PLEASE READ THIS!
I have decided to shorten the length of this chapter to ONLY cover the rest of the car crash scene and the recovery in the hospital. Yes, the car crash is further described. Yes, there is discussion of injury, medications, and other potentially upsetting topics.
IF you think this might trigger something negative for you - SKIP THIS CHAPTER. Although there is more fluff than gory details, the details are there. I will be providing a summary of non-graphic details from this chapter in the notes ahead of Chapter 11, so if you are hesitant at all about reading this, just know I will make sure you do not miss the major plot points. Again, I am specifically structuring this chapter to give you the option to skip it if you want it. It does NOT offend me if you want to skip over it. Reading should be enjoyable (even in the midst of angsty stuff) and not uncomfortable.
Glass. Glass was everywhere, except in the windows where it was supposed to be, sparkling sharp shards coating every surface. The inside of the car was crumpled to half its original size, driving Yuuri's unconscious form heavy onto Victor's side. Screams ripped through the air as Mila and Sara sprinted toward the wreckage, barefoot and still dressed in their PJs. From a place far away, Victor registered Sara calling for help, while the fuzzy, floating voice of Mila was much closer, reassuring him that everything would be okay. Shaky fingers lifted to touch the blood on his arm, Victor realizing too late that it wasn't his own. Overwhelmed, he passed nauseatingly into his own state of unconsciousness.
Sirens and bright lights covered the world, an intrusively loud presence that brought Victor slamming back into reality. Rough hands removed his door from its hinges, taking their place around his body and lifting him from the vehicle. Tears blurred his eyes, red flashes searing his brain, making it impossible for him to follow the instructions of the emergency response worker. There was only one thought in his head as his body thudded against the plastic cushion of the stretcher, and Victor called his name over and over, praying that Yuuri would respond.
Desperately, he had tried to expel himself from the confines of his uncomfortable mobile bed, pushing up against the powerful holds of the EMT workers. The last glimpse of Yuuri left him sobbing as his love's motionless body was removed from the now cut apart vehicle. Collapsing in despair, Victor let the sobs take over, no longer fighting the team attempting to treat his injuries.
A gentle hand touched his forehead, calling his attention to a familiar face above him. Not trusting his battered mind, Victor squinted, unable to process the kind voice. "He's alive, Vitya," Emil spoke with a hint of apprehension keeping the smile from reaching his eyes, though his voice was reassuring as he placed a needle in Victor's arm, "the other team will take care of him, I promise."
Holding Emil's words close to his heart, Victor slipped off into drugged sleep.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
The annoying, repetitive sound was like a drill bit to his ear, making him cringe with every high-pitched repetition.
Anesthetic. Cleaning solutions. Starched sheets.
The smells penetrated his nose, invading his every breath with their sterile stench.
Bindings. Wires. Machines.
The harsh trappings restricted his movements, keeping him from shifting to escape the looming dread that clouded his mind.
Broken, cheerful Japanese.
The voice, chattering away somewhere to his right, was a guiding light toward hope.
Moaning, Yuuri struggled to open his eyes, fear weighing his eyelids down as much as the medications that were still flowing into his arm. The world spun like he was seeing it for the first time, his brain unable to process all of the stimuli at once, making him dizzy and bringing the groan from the deepest part of his belly. Letting his heavy eyelids drop closed, Yuuri took a deep breath, discovering the hint of discomfort on his right side. Panic began to rise in his throat, bringing shivers to his body as he tried to make sense of what was going on. Thoughts rippled in his brain, broken and confused, making his heartrate accelerate as he lost the reigns on his control. Desperation took him to the brink of insanity, Yuuri fighting back by listening to the familiar sound of Phicit's accented Japanese, using it to pull himself back from the edge. Using the methods he had learned from a school psychologist, he calmed himself by concentrating on each part of his body.
