Life On The Road

The hospital's broken bones ward that everyone had gathered in was not a very pleasant place and was certainly not the place the band wanted to be in. The ward was a stuffy, cramped area with beds all along the left and right walls, obnoxious blue curtains hanging from their railings around each bed. At the end of the room, a few windows had been installed, with yet more horrible blue curtains dangling at the sides. The windows barely opened more than a crack, allowing almost no air inside the building at all. Additionally, the paint on the walls made them resemble nothing more than empty canvases screaming for colour, for something else apart from whiteboards and notices plastered onto them.

The band were near the back of the ward, nearer to the windows that were covered by the curtains. The last two beds on the left row had been taken up by the vocalist and the younger guitarist, who refused to even look at each other, let alone speak. The rest of the band could still feel the anger radiating off of the pair, and they knew this wasn't over yet. That wasn't going to stop them from trying, though.

The eldest of the group, drummer Jimmy Sullivan, observed the other members of the band. There was his lover Johnny, quietly whimpering into his jacket, one arm wrapped around his slim frame and the other hiding his crooked nose underneath his palm. He had his head rested upon the drummer's chest, using his large, puffy jacket like a pillow. There was also Synyster, who awkwardly stood by the window, occasionally casting a glance over to the rest of the group, Matt in particular. The guilt within him was overflowing, drowning his brain in negative thoughts. A once happy smile had been twisted into nothing but a depressing frown, the corners off his lips pointing downwards like a signpost directing you to hell.

Then there were Matt and Zacky in their separate beds, the curtain between them drawn so that neither man could even peek or get a single glimpse of the other. Zacky, who was now dressed in a very loose fitting T-shirt and a pair of shorts, was carefully rested against his propped up bed, his broken hand laying on the bed beside him, a red cast wrapped around it snugly. In front of him was a table that leaned over the bed and could be moved as the user pleased. It had been positioned in front of the guitarist and placed on top was a plate of potatoes, vegetables and chicken with a bit of added gravy. It smelled delicious, but perhaps it wasn't as tasty as it looked and smelled, going by Zee's facial expressions anyway.

On the other side of the curtain resided the miserable Matt with a cold compress resting between his face and the bed. He was constantly scowling, glaring down at the end of his bed and wearing a pair of his flannel pajamas that Syn had fetched from the bus for him, despite not even requesting them. His arms were draped loosely over his torso, taking care not to apply any pressure on where Zacky's boot had driven into his diaphragm hard earlier on. Additionally, the left side of his face around his jawbone had swollen up dramatically and he was requiring stitches for one of the larger gashes on his head, and boy was he pissed about it.

In front of the vocalist, a table identical to Zacky's had been placed in front, which Matt had shoved away several times, only for Jimmy to put it back, encouraging the man to at least try some of what had been given to him in the bowl that rested on top. Because Matt couldn't eat, he had no choice but to drink his food instead, but the vocalist despised what they'd given to him. Beside the bowl laid a small whiteboard with a pen. It was easier for Matt just to write things instead of try and speak, so they gave him something to write on. Much easier. Right now, the only words written on it were 'Piss off.'

"So... Uh.. You guys aren't gonna talk to each other..?" Jimmy spoke quietly. No one had said a word since the doctors left. None of the other patients had spoken, but they watched with beady eyes, intrigued by the situation before them.

"It'll only start another argument and another fight. It's not worth trying." Zacky replied, glancing over at the curtain that divided the two men in their beds. Matt gently knocked on his table twice and Jimmy, after carefully moving Johnny, got up to inspect what Matt had written on his board.

"'Zack, you can fuck off'... Hey Matt, that's not very nice. C'mon man, we need to put this right or the band is just gonna end up splitting up." Jimmy sighed, watching as Matt scribbled something else down.

'Maybe he shouldn't have slept with Brian then. Maybe Brian shouldn't have slept with him.', it read.

"Matt, look... We don't know how it started and right now, I don't give a flyin' rat's ass about who started it. I just you guys to talk it through and fix this, okay- I get that you can't talk Matt, but you know what I mean."

"Jimmy..." Came the breathy, pained voice of Johnny, "Maybe it's best we leave it until another day... This place is no place for that kind of discussion..."

