Trigger warnings - depression, self-harm, mentions of suicide, anxiety, and panic attacks.

Rocky doesn't wake up the entire way to the hospital. He's out cold, absolutely exhausted. It only makes me angrier with his siblings. How did they not see this? I understand their frustration, but how did they not recognize how badly he was suffering, being as close as they are? How did they let it get this bad?

When we get to the hospital, the gurney is unloaded and I run alongside, one hand in Rocky's. He shouldn't be alone. It's better me than no one.

"I'll take it from here." I feel a hand on my shoulder and turn, smiling in relief at Logan. "He punched a wall, you said?"

I nod, motioning to his other hand. "I'm pretty sure his knuckle is broken. And some of his cuts are infected on this arm."

"I'll get someone from general down here to take a look at that," Logan tells me. "I'm gonna take him in for x-rays while he's out, make it less painful on him. Did you call his family?"

I hold up Rocky's phone with a sigh. "I'm about to."

"Good luck, man." Logan claps me on the back and follows the nurses who are wheeling Rocky's gurney away. I turn on his phone and navigate to his contacts, pressing Riker's name and hoping he picks up in spite of how angry he is. This is a call he needs to hear.

"What the fuck do you want?" Riker sounds furious, and I wince. If this is the way they've been talking to Rocky recently, no wonder he's in such a bad place. Being treated like this could have even someone who isn't mentally ill wishing for death.

"Riker, it's Lucas."

I hear a loud, exaggerated sigh. "Jesus fucking christ, he came crying to you? Tell the fuckin' baby to take it like a man. He fucked up, now he's gotta pay the price."

"You guys need to come down to the hospital," I say icily. "He's hurt. He needs you."

There's a sharp intake of breath, and every trace of anger is gone from his voice when he speaks again. "W-What? What happened? How bad is it?"

"Just get down here. Hurry."

We run down the hall in a frenzy, following the receptionist's messy directions in a haste to get to the emergency waiting room.

The emergency waiting room.

What happened to Rocky is bad enough to be considered an emergency. He was brought in in an ambulance. Lucas had to call 911.

I've never been more scared in my entire life.

Lucas is sitting in one of the chairs in the corner of the phone, tapping something out on his phone. We make our way toward him, and I can't speak for my siblings, but I'm fucking nervous as all hell. Not only am I worried about Rocky; I'm dreading the lecture we're about to get.

We really fucked up.

"How is he?" Ratliff demands, not bothered with pleasantries. I'm surprised at how torn up he is about this, considering yesterday he was saying how he was glad he wasn't talking to Rocky anymore because he didn't need the negativity in his life. Clearly it wasn't the truth, and while I can't fault him for lying, a part of me is horrified at how easy it's been for us to cut Rocky out.

What does this mean?

Lucas shoves his phone in his pocket and stands, facing us. I except him to start yelling or lecturing in that dad voice I know he has, but when he speaks, his voice is soft. Calm. There's no visible trace of anger anywhere. It's unsettling. "What were you intending to do?"

"What the hell do you mean?" Ratliff snaps. "Stop with the cryptic shit and tell me how my brother is!"

"You're actually interested in his well-being?"

There it is. That's what I was anticipating.

"Listen, we fucked up," I mutter. "But he's not exactly innocent either. We're his siblings. We deserve to know what's going on with him."

"I just wanna know," Lucas continues. "What was your end goal? You shut him out, cut him off, talked shit about him behind his back, made him feel unloved and unneeded and worthless as hell…what was the point, guys? What did you expect to get out of it?"

Holy shit.

He's absolutely right.

"We never…I never thought of it like that…" I say slowly. "I didn't realize, holy fucking shit, what did we do?"

Lucas sighs. "He punched a wall. Dislocated a knuckle. They're realigning it and casting him up right now. But guys…you might wanna sit down to hear the rest of this."

Ratliff drops down in the first chair he sees, and Austin perches next to him, pulling Rydel onto his lap. I take a seat next to them and stare up at Lucas, searching his face for any kind of hint about what he's about to say. I'm so scared.

"I don't think you realize what you guys did to him," Lucas says. "You cut him off completely. Isolated him. You didn't sleep with him at night, you didn't talk to him unless you were insulting him, you didn't make sure he was eating and sleeping…you guys aren't like most siblings. You're closer. You're all you guys have. I know you've all been through so much, but from what I've seen, this is the worst. It's always been outside forces that have caused you pain, never each other." He heaves another sigh. "You should be so fucking thankful that he had a session today, because I don't know where he'd be otherwise. I knew something was wrong the moment he came in. And then he told me everything, how he hasn't slept in a week, how the sight of food makes him nauseous, how suicidal he is, and then he showed me his arms and guys, two of his cuts are infected pretty badly. He hasn't cared about cleaning them, and he's developed a nasty infection because of it."