His toes moved freely, although hampered by the tight tuck of the stiff sheets around his body. Flexing his feet at the ankles, he noted only a small ache up the side of his left leg, his right appearing to be in fine working order. Moving through each muscle group, Yuuri quietly assessed his injuries, while frustratingly trying to recall the moments of his last waking hour. He tightened his stomach muscles, feeling only residual pain to his side in the same place he had already identified. He startled when he went to move his left arm, eyes slitting open to examine the blue and white sling holding it in place. It looked like a stripped wing, and Yuuri attempted to move it as such, cursing as the fire increased across his shoulder.
From his side, he heard another familiar voice reprimand him for using such inappropriate language. Confusedly rotating only his head, Yuuri blinked furiously as his best friend moved cautiously toward his bed. It wasn't Phicit's voice he had heard, and Yuuri continued to be baffled, until a laptop was laid across his belly. Even without his glasses, he would know the face on the screen anywhere. Starring at him, the backdrop of the restaurant behind her, was the tear-stained face of his mother. Feeling his own tears prickling over his cheeks, Yuuri waved his right hand at the screen, not yet trusting his voice to hold out over multiple words.
Phicit crawled onto the bed next to Yuuri, slipping an arm under his small, sluggish shoulders to pull Yuuri's upper half into Phicit's lap. The smell of their shared detergent, mixed with the inherent smell of his best friend had Yuuri relaxing into Phicit's hold. He listened to his mother speak, Phicit adding in details of the last twenty-four hours of Yuuri's life, which he had spent asleep.
The list of injuries Yuuri had sustained was sickening to hear presented in a full list, but his rational mind quickly trumped his anxiety, reminding him that any injuries were better than being dead. His left shoulder had dislocated, with only minor tearing requiring the doctors to reset it and perform only mild surgical repair to the area. Yuuri had come out of surgery without any hardware in his body, and for that he was incredibly thankful. There was the concussion, which probably explained all of the throbbing in his skull, and the numerous cuts from glass along with bruising along most of his body. He had several broken ribs, none of which separated and would heal on their own with proper rest and pain management. Considering what he could remember of the accident, his body didn't sound all that damaged. As his mother continued to talk, joined by Mari and his father on the screen, Yuuri rested his head back absorbing all of the information. He loved that Phicit was there, and seeing his family was making his current situation less scary, but he really needed one particular person more than anyone else.
Victor. The thought had him straining to sit up in bed, twisting awkwardly to demand knowledge of Victor's whereabouts. His own injuries forgotten, Yuuri begged Phicit to tell him where Victor was and if he was okay.
Leaning to wrap his arms around his best friend, Phicit kissed Yuuri's matted hair as he guided Yuuri's bruised body back down onto the bed. "Victor has been here since the second they let him out of the emergency room," Phicit lovingly ran his hand over Yuuri's uninhibited arm, "Chris made him go home about an hour ago to get a shower, since he hadn't changed and was frankly a mess. He smelled almost as bad as you do." Phicit snickered as Yuuri bit at his hand.
On the screen, Yuuri's family wished him goodbye, the stream of customers filing into the dining room a signal that they needed to return to work. He was sad to see them disappear, but he also knew that his next few questions were better addressed by Phicit alone. When the laptop had been removed from his stomach, Yuuri reached out for Phicit's hand as he settled back into the chair beside the bed. "Is he okay?" It was the one question Yuuri had to know. He would have lost a limb, or given his own life to ensure that Victor was safe.
Nodding, Phicit grazed a kiss to Yuuri's knuckles. The emotion in Phicit's expression was hard for Yuuri to interpret, especially without his glasses, so he stayed silent waiting for further answer. "Victor is fine," Phicit squeezed Yuuri's hand and arm as he talked, "he also has a concussion, definitely some whiplash, and some pretty serious cuts from the glass, but other than that he escaped unharmed. I told him you dig scars, which seemed to make him happy." Phicit's fingers trailed over the numerous bandages on Yuuri's arm. "They should give you a discount when you both go in to have all the stitches removed."
