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Four days. It’s been four fucking days since Matt has last slept longer than an unsatisfying hour. Seven days since his last dreamless sleep.
And he doesn’t even know why. It’s like his head and body just decide to go into overdrive every time the room so much as darkens. He’s wide awake when he wants to sleep and can’t keep his eyes open for shit when doesn’t.
He’s managed to hide his problem from Nick and Chris semi successfully, citing his anxiety as reason for his unusual moodiness. Which isn’t even a lie, he is anxious, but that’s more consequence than cause.
He’s tried everything too. Google has been his best friend these past few days. From a spoon of honey as the cure to insomnia, to exercising until his muscles were sore, nothing helped.
In his humble opinion, the exercising only made it worse. Now he’s tired and aching from head to toe.
Even his appetite is suffering, nausea kicking in every time food comes into his general vicinity. He’s still choking down a toast at the expected times, he can’t really afford to lose weight additionally to all the other things he’s losing right now, mainly his sanity and will to live.
The former is starting to really affect him, with his eyes giving up on him one second and showing him shit that isn’t even there the next.
He noticed this when he almost fell down the stairs yesterday because he saw a large shadow at the top, reaching for him.
In conclusion, if he doesn’t sleep soon, he’s fucked. He read somewhere that hallucinations are the last stage before psychosis. Maybe. He doesn’t trust his own brain right now.
And isn’t that fucking scary. His mind had never been the most reliable in terms of processing shit, his anxiety is proof enough of that. But he’s starting to forget stuff too.
Just this morning, he’d almost asked Chris about topics for their next car video before remembering that they were flying to New York for a concert tomorrow and had enough prerecorded.
And that’s another thing, going to a concert in New York like this and the prospect of jet lag is starting to make him seriously anxious.
That’s the last thing he needs right now, fucking up his already nonexistent sleep schedule even more.
And though he’s looking forward to the concert, especially because they have backstage tickets, it’s not enough to make him feel even remotely ready for the whole thing.
He knows he’s not fooling his brothers. They may believe him about the anxiety being the problem now, but that won’t hide the bruises under his eyes or his escalating inability to control his body.
His movements are getting as sluggish as his thoughts and his balance is off enough to make him randomly stumble over nothing. It’s infuriating, he’s losing his fucking mind, his control. And that is terrifying.
Cause he needs control like oxygen. He controls his thoughts because if he doesn’t he’ll spiral, he controls his actions because he’d hurt people otherwise, he controls his environment for his nerves, and if he can’t do these things he’ll fucking lose it.
He’s close to that already. Every sleeping second is plagued by nightmares and every waking moment by a raging headache that even a seriously unhealthy consumption of painkillers can’t fix.
The nightmares are part of the reason why Chris and Nick haven’t interrogated him yet.
Chris’ inability to sleep in the same bed twice in a row allowed him to witness one of them when the whole thing started. He probably told Nick about it later when Matt hadn’t and after Nick had found his younger brother in the kitchen at 4am on his phone a few days later, they just assumed and didn’t press him about it further.
And now Matt is here, laying in his bed, having gone through every sleeping position imaginable in the last few hours and not even drifting.
He shifts onto his back again and stares at the ceiling. Raises his hands and watches them tremble uncontrollably in the light of the sunrise falling through the edges of his shutters.
Another night gone by without sleep. He could cry. His eyes are burning. Forget crying, his eyes are too dry for that. He could scream. If he had the energy for that. He doesn’t have energy for anything right now.
He hears the telltale signs of Nick coming down the stairs, muffled by his door and the ringing in his ears.
With a sigh he drags himself out of the bed and upright only to almost faceplant when his vision blacks out abruptly. He catches himself on the edge of his bed and waits for the dots to recede to the corners of his eyes before giving it another try.
Using every available surface as a crutch he manages it to the door without another blackout. Sad how that counts as a win to him these days.
He takes a deep breath, rolls back his shoulders and tilts his chin up. And action.
Nick is already in the kitchen, a bagel in his left and his phone in his right, rapidly tapping away making last minute arrangements for their trip.
