The Kids From Yesterday
And You Only Live Forever In The Lights You Make.
Part III of The Kids From Yesterday.
March 14th, 2005
Poughkeepsie, New York
3:13 pm
“Pete!” Mikey yelled across the parking lot.
Ah yes, Pete Wentz of Fall Out Boy. Realistically, Ellie was as big of a fan of Fall Out Boy, as Elias was of My Chemical Romance. Needless to say, she had a moment when she found out they would be touring with them all the way through Warped Tour.
Pete’s smile could be seen an entire parking lot away as he and his band mates ran up to MCR and their crew.
“And who is this youngling?” Pete smiled at Ellie and tackled her into a hug. For being so small, he was actually quite strong and Ellie found herself not being to breathe.
“Elliot, our honorary den mother and Assistant Tour Manager,” Frank answers as she was being choked by a man she had idolized since she was an even punier Ellie.
“Den mother?” Pete laughs, he lets go and looks down at her. She can only smile meekly.
“She’s basically more of a paternal nuisance than Brian, she keeps the bus under control, makes sure we shower, at least she tries with Gerard, she’s sort of given up on his lack of hygiene, cooks dinner from time to time, and she makes sure that during our set that the sound tech doesn’t forget that he’s the fucking sound tech,” Bob fires off.
“I like you already,” Pete grins and lets of Ellie.
“It’s an honor to meet you, Pete,” Ellie says quietly.
“Whoa, is Ellie actually star-struck for once? I never thought I’d see the day,” Ray teases.
“Shut up, Raymond, I know where you sleep,” Ellie threatens.
“Why is a tiny woman threatening fro man,” Patrick asks as he and the rest of the band join Pete.
“That’s Elliot, their Assistant Tour Manager and den mother,” Pete answers some of Patrick’s question.
“She’s also fucking Frank,” Gerard says from somewhere behind her.
“Gerard I swear to fucking baby Jesus, you better sleep with one eye open tonight—we haven’t even had sex yet!” Frank defends.
Ellie’s eyes are bulging from her head; her jaw a little slacked from the remarks that just came from Gerard and Frank’s mouths.
“We are not having this conversation right now,” Ellie says looking at the ground while rubbing her temples, “You idiots all have sound check, let’s get a move on before I die from an aneurysm,” She says with her ever authoritative tone.
“Yes mother,” Pete laughs and rubs her head like a little kid.
“It’s Ellie, Wentz,” Ellie glares and slaps his hand away, “don’t make me hate you, too early in the tour for that shit.”
Pete looks at her slightly taken aback, nods, and then follows her as she leads the way inside of the venue.
-
“Ellie! You have to get fitted for new ear monitors, we lost your other ones,” Brian calls over her Walkie-Talkie.
Ellie rolls her eyes, “How in the hell did you manage to do that? Better question, where do I go then?”
“Dressing room, don’t question it, just embrace it, our crew last tour wasn’t the brightest.”
“Does that mean we got a new sound tech, because I swear to god, I could do Jeff’s job better than Jeff did his job,” she talks into the black device as she makes her way back to the dressing room from the empty pit of the venue. The pit that was about to be filled with kids in less than an hour.
Ellie walked into the dressing room where there was an otolaryngologist (ear doctor) fitting Frank for new monitors as well.
“Frank broke his at the last show,” Brian explained.
“I’m not surprised,” Ellie laughs and sits next to him on the empty chair. She watches Frank
make funny faces as some clear looking substance was placed into his ears to get a mold.
After the substance is set, they remove it from Frank’s ear and fit it for the earphone transmitter that makes him able to hear everyone on stage and Ellie if she talks into her head set.
Then Ellie was fitted, she picked bright orange instead of clear simply so she could find them if she misplaces them. Getting fitted for ear monitors wasn’t the most pleasant feeling. It’s like putting really cold earphones into your ear canal and the buds are too big.
“I hate you Brian,” Ellie mumbled as the otolaryngologist filled her ears with sticky orange goop.
