*Runs around screaming like Ritsu from Fruits Basket* SUMIMASEN GOMENASAI!
Erik: Shut up! Calm down!
Me: *Stops* Sorry-
Erik: Quit apologizing for everything!
Drake: He's just cranky because of a writing assignment Nony handed in about him
Me: You may wind up getting me a good mark~
Erik: *Turns away, annoyed & walks away*
Me: Erik! Wait! *runs after him*
Drake: *Facepalms* Idiot girl *Looks up* Well, Nony apologizes for the time it took to get this out, but school has been a pain in the neck for her & at home she's been distracting herself a little too much, so she did her writing in school. If she hadn't, this wouldn't be up yet
Me: *from over yonder* I HEARD THAT!
Drake: Nony does not own Hetalia, if she did, her hiatus would likely be longer than Himaruya's
Me: DRAKE! *Runs back in* Okay, warnings: Headcanons, drugged up Lukas, & stupid jokes. Okay, I'm also not a doctor, so I'm basing this off of stuff I've read. I have no idea how much if this is actually accurate. I feel bad for being so lazy, but that's what happened & please don't kill me for any inaccuracies
Beep...Beep...Beep
One thing registers in my mind. Pain. Pain and an odd floaty feeling... Wait, what?
Beep...Beep...Beep
The steady sound nearly soothes me for some strange reason. The only soothing component in my black world.
Beep...Beep...Beep
Everything begins surging back. The case. The bodies. Raivis. Ida. The shooting. Oh, please don't tell me I'm dead.
I feel a slight pressure on my hand. Wait, if I can feel, then I must still be alive. Fighting with the raging urge to remain in my subconcious state, my eyes slowly open. Bright lights nearly blind me. The pressure on my hand increases. I lazily turn my head to the source of the pressure. My vision clears, revealing Emil squeezing my hand, tears in his violet eyes and tear tracks running down his pale face. I let out a light cough. Emil allows the waterworks to flow. Ah, I just made my lillebror cry.
"E-Emil" I strain to say hoarsely.
"Lukas," Emil says, his lower lip quivering. He tries to allow a small smile on his face. "Did you at least catch a bad guy?"
I shift my gaze to lock eyes with Mathias, who stands right next to my lillebror. Like Emil, his eyes are red like he'd been crying. A small smile finds its way across his face.
I squeeze Emil's hand. "Yeah. We did."
A soft chuckle followed by a choked sob escapes Emil's mouth.
Beep...Beep...Beep
What is that sound? I shift my gaze to the source of the sound. Also known as an EKG machine. Oh. Here's that strange moment when I finally take in my full surroundings. And finally realize that I'm in a hospital room. An IV is attached to my arm, dripping pain medications into my system. Okay, I'll admit that only Emil and Berwald have seen me heavily drugged. They will never speak a word of it.
Mathias leans out the door and calls to a doctor, "He's up."
A man with brown hair tied into a short pony walks in. He's clad in a white coat.
"Welcome back," he says in a thick Hungarian accent, smiling. "I'm Daniel Héderváry and I will be your doctor during your stay." He approaches my bed. "How are you feeling?"
"In pain," I reply with a light moan. In truth, my chest does hurt. What bothers me is something doesn't feel right.
"You really had everyone worried," Dr. Héderváry says. "Your heart stopped twice while you were in surgery." He sighs. "Unfortunately, you're not completely out of danger."
"What does that mean?" I ask, my voice barely above a whisper.
"Let's just say," Dr. Héderváry tells me, "if you get an infection while your body is in such a weakened state, you're as good as dead."
Oh.
"Excuse me, Doctor Héderváry," I say, the feeling, or non-feeling to be exact, really starting to bother me. "I can't feel my legs."
Cue collective gasp from Mathias and Emil. Tears spring into Emil's eyes once again.
"What do you mean that you 'cant feel your legs,' Lukas?" Mathias asks.
Dr. Héderváry sighs. "Exactly how it sounds."
"Why didn't you tell us?" Mathias cries alarmed.
The doctor scowls. "I was about to explain, but was rudely interrupted. Now if you'd let me explain." He clears his throat. "There is impact swelling compressing his spinal nerves, paralyzing his legs. Now," he adds, holding up a finger to indicate that he's not finished talking. "Before you all start freaking out, the swelling will go down and Lukas will regain the use of his legs." Cue collective sigh of relief. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I need you two to leave so I can examine Lukas to make sure that he's suffering no ill effects as a result of the surgery. Plus, he needs his rest."
"Vi ses i morgen, kammerat,*" Mathias says with a smile, exiting the room.