“You done packing?” He says in place of a greeting.
“Um, yeah.” He is. He’s just pretty sure he forgot half of it. Hard to pack a suitcase when even the exertion of lifting the thing on the bed makes you dizzy enough to faint, not even mentioning the concentration needed.
The bagel in Nick’s hand may not be appetising but it still reminds Matt to fulfil his basic human need for nutrition, opting for a toast, something plain and tasteless. It’s still like ash in his mouth and he gags on every swallow.
He’s grateful for the distraction when Chris comes in, still half asleep and immediately getting a Pepsi from the fridge.
Matt feels nauseated even thinking about a soda first thing in the morning. Or maybe that’s just the toast.
“When’s our flight?” He asks Nick. He forgot. Again.
“Are you stupid? I just went through every detail with you guys, like, yesterday. Do you ever listen to me?” The oldest groans. “We have to be at the airport in three hours, so you better hurry, the traffic is awful today.”
“Can we take an uber?” At the looks from his brothers, he rubs at his neck with faux nerves. “I just don’t feel comfortable leaving the car at the airport parking lot.”
“That wasn’t a problem before, why is it now?” Chris is eyeing him curiously. Matt hopes he won’t look too closely.
“Umm, you know my anxiety’s been kinda bad lately and I don’t wanna worry the whole time when we’re trying to have fun.” He’d feel bad playing the anxiety card if driving wasn’t an act of suicide right now.
He’d avoided it as much as possible these past few days, even going as far as cooking actual noodles for dinner so he wouldn’t have to take them to a drive-through.
Hadn’t been the best decision, he’d been in his bathroom throwing up for half an hour after. They hadn’t been bad, but as to not appear suspicious he had to eat with them and food had already been a problem at that point.
Luckily, Nick and Chris agree to the whole cab thing after taking a long look at the bags under Matt’s eyes and organise an uber to the airport.
Matt returns to his room and stares at the packed suitcase at the foot of his bed, trying to concentrate enough to go through an internal checklist of items. He gives up after two seconds and collapses on his bed with a sigh.
This will probably be the worst trip of his life.
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Matt sleeps. That should be good, right? Wrong. Why?
Well, first off, he sleeps on the plane. He never sleeps on planes. The six hours are spent unconscious all the same.
Second off, the headache may have lessened, but everything else is still frustratingly, infuriatingly, terrifyingly the same. Everything hurts, he can’t walk in a straight line for shit, he’s still constantly two seconds away from retching and there’s a persistent ringing in his ears that could be an auditory hallucination.
And third off, Chris told him when they left the plane that he’d been moving the whole time, shifting and squirming like a madman. Matt’s just glad his nightmares hadn’t made him scream. That would’ve been embarrassing.
It still alerts his brothers enough to keep an even closer eye on him on the uber to the hotel.
They have two rooms booked for three nights. Today, tomorrow after the concert and then they’d have one day to explore New York.
Matt knows that this trip is important to his brothers, the concert one of their collective favourite artists and the day in NYC meticulously planned out to include as many sights and activities as possible.
He doesn’t want to ruin this for anyone, but he gets that if his problem goes any further, he’ll have to at least sit out on the city day and come up with some kind of excuse.
When they reach the two adjoining rooms and are about to start the whole spiel of who has to sleep alone, he volunteers. Stupid move in hindsight, since he always fights tooth and nail to not be alone. But no one can expect good decisions of him right now.
“You volunteer? You?” Nick’s face is morphing from scepticism to genuine concern and Matt knows he’s fucked. The gig is up. But he’ll go down swinging anyways, for his brothers. For their enjoyment of this trip.
“Yeah, I’m not feeling up to Chris’ bullshit right now, need some time to myself.” And maybe that’s mean, but at least it will keep them from asking more questions.
“The fuck did I do to you now, stupid?” There it is. Matt would feel bad if this hadn’t worked so incredibly well. Because in the end, Chris is always sharing and Matt just successfully got himself the single by alienating him.
Instead of answering, he leaves the room through the balcony joining it with their other one and kicks his suitcase to the corner.
The bedding is soft and the mattress is hard. Bad mix, not like home. Gone is the possibility of catching some sleep here, at least if he sleeps alone. And he will. Because they’d notice and he’d ruin everything.
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Nick had come over at some point to inform him that they’ll order room service tonight. He’d also tried to get Matt to join him and Chris at the hotel pool. He’d gotten a pillow to the face for that.
The betrayed look on his face and the rant about Matt’s asshole attitude almost got him to regret that. But it’s better this way.
He still joins his brothers for food, though he suspects he is the worst possible company right now.
They obviously notice because when he has to ask them to repeat a question for the nth time, they share a concerned look and Nick puts down his fork.
“Are you ok? Cause like, you’ve been in the worst mood for a week, you’re pale as fuck, you’re obviously having nightmares and you haven’t even touched your food.”
Matt glances at his plate. Nick’s right. He swallows a gag and avoids eye contact, trying to come up with an excuse that would not end with them missing the concert.
“I’m just, you know, not, um, feeling good, you know.” How eloquent.
Then he notices how incredibly not reassuring that probably was. “I’m fine, it’s just the nightmares aren’t leaving and it’s making me jumpy. Sorry I snapped at you, but everything is okay, I’m dealing with it, promise.”
There, better. The others seem to think so too, nodding and luckily going back to talking about whatever comes to mind. Matt still doesn’t join in on their squabbling much, but his reassurances seem to do their job. No more interrogations.
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Matt is pacing. He needs to sleep today, he fucking has to. He won’t survive the concert otherwise. Even the thought of that much noise, that many people, that many smells, simply the amount of input… he’ll die. He’s sure of it.
The headache is back full force. The kind where you can’t do shit but think about how much it hurts. He paces anyways, hoping against all hope that the exhaustion could do something.
It hasn’t done shit for a week, what’s gonna change now?
His internal voice is starting to not sound as internal anymore, echoing around his head weirdly, like his upper body is stuck in a metal pipe. It’s disorienting. And fucking creepy.
He halts at the foot of his bed. Lays back down. Drifts. He’s on the edge of sleep when it happens.
The shadows coating the corners of his room elongate. A claw forms out of the folds in his curtains, stretching towards him, filling his field of vision, reaching for him.
He can’t. He fucking can’t move. It’s like he’s frozen into place, a numb tingling in his arms making them so incredibly heavy, locking his jaw, leaving him fucking defenceless.
A grin forms in the dark mass, the constant ringing in his ears becomes deafening and he has to be hallucinating the words, he has to, please let it be a dream, please don’t be real, please just stop, please pleasepleaseplease.
The balcony door slams open and reality splits. Because on one side, there’s the shadow, the numbness, the deafening screaming of something that shouldn’t exist. And on the other side, there’s Chris. Watching Matt convulse on the bed like he’s possessed, slurring pleas at nothing.
His brain seems to favour the eldritch abomination side of reality because Chris vanishes as soon as Matt has registered his presence. Instead, the hand reaching his face makes contact. His pleading was for nothing.
The cold, a bit wet, but definitely real skin on his face is proof enough. He’s dying, killed by a fucking eldritch horror. A sob escapes his already empty lungs, painful in a way breathing shouldn’t be.
But the claw on his face is weirdly soft and not really doing the expected killing or scratching or clawing his eyes out. It’s shaking his face instead, patting at his cheek like it’s trying to get the cereal out of the corner of the box, the way Chris does.
Chris. Wait. He had been here, right? If the eldritch horror is real, than his eyes couldn’t have lied to him with Chris, right?
“-ake up Matt! Please! Fuck this is creepy, Matt you’re so right, I’ll never laugh at you again, come on!” Chris voice filters through the screeching in his ears. He sounds panicked. Maybe he sees the thing too.
But Chris’ voice seems to scare it off, the shadowy limbs receding into the folds of the curtain, somehow leaving the soft skin of the hand on his face?