Frank was sitting next to her speaking really loudly to Gerard as he couldn’t hear himself talk. Talking about how excited he was about the show.
Pete was on the other side of the room talking with Patrick. Ray and Mikey were getting goop that had set removed from their ears while making funny faces while doing so.
Elliot found herself smiling and thinking that this was going to be a fun as fuck tour.
-
“Dan, house lights!” Ellie shouts into her head set. The lights are dimmed and she kind of grins because finally a light tech who knows what the fuck they’re doing.
“MCR ready for take-off,” the house manger’s voice comes through Ellie’s head set.
She rolls her eyes and begins to usher the boys toward the stage, “Don’t be afraid to go bat shit on these kids, they’re mental,” she says to them as they run for the stage.
The screaming of crowd nearly takes the roof off, and Ellie finds herself mesmerized by the pure energy being radiated around the room. This will never get old to her, ever.
“What the fuck is up Poughkeepsie?” Gerard yells into his mic, “We’re MY CHEMICAL,” he sticks the microphone out to the crowd and they loyally scream:
“ROMANCE!”
The boys jump straight into their first song and Ellie mouths along to them, wishing she was in the crowd jumping with the rest of them. She comes up with a plan to stage dive after Prison, the fifth song on the set-list tonight.
Frank thrashes around on stage as usual. Gerard gets a little gay with Frank, as usual. Mikey and Ray watch on, shaking their heads at the two, as usual. Elliot can’t think of a time when she was happier, as usual.
When I’m Not Okay begins after Prison, she throws her head set and monitors to the nearest back stage worker and runs onto the stage.
Frank looks at her quizzically as she grins and eyes the audience and then looks back at him. He gives her another look that easily says, ‘go on with your bad self’. Ellie takes his blessing and sprints for the speakers that line up right at the edge of stage before launching herself into the crowd where the hands of MCR and FOB fans alike are more than happy to greet her tiny form.
She laughs loudly as she’s thrust around, her shirt nearly coming off of her and somewhere she gets accidentally groped, at least she hopes it was accidental. She meets ground again near the mosh pit where there are people smashing into one another, and she lets herself get pushed into. She had some anger to let go of and a mosh pit was the perfect place.
She takes an elbow to the eye, and before she can realize she might be concussed another body is being barreled into her.
Fuck, I did not sign up for this, she thinks while trying to fight her way out of the pit. She was easily the smallest person in it. A harsh hand grabs her forearm and yanks her back into the rest of the crowd.
“Are you okay?” the boy who pulled her out asks, he couldn’t have been older than fourteen, but he was tall, standing just less than six feet. Ellie nods enthusiastically, she points up signaling she wanted to go back up to crowd surf again so she could get pulled out of the crowd. The young boy with brunette hair nods and taps the shoulder of the other dark haired boy he was with and together they hoist Ellie back up and she was molested by more hands before making her way back to the barricade where Worm was there to pull her back over the gate.
“You have a nice black eye forming,” he laughs, “You want back on stage or do you want to go around?” he asks.
“Get me back up there!” she shouts and Worm grabs her by the waist and puts her safely back onto the stage where the boys were just finishing Prison.
Gerard gives her a high five for her impulse of awesomeness, and Frank proceeds to have a fit over the black eye that was forming quite fast on her face. Ellie shakes her head, pulls him in for a quick kiss before sauntering away back to her duties as Stage/Assistant Manager.
"Hey, give it up for our Assistant manager!" Gerard shouts to the crowd, "She's fucking crazy!"
“What’d I miss?” she says breathless into her head set after retrieving it.
“Nothing much,” Dan the light tech says, “nice stunt, Brian won’t be too happy.”
“Seriously, fuck Brian, that was fun,” she laughs and then voices off a check list to the sound and light guys, “All microphones are responding yes?” She gets a yes from Cayden the sound tech, “All monitors are on?”
“Yes, Ellie, everything is in fine working order, we’re not like the group of idiots that worked the last tour, we know our shit,” Cayden says, “But I’m double checking for something on Bob’s sound board, nothing too major, his hi-hat mic is just a little low,”
“And light’s is the easiest job ever, our cues are written down for us,” Dan’s voice cuts through.
