Chapter Text
Sometimes you’ve got to bleed to know, that you’re alive and
“Shit”
I nearly missed the hi-hat. I didn’t see anything strange but the blow just sounded a bit off. When I say I didn’t see anything, I literally mean I didn’t see it. There’s this some sort of weird black spot in the left corner of my left-eye vision. It doesn’t bother me during the day, but whilst performing the left part of my drum kit is out of vision and clearly affecting my performance. Luckily Tyler hasn’t noticed yet. Otherwise he would get worried and I don’t want him to panic, especially not whilst performing on stage.
It began a couple of days ago. It had started with just a few tiny black spots in my field of vision when I stood up too quickly. I didn’t look into it too deeply, just my brain not getting enough blood and oxygen. The spots disappeared after a while and I forgot about it. The next day however, there was a black spot when I woke up. Not really prominent, but still big enough to disturb my vision. I still didn’t think that much of it, I thought it was linked with my exhaustion from touring. Although I became concerned when the spot didn’t disappear and became even bigger over the next couple of days. That damn spot wasn’t even the worst actually, it was the throbbing headache that appeared and disappeared throughout the day which made focussing and relaxing nearly impossible.
It’s a miracle Tyler doesn’t know anything about it yet, Mark in the meantime sends me worried looks throughout the day and tries to talk with me whilst I try my hardest to avoid that inevitable conversation. I just don’t want them to worry about me. I’m fine. Tyler is the one who needs people to worry about, not me. I’m the strong one, or at least I’m supposed to be the strong one. Tyler would collapse if I wasn’t strong for him, he needs someone to rely on and in all these years I have become the only one who can do that, he doesn’t trust any other person with his deepest secrets and hidden fears. He’s scared people will use it against him or he will lose his purpose. I won’t let that happen so I’ll have to stay strong. On the other hand, being truthful has always been an important part in our relation. We’ve sworn to never lie to eachother and tell each other everything to prevent any accidents we would regret later.
Anyway, this headache is really killing me. I think I should tell Tyler, he can help or at least he’ll know what to do. I just have to make it through this show and then I can tell it afterwards. I already feel the knot forming in my stomach because Tyler will be mad and maybe even angry at first for not telling him earlier, then he’ll be worried and concerned, I’ll try to calm him down but he might even go into a panic attack because of his overthinking. So you might say I’m not really looking forward to spilling the truth.
Whilst I was busy with my inner monologue ‘Holding onto you’ had started playing and as we are nearing the ‘lean with it, rock with it’ part, I’m dreading standing up for the backflip more and more because I can predict my headache will step up its game even more. Sitting is fine, the banging of the drums covers the pounding of the headache. Standing up, however, would mean an alteration in the pressure on my head and even emphasize the stinging headache.
Tyler stands up from the piano and walks to the front of the stage whilst singing. Well, here we go. I stand up and the pain shoots through my head as if a dagger is being stabbed in my temple. I tightly shut my eyes, I have to bite through this. I jump off my platform and regret the change of height immediately, it’s a short relieve of the pressure to my head but as soon as my feet hit the ground, the pain thuds through my body and the pain increases even more. I need to bite through the pain. The crowd can’t notice, the crew can’t notice, Tyler can’t notice. I try to act as if nothing’s wrong and walk –as best as I can- in a straight line towards the piano. It’s only a few steps but God that throbbing headache is killi- Shit. I only notice now my left-eye vision is completely gone, which will make estimating depth and jumping on the piano quite a challenge. Maybe my body will do it some sort of automatically after all those backflips in past gigs. Well, at least I hope so. Luckily I made it to the piano. I lay both hands on the surface, feeling the worn out and softened wood calms me a little. In an attempt to prepare for my jump I close my eyes and try to let my body take over my mind. As I feel my headache fade away I bend my knees and-
As i jump on te piano the world starts spinning and I perceive everything in slowmotion. The next thing I know is that my vision is shifting and I roll too much to the left to remain in balance. I feel myself falling from the piano and my vision becomes hazy as I hit the ground. The only thing I hear is the blood pulsing through my head, but slowly the sounds fade back into my brain. They remain distant and everything sounds very eerie as if there’s a glass wall between me and the rest of the world. I hear a familiar voice shouting my name in distress. As I let the throbbing headache take over I close my eyes. Tyler’s panicked face is the last thing I see before I black out.