So many times in Yuuri's life he had found himself thankful for the unstoppable influence that was Phicit. Now, in the quietest form of that influence, Phicit was reassuring him, lightening the mood in the room and making Yuuri feel an overwhelming sense of normal. It had to be some kind of super power as far as Yuuri was concerned. Interrupting Yuuri before he could share these sentiments, a stocky woman in dark green scrubs jostled into the room.
"Ah, so he is up!" she was jolly and bright, and a little frightening as she leaned over Yuuri to flick a flashlight in his eyes and listen to his heartbeat. To his left, a monitor began to make intense beeping noises. "Don't be nervous, sweetie," the cherub cheeked woman beamed down at him, "I don't bite, and I bring all the good meds." Removing several syringes from her pocket, she laid them down across a metal table top. "We have you on painkillers, for obvious reasons, and you have another couple of rounds of antibiotics to go before I can let you escape these sterile walls. How are you feeling? Can you give me a pain rating from 1 to 10?"
Yuuri blinked in response, the concept of reducing the feelings in his body down to a number creating a conundrum in his injured head. "I hurt?" he ventured, uncomfortable smile on his face, "I guess it is pretty bad, maybe an 8 or a 9?" He watched with blurry vision as the woman attached a syringe to a tub sticking out of his arm, wondering briefly exactly what she was shoving into his bloodstream. A tingling sensation washed over his body, making his chest feel hollow as Yuuri sunk back into the hospital-grade pillow.
Knowing eyes watched over him as his body relaxed from the medications now making their way through his veins. His nurse, whose name he had already forgotten, unsure that he ever got it in the first place, felt disconnected from him like she was standing behind a thin veil. A hand patted him on the forehead, "sleep a bit more, I will talk with your doctor and check in with you in a few hours." Yuuri's eyes fluttered shut, leaving his response dead on his tongue.
Victor wiped his mouth, standing from in front of his toilet. It was a wonder that there was anything left in his stomach after the amount of vomiting he had done over the past day. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw Yuuri's body being lifted from the vehicle, then flashes of Yuuri laying in a hospital bed looking impossibly small and frail. His Yuuri was full of life and inspiration, and could not possibly be the same man left limp and bandaged in the stark white hospital bed. The images made Victor's stomach churn so he hastily shoved them away.
Stripping his clothes from his body, unfortunately aware of the stench they were carrying, Victor adjusted the knobs of his shower to the hottest water that it could provide. Stepping inside, he let his muscles relax under the powerful blast. He would apologize to Chris whenever he made his way out of the watery relief, knowing that his anger toward his best friend for making him leave the hospital was ill-placed and unacceptable. Chris had been the one to take the burden of Victor's anger after his parents had died, and had once again accepted that role following Tuesday's car crash. It was a wonder sometimes how he even remained Victor's friend.
Carefully scrubbing his body, acutely aware of the areas which were marred by stitches, Victor used the time to collect his thoughts. Yuuri was alive. He was alive and he was going to be okay. Yuuri also single-handedly saved their lives.
All of Victor's life he had dreamed of a storybook romance, one with a handsome prince and grand declarations of love, preferably done through song. Without realizing it, Victor had found his prince, and his prince has almost sacrificed his life to save Victor. It made all his childhood daydreaming seem foolish, now that he was faced with the reality of such sacrifice. He would gladly trade places with Yuuri, trading his ability to move freely from home to the hospital for a place in a standard issue hospital bed, if it meant that Yuuri could be unharmed. It killed him to leave Yuuri's side without seeing those brown eyes peering back at him, and he pushed himself directly under the shower spout, scrubbing away soap and shampoo at a lightning pace, decisions landing in place with every passing second.