“Keep up the good work then, fellas!” Ellie says excitedly.
“Yes ma’am!” the voices cut through again and Ellie smiles. She loved her job.
-
After the show, she makes sure that everyone knows their clean up job before heading back stage with the rest of the bands.
“What the hell was that, Elliot?” Frank says the millisecond she walks in, he walks right up to her and inspects her face, “You need ice on that, are you concussed? Do you feel dizzy? Do you feel nauseous?” he fires off.
“Whoa there mama bear, that’s my job, I’m fine, but some Tylenol would be great, got a massive headache from this,” she points to her right eye that had swelled shut completely.
“Jesus fuck Elliot, I’m only used to one idiot doing stupid dare-devil shit, now I got to worry about you too?” Brian says when he walks in, looking pointedly at Frank.
“I’m not going to do it every show, it was just a spur of the moment deal, okay?” she defends.
Brian rolls his eyes and rests his case while Ellie is handed a bottle of water, two tablets of Tylenol and an instant ice pack before she is directed to sit her ass down by Frank.
That’s when the room begins to spin for Ellie, and she thinks before she goes face forward into the ground, that maybe just maybe, she might actually have been concussed.
-
2:30 am
March 15th, 2005
Mercy General Hospital
Poughkeepsie, New York
Ellie’s head hurts and she has no idea why. She carefully opens the one eye that will open and regrets it when she is met with bright as fuck lights shining down on her.
The light of two million suns, I’ve just witnessed it.
She whimpers at the pain in her head and begs the question of just what in the hell happened.
“Ellie?” She hears from next to her.
“Hmm,” she manages to noise.
“Thank fuck,” Frank breathes out, and she feels her hand being grasped, “you scared the hell out of us,” he whispers.
“My head,” she whines, tears beginning to leak from both of her eyes, “the stupid lights turn ‘em off,” she mumbles.
“Yeah okay,” Frankie says as he lays a small kiss on her pounding forehead. She hears a switch flip before she dares to open her left eye again since for some reason her right eye won’t open.
“What happened?” she croaks out, bringing a hand, with a water gun attached, to her aching head.
“You got hit in the head while crowd surfing,” Frankie whispers. He pushes the red button that a nurse had earlier directed to do when Ellie woke up.
“So that’s why my head is pounding,” she says dismally.
“Yeah, do remember anything?” he asks.
“I remember crowd surfing, and a mosh-pit, but after that—did I kiss you on stage?” her voice still thick with sleep, or unconsciousness.
“You did, I think you got hit in the mosh-pit,” he chuckles lightly.
A doctor walks into her little room; he’s looking at a clip board.
“Elliot Webster is it?” he asks.
“Hmm,” Ellie hums again.
“I’m Dr. Cragen; you have encountered a mild concussion after this night’s festivities of crowd surfing I believe,” he smiles walking up to her bed, “Nothing too serious, we put you through an CT and an MRI scan while you were out, routine concussion, we’re keeping you overnight simply because you passed out after it, are you in any pain?”
“My fucking head,” she says like it’s the most obvious thing in the world because it was, “I’m allergic to morphine and codeine so have fun finding me pain medicine that doesn’t make me hallucinate,” she says darkly.
“We’ll put you on some Demurral,” he says kindly patting her leg that was under a blanket, “we’ll get you some water as well, Frank could you follow me outside for a quick second?”
Frank follows the Doctor obediently outside of the room.
“We’ll discharge her tomorrow morning, there’s just a few things I need to cover,” he says looking on her clip board, “What is an 18 year old doing on tour with a band?” he crosses his arms over his stomach while holding the clipboard with one of his hands.
“That is a long story doc,” Frank says, “don’t worry, she has her mother’s permission, but after this stunt, I wouldn’t be surprised if her mom has her come home,” Frank chuckles, “maybe she should though…” he trails off, looking back to the door.