Wait. That’s Chris’ hand. Chris, who’s trying to wake him up. Because he was asleep. That was a dream. Not real. His pleas have been answered. Relief floods his body and he slumps from the weird half seated position he’s in.
But god, does he feel stupid now. Of course shadow monsters aren’t real. Just his brain playing dumb tricks on him.
His heart feels like it’s beating out of his chest anyways. He can finally move his arms again and immediately grabs Chris’ wrist. The slaps are starting to hurt.
“I’m awake, I’m good.” He’s far from good, but one thing at a time. “Fuck, is this what your sleep paralysis feels like?”
“Is that what it looks like? Cause sorry for making fun of you for finding it creepy, you were fucking right man.” Chris sounds equally as freaked out as Matt does.
“What did it look like?” Because to him, it looked like shadows trying to rip him to shreds, but he’d be stupid to confess to that.
Even thinking about it makes the ringing in his ears louder and he’s thrown back to the shadow he saw at home on the stairs. It looked similar. Fuck, he can’t do this again, not when he’s fully awake and knows it. He has to sleep, he has to.
“You were fucking possessed man, like full on convulsing. And you were, like, begging for it to stop, it was so creepy. Real horror movie type shit. Mine are never that bad, that was almost a minute. Are you ok?”
“I’m fucking terrified, man, I’m never sleeping again. That’s so fucked up, how do you do this?”
“Why do you think I sleep with you guys? I’m not that commitmentphobic, I just sleep better when someone else is with me. So I know I’m not alone and someone can help me if I’m like that.” He pauses.
“Want me to stay?”
And Matt can’t say no, can’t be alone right now. Not when there’s still shadows in the room, when the warming skin of Chris’ wrist in his hand is so reassuring.
He pulls his brother on the bed and throws one of the harder pillows at the balcony door to close it. He misses and the pillow sails out of the room and down towards the street.
The blank stare of despair on his face has Chris muffling a cackle in the blanket.
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The next morning, Chris is woken up by Nick coming into the room to bitch about the open doors. He rubs his eyes and wakes up enough to catch some of his words.
“-why the hell did you even come over here, Matt wanted to sleep alone”, Nick ends his rant. Then he gets a good look at Matt’s face and his demeanor softens.
“What happened?”
“Matt had a sleep paralysis. I only noticed ‘cause I was on the balcony. It was crazy, he looked like he was possessed, all convulsing and shit.” Chris sounds way too excited about it, sleepiness forgotten in the face of telling Nick about Matt’s experience.
“Oh fuck, you ok, Matt?” Nick looks less excited by the whole thing, he’s probably remembering Chris’ awful stories and Matt’s recent nightmares.
“Yeah, it was just really creepy. I didn’t want to be alone so Chris couldn’t close the doors, sorry”, he apologises, sitting up and rubbing at his eyes like he’d just been asleep.
He hadn’t. Didn’t even catch a wink. But he doesn’t want to worry Chris. This is quickly becoming a theme. Don’t worry, be happy, but taken in an unhealthy direction.
Wow are his thoughts a mess. Getting more and more jumbled by the second. He needs water. Yeah that’s it, sleep is for the weak, but water is for the… whatever rhymes with water.
A hysteric giggle escapes him. Damn this is funny. Like water can solve any of his problems. But his tongue feels dry as the sun right now, and swollen. Wait.
He raises his hand and licks his fingertips. Still wet and still of normal size. Another giggle. He’s going crazy. He blinks.
He blinks.
He blinks.
When his eyes open again, he’s flat on his back and Chris and Nick are yelling at him. He can’t make out any of the shit they’re saying, but the tone says it all.
He blinks.
And then something cold and wet splashes on his face and goes up his nose and he’s spluttering and coughing. “What the, egh, fuck, guys.”
“You tell us! First you’re laughing like some psychopath, then you’re licking yourself and then you just collapse like someone shot you?! What’s going on with you?”