Yuuri had strode into his life at his darkest time, throwing the light on to highlight all of the good that Victor had gone blind to. The amazing strength of Mila, the charisma and caring of Chris, the romanticism of Georgi, the fight of Aniya, and the humor of Otabek and JJ had all been lost on Victor as he slipped away from reality following his parents' death. His world had gone dark, hiding him from the love that attempted to drag him back, until Yuuri arrived bringing the brightness of life and love with him. Yuuri gave him his love, his laughter, and his newly reclaimed lease on life, and Victor was determined to fight for those L words, no matter how terrifying the fight may be.
But, if he returned to Yuuri to find that his love wanted to leave, wanted to run from the chaos and disaster of Victor's life, Victor knew he would let Yuuri go. If Yuuri hadn't stayed with him, at Victor's request, he would have never been in the car when it went careening down the hill, following the same path as his father's old blue beater. If Yuuri hadn't spent Monday night wrapped tightly into Victor's world, he wouldn't have been there Tuesday morning to experience all the traumatic consequences of that decision. With everything he had, Victor wanted to hold onto Yuuri and never let him go, but in the end, he would love Yuuri enough to let him leave if that was what Yuuri wanted.
Tears fell, mixing with the now-chilled shower water, landing together on the tiled ground. Victor's own wants and desires were no longer important to him, a strange shift after spending most of his life thinking only of himself. Everything depended on Yuuri now, and Victor would sacrifice his heart if it meant giving Yuuri exactly what he wanted.
The light in his room was much brighter the second time he opened his eyes, burning his irises as he squinted against it. The bed tilted to the right as pressure was placed on it, his glasses roughly shoved onto his face. Using his right arm, Yuuri pushed them into proper place, gaze falling on his new visitor. The ray of sunshine that was Phicit was no longer occupying his bedside chair, and to his slight disappointment it wasn't occupied by his gorgeous boyfriend either. Instead, a slight-figured fidgety blond scowled back at him, hands rolling and unrolling the top of a paper bag. Yuuri's slowly waking mental functioning picked up the hint of something more pleasant than the normal hospital smells, and his stomach grumbled with the acknowledgement of the smell of food. Easing back on his bed, Yuuri propped himself up, waving a hand at Yurio.
"Why did you have to try to be a hero?" the teen spat in his direction, the blond eyebrows smashed together in the middle of his forehead. "Look at what it got you!"
From anyone else, Yuuri would have taken offense to the line of questioning. From Yurio though, Yuuri recognized the immature expression of worry and caring. "Well," Yuuri started, grimacing with how dry his mouth felt, "it was either this or dead. Unless you would prefer me dead?" He knew that he couldn't pull punches with Yurio. Direct statements, which respected the maturity level Yurio longed for, was the best way to get through to him.
Wide eyes reflected Yurio's horror from underneath a curtain of blond hair. Shaking his head, potentially to rid himself of the possibility of Yuuri's death, Yurio sat forward in the chair, placing the brown paper bag next to Yuuri's hip on the bed. "That's for you," Yurio said simply, nervous hands still playing with the top of the bag, "my grandpa made it. He says hospital food is terrible and you'll only be poisoned if you eat it."
Yuuri didn't miss the affection in Yurio's statement, and even though he thought it was more for his grandfather than Yuuri, he let it warm his heart nonetheless. "May I?" Yuuri asked, hand moving toward the bag which was filling the room with enticing scents.
"I said it's yours, didn't I?" Yurio snapped, the nervous dart of his hands giving away his true feelings.
With only one good arm, it took Yuuri an inordinate amount of time to unroll the top of the bag, stomach growling excitedly through the process. Lifting what appeared to be a bun from the bag, Yuuri was struck with an intoxicating aroma. Taking a ridiculously large bite, Yuuri moaned loudly as the taste of Russian piroshky mingled in his mouth with what he could only guess were the ingredients of katsudon. It was the perfect combination of the home where he grew up and the home where he intended to live the rest of his life, making his heart and belly simultaneously happy. Chomping another huge bite, Yuuri hummed happily around the food in his mouth.