"Bless, Lukas,**" Emil says before following Mathias out.
Dr. Héderváry smiles at me.
"How are you feeling, Lukas?" he asks. To my response of "in extreme pain," he says, "I figured. Your friend, Mr. Oxensteirna, requested that you weren't heavily drugged on painkillers. He said something about 'not wanting the Dane to see,' so I complied. You're still pretty drugged up, but not as much as you should be. Especially considering that you have a couple cracked ribs."
Only one thought flies through my mind: Shut up and give me my meds.
Dr. Héderváry adjusts the flow of painkillers so it can pump faster. Almost instantaneously, the pains in my chest cease and I begin feeling like I'm floating on a cloud...
I pass out from exhaustion.
I don't recall dreaming at all when I wake the next morning. Settled on a chair next to my bed is Tino.
"Good to see you're awake, Lukas," he says, a massive smile plastered on his face. "Did you sleep well?" A thoughtful look crosses his face. "Well, then again, it's probably hard sleeping with a hole in your chest, though the doctors did bandage it up and they probably stitched it up so you wouldn't keep bleeding from it, so I guess it's not much of a hole anymore than it is having threads in your skin, but that's if they stitched it up and it would probably feel really uncomfortable to feel the threads tugging at your skin whenever you moved, so that would suck, but at least it's better than having a hole in your chest, but if they didn't stitch it up, then I guess the pressure from the bandages would cause it to eventually stop bleeding, but stitching would probably be easier, but since you were in surgery to get the bullet removed, they probably made an incision over the wound to get to the bullet easier and I know that some sugeons don't stitch the incisions in case of infection, so then you would probably have bandages putting pressure on the wou-"
"What time is it?" I interrupt him drowily, my words a little slurred.
It takes Tino a moment to register what I'd just said before replying, "A little before twelve. Dr. Héderváry didn't want to wake you. I came right after he changed your bandages, so I guess you may not be totally stitched up-"
"Tino."
"I was rambling again wasn't I?" At my nod, he adds, "I'm sorry, it's just been stressful these past few days." He smiles. "At least we apprehended Natalya and Katyusha." His smile falters. "But Anya escaped."
"What was Anya's part?" I question.
"She murdered the children in the Soviet House."
A thought stikes me.
"There was a girl who I'd promised to help her find her brother-" I start.
"She and her brother are both safe," Tino says. Hehehe, his accent is funny.
Uh oh. Gah! Where are Berwald and Emil when you need to be bailed out? Well, considering the time, Emil should be in school and Berwald is probably at work...I can only be grateful that Mathias isn't here.
"Good morning!" comes the cheerful voice of Dr. Héderváry. He laughs. "Good afternoon is more like it."
To both my and Tino's shock, I laugh as well.
"How are you feeling today?" Dr. Héderváry asks me as he hooks up a new bag of painkillers.
The flow of the new medication brings me into a cloudy state of mind.
"Like I'm floating on a cloud," I reply dreamily with a giggle.
The look of shock on Tino's face only causes me to crack up even harder. The poor Finn only looks more confused at my erratic behavior. Pfft. Erratic. That's a funny word.
"I'm assuming by the look on your face that this isn't a normal occurance," Dr. Héderváry says.
Tino nods slowly.
"I've never seen him so...lively," he tries to explain. Darn right he's never seen me like this! I've never been shot in the chest or drugged up like this. Okay, so there was maybe one or two other times when I've been heavily drugged, but the only people who saw that were Berwald, Emil, and Olav, my and Emil's adoptive father.
Aside from a few more instances of random outbursts of laughter, the day is really a blur, and before I know it, the night has passed. As well as another day or two and it's already the weekend.
This morning, the drugs are still flowing through my body, not as much as when I first came in, since I'm starting to finally recover nicely, but still enough to cloud my mind quite a bit. This time, Emil sits at my bedside. Somehow, we wind up on the topic of my paralyzed legs.
"So if I don't regain use of my legs, then I'll be pretty usless to the team and I'll wind up having to retire. But if I do, I'll be juuuuuuuusssst fine~," I babble, not even paying attention to what I'm saying.
"There are no 'if,' 'ands,' or 'buts' about it!" Emil says. "You'll be just fine."
I snicker. "You said 'butts.'"
Emil shoots me an appalled look. "Are you high or something?" he asks.
"Yes," I reply. With that I burst into a fit of insane giggles.
Emil sighs. He mutters, "I can't believe I'm related to you." A little louder he says, "And you call yourself a mature adult," while shaking his head.