“I just thought of something funny, that’s all.” It’s a pathetic excuse, yes, but Matt doesn’t know what the hell happened either. He just blinked and then they were screaming and throwing water at him.
“That doesn’t explain shit and you know it!”
“I think I just need some good sleep, you know. I read somewhere that when you don’t get enough, your body just does it randomly for like thirty seconds, it’s called micro sleep.” There, enough truth to make it believable and it’s not detrimental enough to affect the concert this afternoon.
“Then get some now, we’ll be quiet. And help if you get another sleep paralysis.” Chris’ offer is genuine, like he’s definitely gonna try his best to keep quiet.
“Yeah, thanks.” Matt shifts onto his stomach and immediately starts drifting, calmer with Nick and Chris in the room.
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He actually does sleep. And it’s good sleep too, even if it’s only four hours. He feels more well-rested than he has in a week and it’s probably showing, with how he manages to build up more excitement towards the concert than he has in the last few days combined.
He’s still panicking by the time they’re in line. If the amount of people is already overwhelming outside, how will it be inside?
An arm slings around his shoulders, jostling him. “You excited yet? Man, I can’t wait, I hope we get them good places, I wanna see everything.”
“Chill, dude, this isn’t even your first concert.” Matt frees himself from Chris’ hyped embrace and throws a both longing and repulsed glance at the Oreo’s another person in line has just fished out of their backpack.
It reminds him of the fact that he hasn’t eaten anything all day, but also of the mildly lessened nausea he’s still carrying around. Why the hell isn’t it getting better? He slept today and it may only have been four hours but it’s still sleep, dammit.
He zones out, doesn’t want to think about the concert with the thousands of people, isn’t ready to confront the part of his brain that’s desperately trying to warn him that what he’s doing right now will almost certainly result in disaster.
He just follows Nick and Chris wherever they go and smiles at the camera when they take a selfie for their Insta account. A fleeting thought about how glad he is they aren’t vlogging right now, but apart from that his head is blissfully empty.
That’s probably unhealthy, the big contrast to his usual anxious overthinking should throw up red flags the size of China, but fuck if he’ll go with panicking instead of whatever this sleep deprivation-induced half coma is.
Maybe that’s actually the micro sleep he’d told the others about this morning. Though that shouldn’t last longer than thirty seconds, right?
The thought gets him out of his head enough to notice the significantly shorter line in front of him. He’d been gone for the time it takes about forty people to get into the venue. Damn.
He slides back into reality quick enough to actually take in the inside of the place, which is already half full and loud enough to get his headache going again.
Suddenly he’s grateful that the concert should only last an hour and a bit. It still sounds impossible, but it’s better than the two hours it could be if the artist hadn’t called off a few songs for logistical reasons.
Chris hadn’t been as happy about that when he read it on Insta in line.
Matt had almost cried from joy because it means he’d maybe make it through their backstage tour. Though he wouldn’t be too sure of that with the way he’s feeling.
Which is mainly nauseated and tired, but also dizzy and sluggish. The headache may not be pounding right now, but loud music is a sure fire way to ramp it back up to 100.
And what do you know, he’ll stay here anyway. Cause he doesn’t want to ruin this. He may not usually be this much of a people pleaser, but Chris had been looking forward to this concert for literal months and even if Matt doesn’t like going to public events like this, he’d kinda been too.
He won’t pussy out now, no chance, he’ll enjoy this as much as he can, fuck the consequences. The sudden bout of spiteful confidence boosts him enough to follow Nick through the crowd to get a good view of the stage.
His new energy seems to amplify Chris’ mood too, the wait for the venue to fill up and the concert to begin suddenly flying by in a cloud of excited chatter and hyped up laughter.
And then the music comes in.
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It’s loud. Everything hurts. The lights are blinding.
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There’s bodies rubbing against him like sandpaper. The warmth is stifling.
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The smells are nauseating, he’s choking on clouds of perfume, cologne and sweat.
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The music is good. He focuses on that. Tries to forget the crowd of people around him, the sensory input attacking him from all sides, the vomit slowly but surely crawling up his throat, the fucking stampede happening in his skull.
