Chapter One
"Next time, I'm renting a car and we're driving. Never let me on an airplane, like ever, ever again."
"It's not the plane's fault that you're an easy target."
"Bella, for the last time. I'm disabled, not a terrorist." Puck hissed, attempting to drag his two large suitcases in a straight (ha) line.
His twin stared at him in irritated disbelief.
"Then you should remember for the next time that TSA agents don't have a sense of humour! Next time, don't wait until after the handheld scanner has gone off to explain why it's freaking out over your leg! That's what your doctor's note is for - use it, you dumbass!"
"I forgot!" He huffed defensively.
Forks was off to a great start.
Puck Swan was first and foremost, a dumbass. A dumbass with an extremely high propensity for near-death experiences, that were - more often than not - a direct correlation of said dumbassery. It wasn't like he literally went out of his way to shave inches of his lifespan (though his sister has a different theory), but it just sort of... happened. Admittedly, the first two instances were totally not his fault. He couldn't be blamed for almost being strangled by the umbilical cord in the womb, or for contracting bacterial meningitis as a toddler.
He could, however, be blamed for the time he nearly drowned in the neighbours' outdoor pool, or that time he was dicking around after school and accidentally got his prosthetic leg caught in a grate before tripping and landing in front of an oncoming vehicle. That one was a close call. Truthfully, he either had very bad luck or very good luck, depending on which angle you looked at it. Either way, Puck wasn't sure.
He thought it must've been some kind of miracle that the plane hadn't gone down before they made it to Sea-Tac, but he figured that the combined luck of everyone else on the plane likely outweighed his bad luck. Didn't stop his sister from muttering a prayer under her breath before take off, but hey-ho, the twins made it safely to Forks and that was all the mattered.
As happened most mornings, Puck awoke to a prickly, cramping sensation in his limb, prompting him to sit up and move to the side of his small double bed. The ball of his right foot made contact with the plush carpeting of his old bedroom, whilst the stump of his left leg that stopped just below his knee joint barely dropped over the side of the mattress, the cool air hitting the limb. As he wiped the sleep from his eyes he gently massaged the flesh, a loud yawn escaping his mouth.
Puck stared at his stump, the scarred skin tissue at the base tight and a little tender that morning. It was a bizarrely fascinating thing really, the loss of a limb. At times it felt like watching a person getting excessive amounts of cosmetic surgery, uncomfortable, a lil bit gruesome, and surprisingly hard to stop staring at. Truth be told, Puck didn't really remember the glory days of being three years old and owning a real flesh left leg below his knee joint. Sure, at times he would find himself struck by a random bout of phantom limb pain, but it didn't really measure up to the actual thing, no matter how peculiar it felt. The phantom pain had nothing to do with a guy in a mask that sings all the time but was more like having an itchy foot that you can't scratch - except way worse because that foot doesn't exist any more.
Bella hated looking at it. The stump, that is. It reminded her of painful memories - foggy yet distinct - of her mother panicking in the middle of the day when she found a feverish Puck vomiting in the garden, drowsy and near unresponsive. It was a fast-paced blur of worried adults, loud ambulances, bright white lights, and then the shaking hands of her father arriving and carrying a distraught Bella away from the hospital whilst Renee looked after their little boy.
The amputation was undeniably necessary to remove the damaged tissue and to stop the infection spreading through Puck's body. Seeing her twin brother in a hospital bed, wearing an oxygen mask and being drip fed fluids in his post-surgery (and post-two fully functioning legs) haze had terrified three year old Bella, even if she didn't fully understand what was happening. Renee and Charlie had tried explaining the concept of bacterial meningitis to the two children but quickly realised that was a daft idea. Instead, it was decided that Puck's leg had fallen sick and had gone to join Nanna and Grandpa Swan in heaven. No matter how ridiculous, it gave young Puck an undeniable, hysterical sort of joy to imagine his detached limb floating around heaven with his grandparents. Admittedly, even as a seventeen year old man, it still made him smile.
Puck didn't really have a choice in looking at it, given that he had to give the stump continuous daily care to prevent it from becoming rough and scaly or even infected, as well as wearing and removing his prosthetic including all the hassle involved with that. He already had enough self-esteem issues without adding something else for him to hate.
A slam of a door echoed through the house, the gurgle of the plumbing indicating the occupation of the houses' one and only shower, a disappointingly weak shower as Puck had discovered the night before.
His father knocked on the door, "Mornin' sleepyhead."
Puck grunted, not yet awake enough to produce speech. Charlie slowly eased the door open, his broad shoulders blocking out most of the light from the corridor, and moved to slide the curtains open.
"I know you showered last night and I don't know how long Bells will take in the bathroom, so I've brought a bowl of warm water up for you." He dropped back out of the room briefly, before returning with said bowl.
Puck sighed.
"Thanks, Dad." He smiled softly at the older man. Charlie hovered awkwardly, his brow furrowed. He placed the bowl on the wooden bedside table.
"Do you, er, have all your bits? Creams and cloths and what not?"
"Yep, Mom already got on me about that. It's all here, in the drawer." Puck nodded. "I've been doing this for fourteen years Dad, I know the drill."
Charlie cleared his throat with an understanding hum and dropped onto the bed next to him.
Every morning and evening, Puck set aside half an hour to dedicate to the daily care of his leg. With practiced hands, he washed the limb with the warm water and mild soap, before applying his cream to care for the stressed skin and to keep it soft and pliable. It was when Puck began to carefully massage and stretch the scarred tissue that Charlie turned back to his only son, eyeing Puck's tense shoulders and the long tanned fingers that were carefully massaging his limb.
"How are you doing today?"
"If I were a bird, I'd fly into a ceiling fan." Puck replied, slipping a liner and a prosthetic sock over the residual limb, slowly and methodically putting on his transtibial prosthesis.
"One of those days, huh?" His father offered a sympathetic shoulder pat, the reassuring weight calming a little of the anxiety that Puck felt brewing in his gut. "The kids at school are harmless. You'll be alright, Robin."
That was another thing he'd have to get use to, hearing his birth name. Robin. The only time he ever heard it back home living with his mother was when he did something that really pissed her off, which luckily for him was once in a blue moon. Charlie, on the other hand, would only call him that. Puck reckoned it was because the man had gotten to choose his name, whilst it was Renee who had named Bella. Apparently his mother had thought it boring, but Charlie - stubborn as an ox - had stuck to his guns and overruled her. She wanted him to have a nice Italian name to match Isabella, but in the end had to settle for Antonio as his middle name.
Puck didn't really care, truth be told. He was just glad they'd decided against naming him after Renee's father, an old-fashioned bloke with the equally old-fashioned name; Eugene.
Sitting in the old rust bucket that Charlie had gifted the pair, the engine rumbling and growling as they drove along the stretch of road, Puck couldn't stop the nervous bouncing of his right knee.
"You keep doing that, you'll end up with a second leg amputation." Bella raised an eyebrow, drumming a gentle rhythm against the old worn leather of the steering wheel.
He huffed and snarked in reply, "Wow, what is this, abuse the disabled gay day?"
Bella rolled her eyes so hard that he was surprised they didn't fall out of her head.
"Puck, it's high school, not the end of the world."
"Famous last words." He muttered under his breath.