Still giggling like a loon, I turn my head towards Emil. I indicate for him to lean over so I can whisper in his ear, "Say it."
"Say what?" Emil asks, confused. Hehehe, silly boy.
"It."
"It?"
"You know what I mean," I egg Emil on.
His face flushes a deep red. Sorta like Gilbert's eyes. Or the tomatoes on Antonio's computer wallpaper.
"I'm not saying it," Emil murmers.
"Say it."
"No!"
"Say it."
"I'm not saying it!"
"Emil! Say it!"
Emil flushes an even deeper red. I believe that at this point Antonio would be laughing about how he looks like a tomato.
"S-stóri bróðir***," he mutters, looking away.
"That's more like it," I sigh, satisfied.
"You're so annoying!" Emil exclaims.
"Shhh," I say, lowering my voice. "It's not nice to yell in a hospital." With that, I fall into another fit of giggles.
Dr. Héderváry enters the room, shooing Emil out so he could run some tests and so I could get some rest. I have been feeling pretty tired lately. And achy. The next day, close to the afternoon, I figure out why. I've contracted a fever.
Dr. Héderváry forbids any visitors while I have the fever. So I'm stuck about two days with not a single visitor, left bored out of my mind. By the third day, though my fever hasn't completely broken-it's low grade-Dr. Héderváry allows me visitors again. Unfortunately, he's heavily drugged me again since I'd been having bad chest pains. He'd made sure it wasn't anything serious first.
Late afternoon, while back in my cloudy land with no worries, I find myself doing something I usually never do unless it's in the shower or softly while cooking: sing.
"Jeg er forelsket i et eventyr, selv om det gjør vondt
Jeg bryr meg ikke om jeg mister vettet, for
Jeg er allerede forhekset,****" I sing at the top of my lungs. I'm so lucky I have a good singing voice. And private room.
Someone enters my room. "Whoa, Lukas. You sing?" Mathias.
Not realy caring, I continue singing in my native language as a falsetto.
"Hver dag startet vi å krangle
Hver kveld ble vi forelska
Ingen andre kunne gjøre meg tristere
Men ingen andre løfte meg høyt over****"
By this time, Berwald has joined Mathias in gaping wide-eyed at this rare occurance.
"Jeg vet ikke hva jeg gjorde
Når vi plutselig falt fra hverandre
I dag kan jeg ikke finne henne
Men når jeg gjør, får vi en helt ny start****"
And I lauch into the chorus yet again.
Dr. Héderváry enters the room, saying something about the other nurses talking about the high Norwegian singer and wanting to see it for himself. And for himself, he saw.
Once I finish the song, my breath is heavy from the overuse of my voice. I haven't sung in quite a while, so my voice isn't used to such a strain.
Mathias and Dr. Héderváry clap enthusiastically from my performance.
"I didn't know you sing, Lukas," Mathias says. "We've lived in the same house for so many years, and I never knew you had such a good voice."
Dr. Héderváry finally lowers the flow of drugs so I can return to reality.
Finally registering the people in the room, my face-already slightly flushed from my low grade fever-burns in humiliation. Only Emil has ever heard me sing. The days back in Norway and Iceland when I would sing him lullabyes at night, before and a little after our parents' deaths, and after we moved out of the home we'd lived in with Mathias, Berwald, and Berwald's brother, Bjorn, he'd sometimes catch me singing softly while cooking. I hadn't sung at all while living in Olav's home.
Mathias doesn't shut up about what an "angelic voice" I have. Berwald doesn't say a word, though I know that he's just as shocked and impressed as Mathias is.
Now that I'm pretty much back to my senses, I have to remember that once I get out of the hospital, I must beat Mathias with a lead pipe so he will never remember this.
*See you tomorrow, buddy (Danish)
**Bye, Lukas (Icelandic)
***B-big brother (Icelandic)
****Lyrics to the song Fairytale by Alexander Rybak (first chorus & the lyrics after, leading up to the second chorus)
Matteuksen: Only you will put a cracktastic chapter after a super dark one
Me: It was fun~ Okay, so I actually have a couple of thank you's that I have to say for this chapter. Aside from my wonderful beta, who had to deal with a ton of whining about me having writer's block, I would also like to thank D1g1m0ncrazy for the "butt joke" that actually began the string of odd things Lukas does in this chapter. I did have a huge plan about him singing "Fairytale" in a totally hazy, drugge state. I would also like to thank OnWithTheButter for translating the lyrics. Lets give them a round of applause *claps*
Matteuksen: *claps*
Erik & Drake: I'm out *walk away, calling* R & R
Me: Out of curiousity, what would you do if you ever met me?