Gods, what a nightmare that had been. What an outlandish thing to dream about, that he'd been hurt in some kind of explosion...

The thought lasted for maybe a second or two before it burst like a soap bubble. Yuri's eyes flew open, and he was still in the hospital bed, right arm still bandaged from the elbow up. He could see what must have been lesser burn scars all across the back of his hand, making the fingers stiff to move, although not as bad as moving the arm itself.

Maybe most of that stiffness and resistance to movement was because of all the bandages, he told himself. Yeah, that made sense. Once he grew back enough skin to get rid of them, he'd be able to practice and build up his strength and flexibility again.

"Oh good, you're awake," a nurse said, coming in with a little cart. "I'm here to change your bandages. And you get to have some juice when I'm done, " she said while she checked the saline drip. "You're on a liquids only diet while your digestive system learns how to run properly again... and of course, you get your catheter out today if you feel up to it."

"What." His hand was under the blankets immediately. "Get it out. Now. What. Why is this even a thing?"

"You WERE in a coma for nearly a month," she pointed out gently. "Alright, that first, then."

Well, Yuri thought to himself nearly an hour later, so exhausted he couldn't even lift his head. That was the most unpleasant thing I've ever dealt with. On balance, though... he'd rather deal with the bandage change. Much less horribly embarassing. Which was good, he reflected ruefully, since he was going to need a lot more of them.

He was actually glad most of the injuries were to parts of his body he couldn't really see, espeically without being able to turn his head much. The parts of his arm he could look at were enough to make him dry-heave, and he was sure he would have actually thrown up had there been anything in his stomach.

... She'd been really nice about it. Really gentle, very straightforward language, and she didn't try and pretend things were better than they were. She'd said he was healing better than most burn patients she'd seen, but also pointed out that she rarely saw 16 year old athletes either. In fact, she'd said things were progressing well enough that she'd put on much less bulky bandages this time, which at least did feel less... restrictive.

Despite how careful she was with him, and the fact that he knew there were still painkilling drugs in his IV drip, by the time she helped him roll back over onto his back and inclined the bed again, he was trembling from pain and exhaustion. She'd left a cup of watered-down cranberry juice on the little fold-out table, and told him to take his time, and only drink as much of it as he wanted. The IV drip was still feeding him nutrients, apparently.

If the clock on the wall was right, it took about twenty minutes before he finally was able to reach for the cup. He'd been grumpy about the watered part at first, but the first sip tasted so incredibly potent that he privately admitted it was probably a good idea. Years of intense physical training had taught him to take it slowly when rehydrating... although to be fair, the drip meant he wasn't exactly dehydrated. Still, jumpstarting his stomach had to be about the same thing, right?

So he sipped slowly, and was only done about half the cup when his grandfather came back in. "Yuri! You are looking much more yourself today! Lighter bandages too?" He leaned in to kiss his forehead, and Yuri actually had the energy to scowl playfully at him over the show of affection.

"Yeah, I guess," he said. "Listen... how long have you guys been here waiting for me to wake up, anyway?" Surely they hadn't been watching him like a hawk for a whole month.

"We weren't allowed to visit until a week ago," Nikolai said, shaking his head as he set down an armful of cards and a plush cat on the table. "No outside visitors allowed in the burn units. Too much risk of infection. "But one of us has been here fairly regularly since they started to bring you out of the coma."

"Oh. Well, that's not quite so embarassing then," he grumbled. "So... what have I missed, then, if it's been a month?"

His grandfather carefully avoided too much detail about the figure skating standings... and really, Yuri didn't feel like pressing him. It was better to hear about silly things, about celebrity gossip, and what had been going on in the news.

"You've been getting quite a bit of mail," his grandfather said, gesturing to the pile of cards. "You're not allowed any flowers yet... infection risk again, but the nurses said I could bring this much into you."

"Just the one cat?" he observed. He didn't care about the flowers, they took too much effort to keep nice. But the lack of plushies was odd.

"You've actually gotten enough toy cats to fill three hospital rooms. We... we actually sent most of them to the childrens' department two floors down, but we'll keep bringing you in the best of them, if you like."

"Yeah. Sure." That was good. Really, what was one person going to do with so many stuffed cats, anyway? "Help me open some of these?" he asked, after fumbling open the first envelope proved a distressingly draining task.

They spent a pleasant enough hour or so going over well-wishes from people all over the world. Some were names he recognized from his official fan club, most were from people he'd never heard of, but they all professed admiration of him. The dozen or so from his skating contemporaries were the most personal of course. He was surprised to see JJ's name on a card. Not at all to see ones from Phichit, Yuuri, Victor, and Otabek. Most of those promised visits as soon as they had time and he was awake enough for them.

He jerked awake to realize he'd fallen asleep trying to read Yuuri's card, which was written mostly in English with a smattering of Russian words he must have picked up from Victor. His grandfather bundled them off his lap and onto the table, insisting that Yuri get some rest. He was too tired to protest.

It was dark again and he was alone when he woke up. Someone must have finally insisted on enforcing the visiting hours now that he was conscious, the clock showed it was after midnight, but too early to be classed as morning, even by someone used to being in the dance studio by 5. He lay there for a while in the dark, not exactly trying to get back to sleep, just drifting. It occurred to him that Phichit's card had said something about being eager to beat him in competition again soon... and the others had all had a scrupulous lack of anything referring to skating

He thought about it in a sleepy, lazy sort of manner, eventually realizing that Phichit, obnoxiously friendly, caring, sweet-natured Phichit, had probably sent his card the moment he'd seen about the bomb on the news. And the others had probably been told he'd never be able to compete again before they'd gotten a chance to write.

So they weren't even expecting him to get back on the ice.

He wasn't sure which hurt worse. That they assumed he'd never be able to?

Or the naive thought that he would?