"Yeah, I suppose you're right.." Jimmy concluded, rejoining his love on the cushioned seat that had been shifted so that Jimmy could see both Matt to his right and Zacky to his left, although he was a bit more on Zack's side as to give the fuming Matt some room.

Then, after a few awkward moments of silence, roadie Jason came running into the ward, slowing down as he reached the back of the room. His hands were smothered in grease and grime, oil and muck, and it had even found its way onto his face, a few smears here and there. Jimmy looked up from soothing his love and almost immediately, his eyebrows rose, jaw falling open.

"Jason? What happened? Where were you??" He asked in a concerned tone.

"Relax dude, just had to go fix somethin' in the car. I managed to sort out that weird noise we heard while drivin' up here, y'know that noise that kinda sounded like a very pissed off Raccoon?" Jason replied with a laugh, rubbing an irritating itch on the end of his nose with his rolled up sleeve.

"You should probably go clean up, Jase, you look a mess." Jimmy suggested.

"Jimmy, have you ever tried gettin' oil and grease off your hands? It's harder than it looks!"

"Well, just do the best you can. There's a sink over there."

Jason shook his head with a grin and made his way over to the sink on the other side of the ward. As he strolled over towards it, he caught a glimpse of Synyster standing by the window, gazing off into space with a blank expression. After thoroughly washing all the muck off of his hands, he approached the guitarist and gently placed his hand upon his shoulder. Syn slowly turned to face him, but his expression didn't change.

"Hey... You wanna go talk outside?"Jason offered, watching as Syn's eyes shifted to the floor. The guitarist pondered for a moment before giving a consenting nod. Jason led him out of the ward, out of the building and into the chilly nightly breeze. The roadie took a seat on one of the concrete steps leading up to the door they just exited and patted the space beside him for Syn to Join. He did so with a heavy sigh, pulling his knees close to keep himself warm.

"So what's up buddy? You're never like this.." Jason commented, breaking the silence around them. The guitarist ran a tattooed hand over his face and glanced down.

"You do realise that all of this is my fault... Right?" He spoke after a moment.

"What?"

"Remember that night me and Zack went out for a bit? For a walk?"

"I do recall that. Why, did somethin' happen?" Jason asked curiously. Obviously the answer was yes, but whatever. Best to ask anyway.

"I kissed him, Jason... I-I felt bad for leadin' him on the way I did when me and Matt split the first time... And then doin' the same thing again recently and I just-"

"Whoa whoa, slow down there cowboy. You're babblin' on too fast, I can't keep up." Jason interrupted, placing his hand back on Syn's shoulder. "Take a deep breath, and take your time talkin'. We're in no rush here."

Synyster nodded slowly and paused, taking a long, deep breath in and then releasing slowly. He repeated several times until he could feel his nerves settling back down. "Right... Basically, y'know what happened between me and Zee the first time, right?"

"You slept with him after splitting with Matt. But that was ages ago."

"Yeah., but Zacky caught some seriously hard feelin's and he hated that I got back with Matt shortly after. I felt really bad about it because I don't think those feelin's have died down, not that I've been helping."

Jason nodded, following along closely as Synyster spoke. "You were feelin' guilty so you took him to the park and kissed him behind Matt's back? Why?"

Syn gulped and sighed quietly. He could feel Jason somewhat judging him for his poor decisions. "It was the only way I could think of to apologise to him... I thought it would satisfy him.. Then I realised I'd only gone and made it worse."

"And then when Matt went out to do some shoppin' with Jimmy, you got a bit out of hand on the booze and slept with him again."

"Yeah..." Syn admitted. "I fucked up bad..."

"Listen," Jason then began. "what I'm gonna do is, once everyone's out of hospital, I'm gonna get you, Matt and Zee to sit down in the back room of the bus and I'm gonna get you guys to talk this out, okay? Me and Dan will make sure no fights break out, we're gonna sort out who did what and we're gonna get this fixed, alright?"

It sounded like a wise idea, but Syn wasn't too sure. "I dunno..."

"Brian, we need to get this sorted before Avenged ends up bein' destroyed. This is puttin' everythin' on the line. Your careers, your friendship, your relationships, everything. Please Brian.."

