[Edited July 14]
Everything was noise, and senseless sensation. The sound of tires screeching away. Feeling broken. My head knocking against the pavement, seeing and unseeing. My magic wasn't the best for regeneration, I hadn't trained for that. But even as I lay there bleeding I tried to knit myself back together. It was the same spell I used for a paper cut, somehow I hoped it would do something.
But an empty feeling met me, the feeling I got when a spell was beyond me. Fucking hell.
And then I was strapped down against something, a vice around my neck. Everything was blue and white, the sound of yelling, talk of 'ccs' and 'stat' and underneath it all, the sound of wheels rolling. I closed my eyes even though the voices told me to keep them open.
Somewhere else now, white and pale, cold. Freezing. The smell of disinfectant. Instantly, I hated it.
"You're telling me he has no family?" Another one of those disembodied voices, but this one felt more real.
I heard Mike's voice, deadened anger radiating off of his harsh, clipped sentences. "No, Doctor. I've already explained this. He was a foster care kid. Addict mom, deadbeat dad. Just tell me what's wrong."
Shuffling, and then. "Aside from the broken arm, and leg there's some damage to his cranium. His preorbital cortex, along with the cerebellum and right side of his brain seem to have been most damaged by the vehicular contusions-"
Mike was yelling, he never yelled. He always said he was big enough that he didn't want people to be anymore intimidated by him. "I don't understand! Make it make sense to me. Will he be okay? He looks-" Mike's voice broke off, "Tell me he'll be okay."
The doctor made a hesitant noise. "It's just- you aren't a blood relative."
"Fucking Christ-" Mike swore, "If you don't tell me whether or not he's going to be okay..." He let the threat hang open.
More shuffling papers. "Well. His memory could be impacted but as for now we have to put him in a medically induced coma. His brain tissue keeps swelling at irregular periods. We're not sure if the magic centre in his brain was most effected. It's hard to get brain scans for heavy magic users. We think he's trying to heal himself whether or not he's conscious of it. But it's interfering with our efforts so for the least amount of permanent damage we'll have to put him under." The doctor exhaled sharply.
Mike was quiet. "A coma?" He muttered under his breath, "Are you sure about this?"
The doctor's response was quick. "More than sure. We're only informing you since you've barely left the hospital in the past few days. But, and I mean this in the nicest way...You have to go now."
Mike struggled. "Can I-"
"Okay," the doctor said uncertainly. "But, be quick."
The doctor left the room, and Mike stood over me. Before the two of them had been standing just out of view and it was too painful to move my eyes let alone my neck so I had just listened. Even with Mike in view I couldn't move or speak. I saw him clearly. He looked dishevelled, his hair all over the place, a beard forming around his mouth but mostly he looked sad. Like, something inside of him had broken and that perpetual bounce to his step was nonexistent.
Mike started crying, I'd never seen that before. "Don't die, Derrick." A lump settled in my throat as he struggled to find the words. He reached out to touch me but folded his arms across his chest instead. He seemed broader than usual, or maybe it's because I was out of it.
He stared down at me. "I wanted to tell you that I love you, that you mean more to me than you should. And, I don't know why. But, you do. I wanted to tell you that somehow you're the person who means the most to me." He swept a hand over his jaw. "I don't know if you'll remember any of this, but if you can hear me, I want you to know you're loved. That despite all the shit that's happened that you'll always have me, if you want to." He rubbed his eye. "So get better. I don't need you to love me back, but I need you to to be okay. Can you—Can you do that?"
I looked back at him, my eyes sliding across his face searching for something. As much as I wanted to, I couldn't give a reply. I tried to convey my thoughts with my eyes but I don't think he got any of it.
Mike smiled a bit. "I feel like you're scowling at me, something in your eyes, I don't know. "
Maybe he got some of it.
The doctor ushered Mike out and he looked back at me over his shoulder, seeming more like a forlorn puppy than anything.
#
I woke up in pain, choking on something halfway down my throat. Coughing and struggling, I dislodged some kind of plastic tube. There were tubes attached to my arms which fell out as I got up to pull out the thing in my mouth. I coughed, over and over again, spitting away the taste of plastic, ignoring the beeping and sounds of running down the hall.
Several people, some of them seeming to be nurses started touching me. I flinched. "What the fuck? Who are you people?"
"Calm down, you're in the hospital." The cloying tone only aggravated me further. I started to struggle, then stopped, feel tired by my few movements. This wasn't right."
I blanched, shifting further. "What is attached to my di-"
The nurse talked over me, not at all perturbed, "You were in a coma, it's only a catheter."