“I would recommend it, while it is a routine concussion, a concussion is hard enough to deal with without jumping from state to state every night,” the doctor says, “she’s not going to be aware of where he head is for the next month at the most, my son got hit with a soccer ball when he was fifteen, and slammed his head into doors repeatedly afterwards because a concussion screws with depth perception, she’s going to be nauseous, and dizzy a lot, and being on a tour bus isn’t the best place for that, she needs solid ground,” he says.
Frank nods.
“Other than that, all of her tests came back normal, she’s in perfect health aside from the concussion,” the doctor says, “I would talk to her about going home for a little bit to recover, good luck though, she seems stubborn.”
“You don’t know the meaning of stubborn until you’ve witnessed her on one of her many rampages,” Frank laughs.
“Hey, I’ve got a daughter her age—I know,” Dr. Cragen smiles, “I’ll send a nurse in right now to give her some pain medicine.”
“Thank you, Doctor.”
The two shake hands and Frank heads back into the dimmed room where Ellie had figured out the controls on her bed and had sat it up a bit. She gives Frank a small smile and pats a spot on the bed.
Frank walks over to the bed and sits at the foot of the bed where her feet couldn’t reach him. Just like he did when she was in the hospital all those months ago.
“Déjà vu much?” Ellie attempts to grin at him, “What’d the doctor say?”
“That you should go home and heal,” Frank replies without missing a beat, “and I agree with him.”
Frank’s face cringes before Ellie can even respond.
“Nope,” she says simply, popping the ‘p’, “nopeity, nope, nope.”
“Elliot, you have a severe concussion that is going to leave you with a giant head ache for the next fucking month, do you really want to be on a moving bus during that time?” Frank points out.
“Frank, I’ll be fine, I’ll take head ache medicine and sleep when we’re moving,” she defends.
“What about when we’re driving for two days straight, you really think you can sleep for 48 hours?”
“Is that a challenge?”
“Elliot, you’re going home… for two weeks at least, go see your mom, talk to Marigold on the phone without one of your duties distracting you, sleep in your own bed, go be normal again,” Frank says softly.
Frank sees Elliot close her eye, meaning she was mulling it over.
A nurse walks in with a smaller baggie of what Frank was assuming pain medicine. She smiles at Frank and begins to attach the baggie to the drip holder.
“Elliot sweetie, are you awake?” She asks softly.
“Hmm,” Ellie mumbles and opens her one eye that would open.
“I’m going to put another needle in you to start you on some pain medication, okay?”
“Yeah, that’s fine,” Ellie mumbles again.
The nurse began taking out the other one so she could put in a new needle with two feeder tube things so Ellie could receive both the salt water and the Demurral.
“Gerard was in here when they put the first needle into you,” Frank begins, “I thought he was going to pass out he turned so white so fast,” Frank laughs.
It was a distraction technique because next thing Ellie knew; the nursed was taping down the new needle and reattaching the salt-water drip, and attaching the Demurral drip.
“You should start feeling the effects in about ten minutes,” the nurse says, “try and get some sleep, okay?”
The nurse pats her arm slightly, gives Frank a polite smile and walks out of the room.
“She’s really nice,” Frank says continuing to talk to Ellie until she fell asleep, “She made sure Gerard didn’t actually pass out earlier.”
Ellie closes her left eye and grins at the comment.
“I’ll go home,” she mumbles, “two weeks only though, no longer than that.”
“Good, seriously Ellie, you need it.”
Ellie sighs out and nods. Her head began to become fuzzy, like a huge cotton ball. The pounding in her head subsided and while fell asleep again, she swore she heard Frank whisper:
“I love you, Elliot.”
March 14th, 2005
Poughkeepsie, New York
3:13 pm
“Pete!” Mikey yelled across the parking lot.
Ah yes, Pete Wentz of Fall Out Boy. Realistically, Ellie was as big of a fan of Fall Out Boy, as Elias was of My Chemical Romance. Needless to say, she had a moment when she found out they would be touring with them all the way through Warped Tour.
Pete’s smile could be seen an entire parking lot away as he and his band mates ran up to MCR and their crew.
