievable amount of noise.

"Cole, can you hear me?" Whoever is speaking sounds like they're miles away, their voice distorted and almost distant. I can't focus on anything but the burning pain behind my ear, and I can feel something pushing against the wound behind my ear and the entry wound near my nose, but it's all a blur of pain, commands being shouted, and the sirens whirring. I have this intuition that I'm in an ambulance, which means that everyone is in this small room and that my hearing isn't at its best, considering I shouldn't be having this much trouble deciphering speech so direct. It doesn't matter though, because everyone is either speaking too fast for me to make out the collision of syllables and letters, or so loud that the sound hurts my ears and leaves a ringing and a dull pounding in my eardrums. I almost give up trying to decipher all the ridiculous words spewing from the paramedics.

"Cole, it's me, Pete." He's saying, his voice as soft and calm as it really could be at this point. "You should have been there- Andy went ballistic on Derek." He's saying slowly, and if I could, I would have raised an eyebrow. "I mean, you were there, but you know." He adds, his voice shaking so badly that I'm more worried about him than myself. "He just kept punching him, and the bastard was coughing blood up. He was begging for Andy to stop, and if it weren't for Brendon pulling Andy back, I'm sure Ginger Beard would have killed Derek. I only got one punch in, but it's still something, right?"

"You're going to be all okay," he continues, his deep voice almost melodic. If I could, I would lean closer to the source of sound, but I can't seem to move anything without experiencing the brutalist pain I've ever felt. "We're on our way to the hospital. Patrick is alive, and he's in the ambulance before ours. He's alive, and he's going to want you to be alive when he wakes up."

He's going to want you to be alive when he wakes up.

Alive.

When?

If.

"You're strong." Pete states, and I can just barely feel his hand over my own. "You're strong, and I am so proud of you. I love you, little sis." And then his lips are pressing to my forehead, and this half conscious position I am in sort of disappears for what feels like forever.

---

"... Head trauma... concussion... surgery..." These are just little snippets of the things I'm able to catch at this point. From my half assed guesses, nurses and doctors are running around frantically, shouting about trauma to my head and something about me having to undergo surgery. I was scared, of course. Who wouldn't feel scared, if you want the honest truth? I could die. From what I've been hearing this whole time, they make it seem like I'm just not going to live this time. They make it seem like I was dying as they spoke; something about blunt trauma to my head and facial reconstruction aka cosmetic surgery. I don't understand all of this medical terminology, so when I hear them naming different IV lines and their versions and medical procedures, I'm lost.