"Only a catheter?!" I yelled.
After everything had been removed from my pieces, one of the nurses explained that I was in a car accident. Before she finished I interrupted her, "I don't own a car."
She sighed, she was trying to be patient I could tell. "You got hit by what's thought to be a drunk driver. You've had some surgeries, you're still healing and you need to be careful."
I frowned. "I feel perfectly fine. " I said, lying through my teeth.
She continued on as though not hearing me, a vein pulsating in her neck. "Anyways. You aren't fine, your left arm is broken, your right ankle is fractured and you've had brain surgery."
Brain surgery? "Are you kidding me?"
She kept looking at me with a sympathetic expression on her face.
I laughed mirthlessly, touching my head. I had a buzz cut with stitches at the back of my scalp , pressing on them made my head hurt. I tried to stand up, but dizziness abruptly consumed me. I fell back into my hospital bed.
"You shouldn't-" she said quickly, "When the doctor gets in, you'll need to discuss rehabilitation options along with physio therapy." She casted a quick spell, summoning her clipboard to her waiting hands.
I swallowed thickly. "Can I use my-"
She clucked her tongue while filling out a chart and checking my iv bag, "No. You can't. You have abnormally high magic reserves for whatever reason, your body was trying to compensate for your injuries which only made out job harder. For whatever reason your body thinks your limbs are more important than your organs." She glanced at me, "What's your name again?"
I grew irritated, wondering how she couldn't have known my name after all this time spent harassing me.
"It's-" I struggled, what the hell? Every time I felt like it was on the tip of my tongue it left. "It's- Shit. I know my own name, okay lady?"
"It's Alex." she replied curtly.
"My name definitely isn't Alex."
"I mean my name is Alex. Don't call me out of my name." She was actually glaring at me.
I suddenly felt really tired, my body aching all over. "I don't have the energy to argue with you. So I won't. " I said with a yawn. Why did that feel familiar?
My hospital door whipped open. A tall man took up most of the door frame. Shit, had they called security on me? The nurse's face fell as soon as she looked at him. "This isn't a good time-"
The man continued into the room, looking at me like I had risen from the dead. "Derrick," he breathed out. "Oh my God, you're awake!" He took a moment to calm the emotional note in his voice. He tried to touch my arm but I shrugged away.
I screwed my eyes in concentration. "Who are you?"
He laughed. "Ha ha, very funny Derrick." He leant down to touch me again and I slapped his hand away, the sound echoing in the room that had gone silent.
"Don't touch me." I warned.
The man took a few steps back. "It's me, Miguel." He whispered, "You call me Mike."
At my look he continued. "We went to high school together, and university. I made you join chess club even though you hated it. We went to prom together-" he stopped, "Well, not together but we both went. You wore a bow tie because you didn't want to be taken too seriously." He was talking faster and faster, eyes boring into mine. "You like to draw, you have too many tattoos but hate piercings, you pour the milk before the cereal like a crazy person." Michael or Mike or whatever ran out of breath.
I looked at him again, wondering why he seemed familiar. All that energy, the grey eyes, tanned skin and dirty blond hair.
I slapped my thigh lightly. "I know where I know you from."
Mike perked noticeably.
I stretched out my good hand. "If you were an animal, you would be a golden retriever."
His mouth fell slack. It must've finally dawned on the guy I didn't know him.
"Listen man, I'm sorry if you thought we were close or something but-" I shrugged my good shoulder.
Mike's voice shook. "We are close!"
The doctor came in then, looking haggard and tired. "Alex?" he asked.
"His memory is..." the nurse said slowly, not finishing.
Mike was digging up pictures on his phone, showing me things we had done together and pictures of him and I. Me, almost smiling and him beaming, sometimes with his arm companionably around my shoulder.
The doctor pulled Mike by the arm. "You don't shove memories in an amnesiacs face. Get out."
"But-"
"I will speak to you later."
Mike left the room, looking back at me with his big puppy eyes. That guy was weird. Why would I be friends with him?
The doctor was brief. "You should be dead, a vegetable or seriously incapacitated. But I hear you're removing your breathing tube, being aggressive with the nurses and being generally disagreeable. "
I gaped at him. "Excuse me. I'm a patient here. I didn't ask to get hit by a car."
"And nobody asked you to be an asshole."
I gasped, not understanding how the doctor could be so rude to me. A splitting headache interrupted my thoughts, my heart monitor speeding up and beeping.
I clutched my chest. "Ow." was all I could gather the energy to say. I tried to squeeze the pain out of my chest, but it only increased until my world fell away to darkness.