"Fine..." Syn reluctantly agreed. Jason offered his hand to seal the deal and, after shaking on it, Syn was helped up by the roadie. With that, they headed on back inside and up to the ward, They spotted no sign of Jimmy and Johnny, only Zacky and the drawn curtain hiding the grouchy vocalist.

"Where's Johnny and Jimmy?" Jason questioned, walking over to Zacky's bed with Syn trailing behind him.

"Gone to get his nose fixed. He'll be back soon, they're only poppin' it back into place." Zacky answered.

"And when are you and Matt bein' sorted out?"

"The doc came in literally the second you two left. Matt's bein' taken for an exam in a few minutes and they're takin' me in half an hour. Luckily, the doc suspects I didn't do too much damage to his jaw, despite how bad it looks." The younger guitarist explained. "As for my ribs, they can't really tell much. It's bruised quite a bit though, but I'm hopin' it'll be a similar sort of thing - Looks bad but isn't. On the plus side, my fingers aren't too bad. They managed to check that out right away. Should heal in a few weeks."

"I'm sure you'll both be fine." Jason smiled slightly. "But for the love of God, no more of that. We don't need any more injuries. I was on the phone to our manager while I was fixin' the car, he said we've gotta cancel the tour. We're gonna have a shit-ton of upset fans because of this..."

"I know..."

Then came the knock-knock-knocking of Matt's knuckles on the tabletop. Jason wandered around the corner and looked down at the vocalist, who was holding his whiteboard up for him to see. 'How pissed is he at us, Jason?'

"Um, he's a bit pissed, mainly about the fact that havin' a fight like that was a really stupid thing to do. He said you guys really need to sort out your issues, which is what were gonna do when you're back to speakin'."

Matt nodded and let a sigh escape his lips. he rested his head back against his pillow, his arms falling from his torso down to his sides, a pained frown now appearing on his face. The idea of sitting down and talking out their problems didn't sound like much fun. He knew the anger side of things, in which he did admit he had a slight problem with, would indeed come up as a major factor, and he knew Zacky wasn't going to let that one slip away. Not only that, but he was sure to get a mouthful from Zee about Johnny too.

And speaking of the devil, the injured bassist then returned clinging to the lanky drummer like a child, and Jimmy's arm was wrapped tightly around his dearest. Johnny's nose was now in its correct place, although it appeared to have caused him quite a bit of trouble. At the same time, Matt's doctor arrived, and after only saying goodbye to Jason and a quick glance over at Jimmy and Johnny, Matt got to his feet and was lead to a small examination room nearby.


Zacky and Syn exchanged a look. They had barely spoken or even made eye contact since the incident, but with Matt gone for the moment, they decided that f they were gonna talk, it was best done now.

"So, what's your plan now, Gates?" The younger male asked curiously.

"Try get him back, obviously."

"You realise the chance of that is slim when he finds out what you did, right?"

"I know that... But I was trying to be nice to you and apologise for leading you on. The least you could do is say I was only trying to help and defend me!" Syn grumbled, looking around every few moments.

"You didn't have to do it, Brian. That was your fault, I never asked for it."

"It was something you wanted and you know it! Don't turn this all on me!"

"Guys!" Jimmy interjected, glaring at the pair of them. "Stop this. Zacky, stop tryin' to ruin what little chance Brian has left and Bri, stop yellin' for Christ's sake. You're givin' everyone a headache."

"But Jimmy-"

"No Zacky. We can discuss this later. Syn, Jason, sit down will ya? Give your legs a bit of a rest, I think we're gonna be here for a while tonight."

Notes

Hey guys! Hope you enjoyed this chapter!
Sorry for the delay and the shitty ending. I had a great idea at the start and then kinda struggled to finish it off. Hopefully you don't think it's too awful lol

Not sure when the next chapter will be up, but there's only a few more to go! Will Matt, Brian and Zacky be able to sort their problems, or will it be the end of their friendship? Let me know what you guys think!

Also, if you haven't already, check out my new story, Stranded. It's a story about Matt and Jimmy (but not slash) and if you guys like an adventure story, then hopefully you'll love it! I'm currently updating that one fairly frequently, so check back often!

Anyways, thank you for all your support! It really means a lot to me and I love reading your comments!

Edit - Just been through all the chapters so far and gave them a quick edit, and finally gave them all titles!