"Oh my fuckin' god…"

"Is…is he gonna be okay?" Ratliff's crying, I can hear it in his voice without even looking at him. He sounds how I feel on the inside.

We really fucked this up.

"He'll be fine," Lucas reassures us. "In pain for a while, and he's gonna have to take antibiotics to get rid of the bacteria, but he'll be just fine. Physically. I can't say the same about his metal state."

"This is all my fault," Austin whispers. "That crash was him punching the wall, wasn't it? Because of that stupid thing I said to him…fuck, this is all my fault!"

"Don't do that," Lucas says. "Don't throw a pity party. Don't get all sad and whiny when you go see him. He doesn't need that right now. You fucked up, you made a mistake, apologize and instead of wallowing, spend that time making it up to him. He needs your love, guys. He needs to know he's loved and cared about and he'd be missed if he killed himself."

"I…what?" I ask in disbelief. "That's…I thought he knew that…that's the one thing all of us who've been suicidal have had keeping us from doing it. That's always been the constant reason not to…"

"And somehow you guys managed to undo all that in a week."

Logan walks over to me with a binder in his hands. He glances at Riker, Austin, Ratliff, and Rydel, then back at me. "His siblings?"

"How is he?" Ratliff demands. "Did you fix him?"

Logan shoots me a look and I nod, silently giving him permission to talk. "He dislocated the knuckle of his right pointer finger. I realigned the bones and casted his hand. He'll need the cast for around six weeks while the bone heals. What I'm really concerned about is the infected cuts he has. Two of the cuts on his left arm are pretty badly infected. We've got him on IV antibiotics and we're hoping that helps. However, he has a fever of 103 because of the infection and it's clear that he hasn't been eating much if anything at all. The reason he passed out-"

"What?" Austin whips his head around to stare at me. "You didn't say he passed out! Why the hell wouldn't you tell us?"

"More important things to worry about right now Aus," Riker says, putting a hand on his shoulder. He looks back to Logan. "Go ahead."

"So the reason he passed out," Logan continues, "is because his body was just thoroughly exhausted. Our tests showed that he hasn't been eating or sleeping, and that combined with the infection messing with his system caused him to faint. He'll be fine with rest. After he's released from the hospital, he'll still need to take antibiotics for a couple weeks to knock the infection completely out, but otherwise he'll be totally back to normal fairly soon."

"Can we see him?"

Logan looks to me, and I sigh. "I think I should go in first, guys. Catch him up on things. If he's not ready to see you then he's not ready. We're not trying to overwhelm him."

Everything hurts.

My hand is killing me. Both, actually. One arm's infected and the other has a dislocated knuckle. I'm really doing well for myself. That's not even counting how crappy I feel because of the fever.

"Hey, kid." Lucas pulls a chair up to my bedside and smiles at me. "How do you feel?"

"Shitty," I mumble. The lump in my throat is building.

They're not here.

They really don't care.

They really hate me.

"You've got a pretty nasty infection there," Lucas tells me. "That's what the IV's for. And you're gonna have that cast-"

"They really hate me," I whisper, a tear breaking from the barrier and falling down my cheek. "They would've been here…they really don't care…" I reach for my IV and begin tugging. "They don't care, they don't want me, I don't want to be alive anymore fuck this I'm so done…"

"No!" Lucas shouts. "No, Rocky, no!" He grabs my hand and squeezes tightly. "Listen to me. They're here, okay? They're so worried about you. They're so worried and so sorry about everything. I just wanted to come in first to make sure you were up to seeing them. They came; they came running as soon as I called them. They care so much, they're so sorry about everything. Trust me, they feel horrible about it."

I stare at him, blinking back tears. "They're here…? They're really here?"

"They're really here, Rocky," Lucas says reassuringly. "Do you wanna see them?"

"More than anything."

Thoughts? Rocky's okay physically, but his mental state...it's not gonna be pretty, trust me. You'll see it when he talks to them in the next chapter. Lucas was kinda harsh in this chapter, but sometimes tough love is the only thing that works. It was necessary.

Next chapter, Rocky reveals how bad things have actually gotten, and has a heart to heart with Ratliff, and Austin goes to talk to Ally about things.

Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed.