Work Text:
-
he heard the car before it hit him. a loud screech of tires, a horn, and then - impact . his memory is fragmented, but he remembers being on the ground and trying to get away before the second one hit him. and then the third. he's sure he passed out somewhere in between. he remembers, he remembers - unbearable pain. blood in his mouth. probably cracked or chipped or broke a tooth. blood soaking his poncho. he remembers fretting over his hat. god, that seems so... stupid, now. he should be dead.
he isn't.
-
"He should be dead," one of the nurses in the room says, "With multiple fractures, broken bones, severe bodily trauma and a severe concussion..."
cumulus lets their voices fade out. he'd woken up to their voices, but immediate, all-encompassing pain floods his senses. most of it is dulled by a clear sedative, but the rest is loud and in his face. he blinks sluggishly up at the ceiling, wondering why he isn't dead...
he thinks back. before the Accident, before his whole world crashed and skidded to a halt, before he was laying in a hospital bed in god-knows-where. he thinks of his friend Krugston, the familiar yet loud alien who always had a solution for every problem. cumulus thinks about how he was late for a doctor's appointment, and used a funky teleportation device to attempt to get there quicker. didn't work. he remembers that Noah claimed to not even know what a car was...
cumulus tries a weak laugh, but coughs instead. blood dribbles down his chin, and the wet noise catches the nurses' attention. they stop their speculating and immediately rush over to him, some fidgeting with the monitors and displays while others shift and try to talk to him. he's not listening. he has no reason to.
funny, he thinks, how some things come up when you least expect them. history repeats itself, he thinks, time and time again. he wonders if Krugston will visit him, or even know if he's in the hospital.
he drifts back into that barely-conscious haze, lulled by the beeping and loud whispering all around him.
-
the next time cumulus wakes up, there's someone else in the room. he recognizes her immediately as Dasher, part of the Quantum Police Department. at first, he assumes that she's here with the press, but soon realizes that that is not, in fact, the case. she is sitting by his bed, and is talking to the doctors and nurses there. cumulus realizes that he is in a different room. the walls are a dull blue, and the curtains have clouds on them, as opposed to the sterile white and windowless room of before. time has passed.
"Officer Dunkin," someone starts, and cumulus weakly turns his head to the source of the noise. his head feels like it's stuffed with cotton, but he does his best to listen along anyway. "We appreciate your time and coming in today. Cumulus Green has been recovering from extensive amounts of trauma to his arms, chest, head, and elsewhere on his body. His body required surgery due to a punctured lung and splintered ribs. He is extremely lucky that his heart and other major organs were not damaged. It is a miracle that he is still breathing."
he hears the underlying statement all the same - he should be dead . he can hear dasher's thoughts - he isn't . he doesn't know if this should be comforting or insulting. it nearly hurts to think at all.
he turns his head the other way. along with the medical equipment and monitors, there is a thin shelf with a dying succulent on it. seeing this distracts him from the conversation about him on hand.
"... There is a very slim chance that he will regain complete mobility of his arms, it is unlikely he will be able to raise both above shoulder level," dasher nods along to all of this, sneaking side glances to cumulus. he was looking ... wistfully at the plant on the shelf. she wished there was more she could do for him.
"... Along with lacerations, road rash, degloving of the soft tissue and skin all over his body ..." cumulus twitches at this, suddenly able to place a name to the pain all over his body. he didn't understand it at first, but now he knows what hurts. it doesn't make it hurt any less.
the doctor is halfway into discussing brain injury and the dissociative memory loss that is to be expected when Dasher holds up a hand. just enough of a gesture to silence the doctor. "thanks for your time, sir," it's so hard to speak professionally, she thinks, "can i get all of this information in a file? it's easier to understand," she has to stifle a tired grin, she cant ever bear to sit still and read for long periods of time, "and will be easier to communicate with my.. colleagues." she sneaks another glance at cumulus, who is looking pretty miserably at the ceiling. "also... it might be easier on 'green if he did not have to hear all of this. he did just wake up, you know."
the doctor nods stiffly, and leaves. Dasher gets up as well, brushing her hand over cumulus' too-thin, bandaged wrist. "you'll be okay, flowerboy," she says, and then follows the doctor out. he doesn't have a reply and cannot express it even if he did. he drifts back to sleep.
-
"He should be dead."
cumulus blinks up at the doctors who are talking over him, roused from another comatose bout of sleep. dreamless and not very restful, but sleep all the same. he glares at them as he tries for two simple words - "'m not ." and this makes them pause. "Patient is.. surprisingly lucid, for only being awake a few moments. Enough to recognize voices..." the taller one is scribbling on a clipboard, which is leaned precariously on the railing of cumulus' sickbed. deathbed? he tries to lift his hand, wow that is way more difficult than it needs to be , and manages to knock the clipboard off the side. a short huff escapes him as the doctor scrambles to pick it up, clearly not expecting the car crash accident guy to manage that.
the other doctor or nurse fuckwhatever snorts too at the situation, but says nothing. he steps closer to cumulus, and they make a moment of awkward eye contact before he starts pulling out his own clipboard and reading off lists of stuff.
"Proceeding forward with treatment..."
cumulus doesn't pay attention. he knows that whatever is happening around him will continue on, whether he listens or not. whatever treatment is decided on, they will follow through with. he just... doesn't care.
the doctor knows he’s not listening. so he just notes everything down in a fancy notebook, and leaves it taped to the wall on his exit. it takes cumulus an embarrassing amount of time to realize that the doctor has left, and very reluctantly drags his eyes up to the list on the wall. it's a very depressing compilation of everything wrong with him and everything that's going into place to fix him.
he still can't bring himself to care. live or die, the world will keep spinning. he should be dead, anyway.
-
the next time he wakes up, he's.... in his house ????? and Dasher is sitting beside him????? oh, cool, he's still in the hospital bed. but that has got to be his windowsill, and his shelving with all the botanical postcards...
Dasher breaks the silence first. "hey, flowerboy," she says, "welcome home."
-
he's been moving around better now. not enough to go out and garden like he'd love to, or give his lawn the upkeep it deserves. this is part of the reason Krugston has his lawn mower pulled up beside him across the table from cumulus. he's trying to haggle his 'services' to cumulus, likely in a final last-ditch effort to get enough money to pay for his teacup collection debt. cumulus would bet the lawn care payment that Krugston doesn't even remember that cumulus knows about that. oh well.
"see, yeah, with Martha next door," Krugston yaps on, "and y'know i don't usually do this with people, but you’re a good friend; how about 30 ?"
cumulus gives him a tired smile, and rises to his feet. "how about a cup of tea, friend?"
-