"Do you always do that?" Yurio looked disgusted and pleased as he watched Yuuri consume his first meal in over thirty hours.
"Do what?" Yuuri spoke with his mouth full, unwilling to stop his devouring process to adhere to etiquette guidelines of not talking while stuffed with food.
Yurio's lip curled as Yuuri moaned again, "yuck. Do you always make noises when you eat? It's disturbing." Even with that thought, Yurio was moving to sit beside Yuuri on the bed. "Do you like it?"
"This is one of the best things I have ever eaten," Yuuri was being sincere. Despite being famished and willing to eat burnt toast to satisfy the pangs in his stomach, the odd piroshky was easily one of the most harmonious and simplistically delicious meals he had ever consumed. "Do you think your grandpa would teach me how to make it? We could serve it at the restaurant."
Yurio beamed, the smile so bright and natural Yuuri had to resist the urge to hug the boy. "He would probably love to," there was a youthful excitement to Yurio that Yuuri was only beginning to understand, "I can bring you more if you want! Even if you get out of here, I can bring it to you."
This time, Yuuri didn't hesitate to hug him, pulling Yurio into Yuuri's side with his one good arm. "Thank you," Yuuri squeezed Yurio again, releasing him when the boy started to gag.
"You smell so bad, katsudon," Yurio stood off of the bed holding his nose, "you might want to do something about that. Victor is on his way back." Yurio backed away from the bed, all traces of the sweetness gone from his stance, "I'll see you tomorrow or something." Spinning on his heel, Yurio left, robbing Yuuri of his chance for a clever comeback.
The same nurse entered the room, waving the syringes toward Yuuri who frowned at her. "Hi Nurse Rachett," he joked, referencing an old movie and making his nurse laugh, "when can I stop having that stuff injected in me? I want to shower and go home."
She sympathetically patted his arm, "I'm going to hang your last round of antibiotics. The doctor should be here around five this evening to see you. He will discharge you then or first thing tomorrow morning." She returned his grin, patting his cheek like his mother used to do, "I'll get the supplies for a sponge bath, no shower for you yet I'm afraid." Flicking liquid drops from the top of the syringe, she peeked at him over the top. "That insanely handsome man who has declared himself as your boyfriend would surely help you out with the bathing part, I'm assuming." Her chuckle was deep and throaty as Yuuri blushed furiously.
This time when the effects of his medication overtook him, he drifted to sleep with a smile on his face.
Dim light trickled in through the vertical blinds covering the thick glass windows of his hospital room. Yuuri's eyes adjusted, resolving that he had lost another few hours to drug-induced slumber. There was no way he was letting himself get injected with any more of that potent mess, mentally declaring that he survived a car accident and therefore could handle any pain that came along with that survival. Thumping his good fist against the bed for emphasis, he reacted when his knuckles clipped the warm elbow of a figure slumped onto his bed. The silver hair draped over folded arms, little sighs of sleep escaping from the curled shoulders. Victor was there. Victor was asleep on the edge of his hospital bed. Victor was alive, safe, and within touching distance. At no time in his life had Yuuri ever been so elated by the existence of another person, his all-consuming joy bringing him into a sitting position, hand outstretched to stroke the perfect strands on his boyfriend's head. He would suffer a thousand broken bones for the safety of this man, and everything in him felt a sense of relief as his fingers stroked down the slim neck, reassuring Yuuri that Victor was very much alive and real.
Lifting his head, Victor took in the sight of Yuuri's incredible dark eyes, the eyes that he had fallen in love with the first day in the restaurant's foyer. He hadn't seen them since the moment the car collided with the rock wall, and it wasn't until Victor was drowning in the depths of chocolate and honey that he knew just how much he needed to. A sob threatened to collapse his chest as Victor threw himself onto the bed, carefully drawing Yuuri up into his lap to cling to him. Despite the unbelievable odor of blood and sweat wafting from Yuuri's body, Victor began to smother him with kisses, a mixture of Russian and English declarations trailing behind every one.