“And who is this youngling?” Pete smiled at Ellie and tackled her into a hug. For being so small, he was actually quite strong and Ellie found herself not being to breathe.
“Elliot, our honorary den mother and Assistant Tour Manager,” Frank answers as she was being choked by a man she had idolized since she was an even punier Ellie.
“Den mother?” Pete laughs, he lets go and looks down at her. She can only smile meekly.
“She’s basically more of a paternal nuisance than Brian, she keeps the bus under control, makes sure we shower, at least she tries with Gerard, she’s sort of given up on his lack of hygiene, cooks dinner from time to time, and she makes sure that during our set that the sound tech doesn’t forget that he’s the fucking sound tech,” Bob fires off.
“I like you already,” Pete grins and lets of Ellie.
“It’s an honor to meet you, Pete,” Ellie says quietly.
“Whoa, is Ellie actually star-struck for once? I never thought I’d see the day,” Ray teases.
“Shut up, Raymond, I know where you sleep,” Ellie threatens.
“Why is a tiny woman threatening fro man,” Patrick asks as he and the rest of the band join Pete.
“That’s Elliot, their Assistant Tour Manager and den mother,” Pete answers some of Patrick’s question.
“She’s also fucking Frank,” Gerard says from somewhere behind her.
“Gerard I swear to fucking baby Jesus, you better sleep with one eye open tonight—we haven’t even had sex yet!” Frank defends.
Ellie’s eyes are bulging from her head; her jaw a little slacked from the remarks that just came from Gerard and Frank’s mouths.
“We are not having this conversation right now,” Ellie says looking at the ground while rubbing her temples, “You idiots all have sound check, let’s get a move on before I die from an aneurysm,” She says with her ever authoritative tone.
“Yes mother,” Pete laughs and rubs her head like a little kid.
“It’s Ellie, Wentz,” Ellie glares and slaps his hand away, “don’t make me hate you, too early in the tour for that shit.”
Pete looks at her slightly taken aback, nods, and then follows her as she leads the way inside of the venue.
-
“Ellie! You have to get fitted for new ear monitors, we lost your other ones,” Brian calls over her Walkie-Talkie.
Ellie rolls her eyes, “How in the hell did you manage to do that? Better question, where do I go then?”
“Dressing room, don’t question it, just embrace it, our crew last tour wasn’t the brightest.”
“Does that mean we got a new sound tech, because I swear to god, I could do Jeff’s job better than Jeff did his job,” she talks into the black device as she makes her way back to the dressing room from the empty pit of the venue. The pit that was about to be filled with kids in less than an hour.
Ellie walked into the dressing room where there was an otolaryngologist (ear doctor) fitting Frank for new monitors as well.
“Frank broke his at the last show,” Brian explained.
“I’m not surprised,” Ellie laughs and sits next to him on the empty chair. She watches Frank
make funny faces as some clear looking substance was placed into his ears to get a mold.
After the substance is set, they remove it from Frank’s ear and fit it for the earphone transmitter that makes him able to hear everyone on stage and Ellie if she talks into her head set.
Then Ellie was fitted, she picked bright orange instead of clear simply so she could find them if she misplaces them. Getting fitted for ear monitors wasn’t the most pleasant feeling. It’s like putting really cold earphones into your ear canal and the buds are too big.
“I hate you Brian,” Ellie mumbled as the otolaryngologist filled her ears with sticky orange goop.
Frank was sitting next to her speaking really loudly to Gerard as he couldn’t hear himself talk. Talking about how excited he was about the show.
Pete was on the other side of the room talking with Patrick. Ray and Mikey were getting goop that had set removed from their ears while making funny faces while doing so.
Elliot found herself smiling and thinking that this was going to be a fun as fuck tour.
-
“Dan, house lights!” Ellie shouts into her head set. The lights are dimmed and she kind of grins because finally a light tech who knows what the fuck they’re doing.
“MCR ready for take-off,” the house manger’s voice comes through Ellie’s head set.
She rolls her eyes and begins to usher the boys toward the stage, “Don’t be afraid to go bat shit on these kids, they’re mental,” she says to them as they run for the stage.
The screaming of crowd nearly takes the roof off, and Ellie finds herself mesmerized by the pure energy being radiated around the room. This will never get old to her, ever.
“What the fuck is up Poughkeepsie?” Gerard yells into his mic, “We’re MY CHEMICAL,” he sticks the microphone out to the crowd and they loyally scream:
“ROMANCE!”
The boys jump straight into their first song and Ellie mouths along to them, wishing she was in the crowd jumping with the rest of them. She comes up with a plan to stage dive after Prison, the fifth song on the set-list tonight.
Frank thrashes around on stage as usual. Gerard gets a little gay with Frank, as usual. Mikey and Ray watch on, shaking their heads at the two, as usual. Elliot can’t think of a time when she was happier, as usual.
When I’m Not Okay begins after Prison, she throws her head set and monitors to the nearest back stage worker and runs onto the stage.
Frank looks at her quizzically as she grins and eyes the audience and then looks back at him. He gives her another look that easily says, ‘go on with your bad self’. Ellie takes his blessing and sprints for the speakers that line up right at the edge of stage before launching herself into the crowd where the hands of MCR and FOB fans alike are more than happy to greet her tiny form.
She laughs loudly as she’s thrust around, her shirt nearly coming off of her and somewhere she gets accidentally groped, at least she hopes it was accidental. She meets ground again near the mosh pit where there are people smashing into one another, and she lets herself get pushed into. She had some anger to let go of and a mosh pit was the perfect place.
She takes an elbow to the eye, and before she can realize she might be concussed another body is being barreled into her.
Fuck, I did not sign up for this, she thinks while trying to fight her way out of the pit. She was easily the smallest person in it. A harsh hand grabs her forearm and yanks her back into the rest of the crowd.
“Are you okay?” the boy who pulled her out asks, he couldn’t have been older than fourteen, but he was tall, standing just less than six feet. Ellie nods enthusiastically, she points up signaling she wanted to go back up to crowd surf again so she could get pulled out of the crowd. The young boy with brunette hair nods and taps the shoulder of the other dark haired boy he was with and together they hoist Ellie back up and she was molested by more hands before making her way back to the barricade where Worm was there to pull her back over the gate.
“You have a nice black eye forming,” he laughs, “You want back on stage or do you want to go around?” he asks.
“Get me back up there!” she shouts and Worm grabs her by the waist and puts her safely back onto the stage where the boys were just finishing Prison.
Gerard gives her a high five for her impulse of awesomeness, and Frank proceeds to have a fit over the black eye that was forming quite fast on her face. Ellie shakes her head, pulls him in for a quick kiss before sauntering away back to her duties as Stage/Assistant Manager.
"Hey, give it up for our Assistant manager!" Gerard shouts to the crowd, "She's fucking crazy!"
“What’d I miss?” she says breathless into her head set after retrieving it.
“Nothing much,” Dan the light tech says, “nice stunt, Brian won’t be too happy.”
“Seriously, fuck Brian, that was fun,” she laughs and then voices off a check list to the sound and light guys, “All microphones are responding yes?” She gets a yes from Cayden the sound tech, “All monitors are on?”
“Yes, Ellie, everything is in fine working order, we’re not like the group of idiots that worked the last tour, we know our shit,” Cayden says, “But I’m double checking for something on Bob’s sound board, nothing too major, his hi-hat mic is just a little low,”
“And light’s is the easiest job ever, our cues are written down for us,” Dan’s voice cuts through.
“Keep up the good work then, fellas!” Ellie says excitedly.
“Yes ma’am!” the voices cut through again and Ellie smiles. She loved her job.
-
After the show, she makes sure that everyone knows their clean up job before heading back stage with the rest of the bands.
“What the hell was that, Elliot?” Frank says the millisecond she walks in, he walks right up to her and inspects her face, “You need ice on that, are you concussed? Do you feel dizzy? Do you feel nauseous?” he fires off.
“Whoa there mama bear, that’s my job, I’m fine, but some Tylenol would be great, got a massive headache from this,” she points to her right eye that had swelled shut completely.
“Jesus fuck Elliot, I’m only used to one idiot doing stupid dare-devil shit, now I got to worry about you too?” Brian says when he walks in, looking pointedly at Frank.
“I’m not going to do it every show, it was just a spur of the moment deal, okay?” she defends.
Brian rolls his eyes and rests his case while Ellie is handed a bottle of water, two tablets of Tylenol and an instant ice pack before she is directed to sit her ass down by Frank.
That’s when the room begins to spin for Ellie, and she thinks before she goes face forward into the ground, that maybe just maybe, she might actually have been concussed.
-
2:30 am
March 15th, 2005
Mercy General Hospital
Poughkeepsie, New York
Ellie’s head hurts and she has no idea why. She carefully opens the one eye that will open and regrets it when she is met with bright as fuck lights shining down on her.
The light of two million suns, I’ve just witnessed it.
She whimpers at the pain in her head and begs the question of just what in the hell happened.
“Ellie?” She hears from next to her.
“Hmm,” she manages to noise.
“Thank fuck,” Frank breathes out, and she feels her hand being grasped, “you scared the hell out of us,” he whispers.
“My head,” she whines, tears beginning to leak from both of her eyes, “the stupid lights turn ‘em off,” she mumbles.
“Yeah okay,” Frankie says as he lays a small kiss on her pounding forehead. She hears a switch flip before she dares to open her left eye again since for some reason her right eye won’t open.
“What happened?” she croaks out, bringing a hand, with a water gun attached, to her aching head.
“You got hit in the head while crowd surfing,” Frankie whispers. He pushes the red button that a nurse had earlier directed to do when Ellie woke up.
“So that’s why my head is pounding,” she says dismally.
“Yeah, do remember anything?” he asks.
“I remember crowd surfing, and a mosh-pit, but after that—did I kiss you on stage?” her voice still thick with sleep, or unconsciousness.
“You did, I think you got hit in the mosh-pit,” he chuckles lightly.
A doctor walks into her little room; he’s looking at a clip board.
“Elliot Webster is it?” he asks.
“Hmm,” Ellie hums again.
“I’m Dr. Cragen; you have encountered a mild concussion after this night’s festivities of crowd surfing I believe,” he smiles walking up to her bed, “Nothing too serious, we put you through an CT and an MRI scan while you were out, routine concussion, we’re keeping you overnight simply because you passed out after it, are you in any pain?”
“My fucking head,” she says like it’s the most obvious thing in the world because it was, “I’m allergic to morphine and codeine so have fun finding me pain medicine that doesn’t make me hallucinate,” she says darkly.
“We’ll put you on some Demurral,” he says kindly patting her leg that was under a blanket, “we’ll get you some water as well, Frank could you follow me outside for a quick second?”
Frank follows the Doctor obediently outside of the room.
“We’ll discharge her tomorrow morning, there’s just a few things I need to cover,” he says looking on her clip board, “What is an 18 year old doing on tour with a band?” he crosses his arms over his stomach while holding the clipboard with one of his hands.
“That is a long story doc,” Frank says, “don’t worry, she has her mother’s permission, but after this stunt, I wouldn’t be surprised if her mom has her come home,” Frank chuckles, “maybe she should though…” he trails off, looking back to the door.
“I would recommend it, while it is a routine concussion, a concussion is hard enough to deal with without jumping from state to state every night,” the doctor says, “she’s not going to be aware of where he head is for the next month at the most, my son got hit with a soccer ball when he was fifteen, and slammed his head into doors repeatedly afterwards because a concussion screws with depth perception, she’s going to be nauseous, and dizzy a lot, and being on a tour bus isn’t the best place for that, she needs solid ground,” he says.
Frank nods.
“Other than that, all of her tests came back normal, she’s in perfect health aside from the concussion,” the doctor says, “I would talk to her about going home for a little bit to recover, good luck though, she seems stubborn.”
“You don’t know the meaning of stubborn until you’ve witnessed her on one of her many rampages,” Frank laughs.
“Hey, I’ve got a daughter her age—I know,” Dr. Cragen smiles, “I’ll send a nurse in right now to give her some pain medicine.”
“Thank you, Doctor.”
The two shake hands and Frank heads back into the dimmed room where Ellie had figured out the controls on her bed and had sat it up a bit. She gives Frank a small smile and pats a spot on the bed.
Frank walks over to the bed and sits at the foot of the bed where her feet couldn’t reach him. Just like he did when she was in the hospital all those months ago.
“Déjà vu much?” Ellie attempts to grin at him, “What’d the doctor say?”
“That you should go home and heal,” Frank replies without missing a beat, “and I agree with him.”
Frank’s face cringes before Ellie can even respond.
“Nope,” she says simply, popping the ‘p’, “nopeity, nope, nope.”
“Elliot, you have a severe concussion that is going to leave you with a giant head ache for the next fucking month, do you really want to be on a moving bus during that time?” Frank points out.
“Frank, I’ll be fine, I’ll take head ache medicine and sleep when we’re moving,” she defends.
“What about when we’re driving for two days straight, you really think you can sleep for 48 hours?”
“Is that a challenge?”
“Elliot, you’re going home… for two weeks at least, go see your mom, talk to Marigold on the phone without one of your duties distracting you, sleep in your own bed, go be normal again,” Frank says softly.
Frank sees Elliot close her eye, meaning she was mulling it over.
A nurse walks in with a smaller baggie of what Frank was assuming pain medicine. She smiles at Frank and begins to attach the baggie to the drip holder.
“Elliot sweetie, are you awake?” She asks softly.
“Hmm,” Ellie mumbles and opens her one eye that would open.
“I’m going to put another needle in you to start you on some pain medication, okay?”
“Yeah, that’s fine,” Ellie mumbles again.
The nurse began taking out the other one so she could put in a new needle with two feeder tube things so Ellie could receive both the salt water and the Demurral.
“Gerard was in here when they put the first needle into you,” Frank begins, “I thought he was going to pass out he turned so white so fast,” Frank laughs.
It was a distraction technique because next thing Ellie knew; the nursed was taping down the new needle and reattaching the salt-water drip, and attaching the Demurral drip.
“You should start feeling the effects in about ten minutes,” the nurse says, “try and get some sleep, okay?”
The nurse pats her arm slightly, gives Frank a polite smile and walks out of the room.
“She’s really nice,” Frank says continuing to talk to Ellie until she fell asleep, “She made sure Gerard didn’t actually pass out earlier.”
Ellie closes her left eye and grins at the comment.
“I’ll go home,” she mumbles, “two weeks only though, no longer than that.”
“Good, seriously Ellie, you need it.”
Ellie sighs out and nods. Her head began to become fuzzy, like a huge cotton ball. The pounding in her head subsided and while fell asleep again, she swore she heard Frank whisper:
“I love you, Elliot.”
Notes
BEFORE YOU ALL COME TO STAB ME FOR BEING SO NEGLECTFUL. I'm a college student okay? I really shouldn't even be writing something so huge like this oh my god. But I am and apparently some of you like it so whatever.
Anyway! Updates will somewhat go back to normal as I just started my summer vacation! I don't start school again till August 25th (holy fuck) so that is four months of me writing for this and hopefully finishing it! This is the final part of the story so we're on the home stretch people, it is happening. It's looking at around 25-26 chapters probably.
I'M GOING TO VIDCON IF YOU'RE GOING OMG WE SHOULD MEET BECAUSE THAT'D BE SO FUCKING AWESOME.
So yeah! I hope you guys like it, and I am sooooo sorrrryyyy for leaving you for so long but fuck this past semester of school kicked my ass to china and back and I was doing winter guard oh god.
Okay, I'll stop talking your ears (eyes?) off
Till next time guys!
-xo Taye <3
@Jackie
Thank you Jackie, that really means a lot to me <3
4/6/18