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He’s out. Floating. Somewhere along the way he’d been pushed to the edge of the room and now he’s standing there, unmoving, empty eyes still focused on the stage.
A girl comes up to him. “Are you ok? Do you need air?”
The words don’t register. She said something, yeah, but how does that relate to him? He’s just… here. Floating.
“Fuck, did someone give you something? Are you drunk, high? On roofies?” She’s loud. Screaming over the music and the crowd. Hm.
“Ayyyeee, Sofia, we missed ya girl, whatcha doinnnn?”
The smell of alcohol wafts up to him and manages to penetrate the balls of cotton surrounding his brain. He blinks and suddenly the whole room is crashing over him.
All that sight, sound, smell, it’s suffocating him again.
He flinches, presses back into the wall and rubs at his eyes aggressively, like he can gouge the ache from his head together with his eyes.
“Are you back with me? What did you take? Is there someone here who can help you?” There’s a girl in front of him, another girl hanging off her shoulder like a drunk, giggling purse.
“I’m fine, just a headache. I didn’t take anything, sorry for worrying you?” God this is awkward. He just stood here like a freak for who knows how long and it obviously had looked weird enough for her to worry.
But no, it’s just him and his dumb ass.
“I-, okay, still, do you need air, water? And you should probably leave anyways, that didn’t look healthy to me? Do you get migraines?” She’s rambling like crazy and Matt really doesn’t have the brain capacity do deal with that right now.
He’s almost grateful when her drunk friend vomits, narrowly missing her shoes, and making her fret at someone else. He slinks away while she’s busy rubbing her friend’s back.
He shoves through the crowd into the general direction of where he’d last seen Chris and Nick. An elbow lands in his gut and he almost joins that girl in retching all over the place, though his would probably have less substance with the lack of sustenance he’d been living on for way too long now.
“Oh my god Matt, where were you? The concert’s almost over.” Nick pops up out of nowhere, Chris in tow, rapidly checking Matt over like he could be hiding a gunshot wound under his shirt.
He might as well be since he feels like keeling over. This must be what blood loss feels like, he muses, the head rush too much like how it’s described in stories, with the cold and the numbness and shit.
“You’re shaking.” Nick’s concerned voice reminds Matt of his main objective, stealth. Hide the gunshot wound, Agent, you’re in enemy territory.
“Did something happen? Were you roofied or something? Because we gotta tell the people backstage if you were, maybe others were too.”
Why is everyone just assuming he’s on drugs? He’s a little out of it, sure, but he’s functioning, isn’t he.
“Everything’s fine, I’m not on drugs, why does no one get that?” His voice sounds weird in his own ears. Warped, like he’s in a metal pipe again. Oh fuck no, not doing that.
“Let’s go towards the backstage area, I think that’s the last song on the set list.” It could be the very first for all Matt knows, but he needs a distraction right now. Luckily, Chris jumps on the idea and drags them through the actually dwindling crowd.
Seems like Matt’s right, the song isn’t followed by another, just a small thank you to the fans.
They show the security their backstage passes and get herded through a corridor towards a small break room with couches, a water fountain and equipment strewn everywhere.
The door closes and suddenly it’s quiet. The onslaught Matt’s senses have grown accostumed to over the last hour is replaced by glaring silence and the pleasant smell of clean laundry.
Somehow it gives him more whiplash than the wave of sound that had hit him when he came inside. His ears are ringing, he’s dizzy, his hands are shaking, vomit is crawling up his throat and there’s fuck all to distract him from the pounding in his head.
A door slams down the hall and he flinches so hard his vision whites out for a second.
“Matt?” Nick’s face comes into view, but it’s wrong somehow, like someone threw him in a washing machine. All washed out and rearranged.
His eyes are too large and they aren’t reflecting the light properly. His eyebrows are swirling. His skin is translucent, Matt could swear he can see his teeth through his cheeks.
They’re the last thing he sees when black dots fill his vision, the ringing becomes deafening, and he collapses like a puppet with its strings cut.
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“Matt, please, come on. Hold his feet up, Chris, maybe it’s just a circulatory problem. Please let it be a circulatory problem.” Nick’s voice is brimming with panic, the hand hastily sliding over his brother’s neck shaking.
“I can’t find a fucking pulse, dammit, don’t die on me Matt!”
Die? The fuck’s he so hysteric for?
“Chill”, Matt rasps, throat like sandpaper, “I’m fine.”
“Fine? FINE?! YOU JUST FUCKING FAINTED AND DIDN’T MOVE FOR LIKE TEN MINUTES!” And huh, he sounds freaked out enough Matt might just believe him.
“This is the second time you’ve done this today, Matt, forgive me for worrying about you”, Nick continues in a calmer tone.
“Matt, what are you hiding from us?” Chris’ voice is scarily calm, like he’s bracing for something.
“I’m not! Everything is fine.” He clings to it even though he knows the gig is up.
It’s useless. He knows. But it’s been his mantra for a week now. Hard to let go of that.
Chris’ face falls, a fabricated poker face pulling over his features he knows doesn’t work on his brothers. “Are you dying?”
A giggle escapes Matt. The situation suddenly seems hysterical. “Sure feels like it sometimes, heh.”
Chris doesn’t laugh with him, only slumps onto the couch next to him.
Fuck. He’s serious.
“No no no, Chris, I’m fine, I promise, I won’t die anytime soon, please, you know I wouldn’t lie about that.” Matt clumsily rises from the floor and tries to pull his brother’s hands away from his face.
“Just look at me, I’m fine, see?”
It’s Chris’ turn to laugh. “Have you looked into a mirror recently? You look dead on your feet, it’s not that much of a reach.”
Matt has to pause. Tries to see everything from the other perspective and finds a terrifying picture.
To them, he’d suddenly become extremely withdrawn, quiet and moody. Had started getting nightmares, stopped eating, got sleep paralysis and fainted multiple times in a day.
Basically, Chris is right. Fuck.
“I’m so fucking sorry, I didn’t realise how this must look to you guys.”
He plops down next to Chris and pulls Nick into his other side. Tries to think of how he should explain his situation without sounding like too much of an idiot.
A deep breath. “I-“- the door slams open and three paramedics filter into the room with a stretcher, lead by security.
“You called 911? Isn’t that a bit excessive?” God, he can’t be responsible for a false emergency too.
“You fainted, the second time today, and you’ve been so out of it for longer than that. We told security to call 911 and describe what we’ve seen of it, you know.”
“Kid, you’re coming with us to the ER, if it’s not dehydration then you’re definitely malnourished.” Matt helplessly stares at his brothers until Nick sighs.
“Can you take us with you? He’s the only driver between us.”
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Turns out the paramedic had been right. Dehydration and malnutrition, sleep deprivation and a migraine.
They had given him electrolytes and the right mix of vitamins and minerals per IV after he’d confessed his inability to eat without throwing it up afterwards, and the best painkillers ever. Maybe those had been narcotics because he fell asleep way too fast.
When he wakes up, Nick and Chris are sitting on the bed and talking in hushed tones over the former’s phone. “The later one is better, he needs the sleep.”
“Hmpfh?” Matt slurs out, confused. Everything feels so heavy, but light at the same time, like he’s floating with concrete replacing his bones.
Nick jumps. “Fuck! Don’t scare me like that.”
He immediately presses the on-call-button and sits down next to Matt’s ribs with a look that promises violence. And coddling.
“What were you thinking?!” There comes the interrogation. He’s too high for this.
“The doctor said to end up like this you’d have to have not slept and eaten for a week! Did you drink anything at all yesterday? Fuck, how did you even hide this from us, we’re practically joined at the hip. And why? What even is ‘this’? Are you getting depressed again? What’s going on Matt, please just talk to us.”
By the end of it, Nick is crying. And Matt feels like crying too. Because in hindsight, yeah, Nick is right, what the hell had he been thinking? He knows, yeah, remembers the important parts, his mantra, well enough, but why hadn’t rational thinking kicked in at any point?
Before he can sort through his thought process and lay it down for his brothers to completely raze down, a nurse comes in and checks him over, finally removing the IV with a satisfied nod.
And then her face becomes stern and Matt wants to cry again. He can’t deal with another scolding, another person counting down his failures.
“You’re lucky to not have brain damage right now, Mr Sturniolo. Sleep deprivation is a serious issue and your hormone levels suggested you reached at least stage four. Please don’t let it come this far again, take melatonin if you notice yourself not getting enough sleep.”
And that’s the last straw. Because there it is, a good solution on a silver platter. This whole thing had been for nothing at all. He could have just taken sleeping pills. Plain and simple. Like every other insomniac too. But he’d almost killed himself instead. Like a fucking idiot.
The nurse leaves after giving Chris his newly prescribed sleeping pills.
“I’m sorry, so fucking sorry guys. I wasn’t thinking, I was just so tired and there was the concert and you were looking forward to it so much and I was so sure I would sleep the next night, and the next, and the one after that, and it just spiraled and suddenly I was hallucinating shadow creatures.”
His voice had gotten wobbly halfway through and at the absolutely devastated look in Chris’ eyes his last line of defense crumbled and the waterworks opened.
Burying his head in his hands, he started sobbing, the kind of sobs that shake your whole frame and feel like your lungs are trying to leave your body.
And then Chris and Nick are there, at his sides, pulling him into a pile of limbs.
“No no no, it’s fine, we’re not mad or anything. You were fucking stupid, sure, and we’re gonna talk about that hallucinating thing later, but you’re fine now. Just tell us next time, no one gives a fuck about a concert if you’re not feeling well.”
“Thank you, Chris. God I feel stupid now.” The sobs have turned into silent tears now, allowing him to talk.
And he talks. Tells his brothers everything. Doesn’t leave any details out. They call him stupid, reassure him, give him incredulous looks when he tells them about the hallucinations. But they don’t get mad. Not overly so, at least, not seriously.
.
.
.
When they get home, they don’t leave him alone until he’s eaten. But that’s not bad, his hunger had returned at some point and so had his appetite.
And he won’t complain about the company, though it gets overbearing quickly, with them being convinced he’ll collapse if they’re not with him at all times.
And then it’s night and he is standing in front of his bed, sleeping pills in hand. What if he can do this without? Or worse, if they don’t work? He hadn’t tried yet, they had left the hospital quickly to pack and catch the earliest flight.
His musings are interrupted by Chris flopping down on his bed, already in pyjamas. “You coming?” Like he owns the place. Whatever.
Matt crawls in next to him and deposits the unopened pills on the nightstand. But Chris stares at him accusingly and opens his mouth, probably to rant about the promises they had wrestled out of him to do what the nurse told him.
“Yeah, yeah, I know, but maybe I can sleep without? I don’t want to become addicted or something, this could’ve been a one time thing?” His pleading gaze is met with strong disapproval written all over Chris’ face.
“Do I need to get Nick? He has the doctor’s speech written down somewhere.”
The threat is enough to get Matt to comply and down a pill with a bottle of water someone that wasn’t him had pointedly placed on his bedside table.
“And you were there for what the nurse said, you can’t let it come this far again.”
“But she also said I should take this when I notice I’m not sleeping, which I haven’t.” His complains are halfhearted at best. Damn these pills work fast.
“Yet.” Chris smiles, satisfied, and shifts onto his stomach.
Matt follows suit. The moment his head hits the pillow, he’s out like a light.
.
.
.
A few weeks later, Nick confesses that the pills he’s been taking are placebos. The doctor had told them that it’s probably a psychological problem when Matt was out and given them real melatonin for if the placebos don’t work. They had though, very well.
Matt is sleeping better than ever and doesn’t need placebos anymore. He still hides every soda in the house as retribution. He keeps them under his bed for a few days, until the withdrawal makes Chris almost cry.
The video of that is his favourite in his camera roll.