Yuuri knew he was disgusting, skin coated in a mixture of dirt, sweat, blood, and general hospital funk, but he couldn't bring himself to care as he let himself be folded into Victor's arms. The slim frame was so solid, so full of life that Yuuri used it to anchor himself, wrapping his good arm around Victor's waist to yank the warm chest against Yuuri's own. He jumped when he felt the wetness fall on his exposed collarbone, his hospital gown untied and drooping to exposure the skin. Running an unsteady hand up Victor's chest, Yuuri cupped the chiseled cheek now trailed with hot tears. Relief stirred within Yuuri, love for the man currently crying onto his bare skin swirled with it, bringing tears to Yuuri's eyes as well.
"I thought I lost you," Victor murmured, voice strained with emotion as he kissed every part of Yuuri he could reach. He couldn't seem to reassure himself that Yuuri was real, the need to touch every part of him overtaking Victor's resolve to let Yuuri choose what would happen next. If he was to let Yuuri go, it wouldn't be until after he had a chance to kiss every cut and bruise.
"Maybe," Yuuri sighed into Victor's touches, relishing in the electric tingles flashing over his skin, "maybe, we should take some sort of class to train us not to be clumsy." He felt Victor pause his quest to kiss Yuuri's injuries, "you know, since we have spent every day since we met acquiring injuries. In fact, I bet we could map out our love story based on the severity of our injuries." The words were out of his mouth before his brain had processed them. Love story. He had just called his time with Victor their love story. Ready to blame it on his concussion, Yuuri was silenced as Victor kissed him hard on the lips.
The words circled in his mind like a riders on a brightly colored merry-go-round. Their love story. It hadn't been Victor who outwardly romanticized their time together, and his heart was exploding with this fact. He would still give Yuuri the choice to leave, but right now, he let a part of his selfishness sneak back in. When he pulled away, he let Yuuri's smirk influence his own. "Are we joking about this now? That's how we are going to handle it?" Victor felt the smile tug on his lips, chewing on the inside of his cheek to keep it from spreading.
"I mean," Yuuri barely restrained his own smile, "if you could stop falling so hard for me, and dragging me with you, maybe we would both come away with less battle wounds." He saw the glint in Victor's eyes and it went straight to Yuuri's heart.
"Battle wounds, battle scars, body bumped, bruised," Victor sang, trailing off when he couldn't remember the rest of the words.
"Taylor Swift? Really?" Yuuri snorted, shaking his head as Victor restarted his attempt to sing the remaining parts of the verse, destroying the lyrics as well as most of the rhythm. Yuuri found himself unable to temper his laughter, shaking with it as his nurse walked back into the room. Sucking in his breath to slow his reaction, Yuuri held up a hand to her. "NO!" he said sternly making Victor jump, "don't give me that stuff! I just got him back," Yuuri slid an arm around Victor's waist, pulling him close, "and I refuse to go back to sleep right now." His pout was mixed with his serious tone, making him sound like a raging child. It did nothing to curb Victor's desire to kiss him soundly.
Conceding to his request, Yuuri's nurse replaced the syringe in her pocket, promising to contact the doctor to request oral pain meds. Unhooking Yuuri's limiting wires after sliding a plastic basin onto the foot of the bed, she once again brought up the concept of a sponge bath and Yuuri looked eagerly up at Victor.
"Sponge bath, you say?" Victor raised an eyebrow at his boyfriend, dragging the basin over the bed to examine its contents. "Now that, I can do." Together they laughed all the way to the shower chair in the bathroom, bodies and nerves bumping together as Victor supported Yuuri in the short walk, both feeling the pure relief of being reunited.
Another note: It is no longer a requirement to keep head injury victims awake once diagnosed. Most head injuries heal better if the person rests without stimulation.
Nurse Ratchett is a One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest reference.