A Curse Upon Thee 26

The familiar hospital ceiling blinked back at him, vanishing in between every slow flutter of his eyelids. Off-white acoustic tiles with recessed fluorescent lights buzzed with that same distinct drone above his head. It was just loud enough to be annoying but not bad enough to be painful which meant he was either still alive or just stuck in the most basic bitch purgatory situation by a God that hated him. 

“…ow.” 

There… there was the pain.

It crashed in like the surf against the shore, a tidal wave of tightness and torture all over his body that just wouldn’t quit. His whole chest, his left shoulder, and something lower down in between his ribs and his hips that felt like a whole schmear of pain doing whatever it could to make him bite back a groan. All of it was just throbbing — aggressively, even — in time with his own heartbeat, his whole chest tight as his lungs fought for air even with the breathing mask over his face.

Finn glanced down, blue eyes searching for the cause and found it after barely a second of blinking past bleary crust-filled eyes. Oh… His locket was still there, the red heart-shaped thing around his neck but beneath that, his whole torso was wrapped firmly with white gauze. That’s why… The bandages were restrictive as much as they were helpful; wrappings doing their very best to keep his insides inside. 

It still didn’t help much that every single breath didn’t feel much different than inhaling a whole handful of crushed glass, but you couldn’t have everything.

“…ow.”

Finn took in another breath as the word left his lips, this time in through his nose instead of his mouth — and quickly found himself regretting that choice just as much.

The smell of antiseptic was strong enough to strip paint off Mr Gold’s Cadillac, recycled hospital air doing nothing at all to lessen the sting of it.

Despite all that, though, Finn only had one thought pulsing through his battered skull.

A single one, slow but sure.

I’m alive.

He was.

I’m alive.

He was actually alive.

I took three bullets to the chest… Well, took kinda made it sound like it was his choice, but still, yeah… and I’m fuckin’ alive!

There wasn’t anything much better than that to have in your head, the simple joy of his own survival doing as much to kill the pain as whatever morphine drip they had him on.

Heavy eyelids scraped with another blink as he heard a noise that wasn’t one of the beeping machines he was hooked up to or the sound of his own breathing. No, it was someone else’s breathing entirely. Who… 

Finn turned his head just a bit to his right to see someone sitting there. Bee?

Ruby Lucas sat there in a hospital chair at the side of his bed, dead asleep in the most uncomfortable position he could imagine. Head tilted back at a sharp angle that was absolutely going to give her neck pains, both of her hands rested on the side of his bed not too far from his right. Bee… Bruised circles carved deep and dark under her closed eyes said more than words could put together, Finn wondering exactly how long she went without a good night’s sleep.

My type of woman.

Todo’s unhinged questioning boomed through his head and hit him sideways, Finn blinking as he looked at Ruby; still fierce and furious and ready for a fight even dead asleep. 

Yeah. The thought solidified in his foggy brain as five fingers flexed, Finn squeezing her hand as hard as he could. Spot on, oni-senpai.

Dark green eyes snapped open immediately, no blinking away sleep. Those same eyes locked right onto his face, Ruby looking him all over as if she wasn’t sure what she was seeing. 

“Hey, Bee.” Voice wrecked and raspy, the words were as heavy and stale as old cotton. “How we doin’?”

A smile broke across her face bright as dawn, thick tears trickling free down pale cheeks as Ruby didn’t bother doing a single thing to stop them. “Hey, Red.” If his voice was old cotton, hers was still the same honey over gravel he remembered.

He smiled back at her, only for hers to vanish almost immediately as anger replaced all that morning-bright joy. “Idiot.”

Finn blinked, eyes drooping just a little. “…okay, let’s hear it.” If his chest didn’t hurt so much, he might have sighed.

“Let’s hear it?” The first word came out normal, but the last two might as well have been a growl on their way out. “You died. Three times, idiot. Whale said your heart stopped three whole times on the operating table. You understand what that means?”

“…that it started four times?”

That almost-growl turned into an actual growl as Ruby just stared at him with eyes open instead of narrowed. Somehow, that was worse.

“…sorry.”

“Don’t…” Those green eyes filled with tears, anger vanishing like the joy just a few seconds ago as her growls gave way to a wet sob she tried to swallow back down. “Don’t you ever…”

Ruby couldn’t finish the threat as she leaned over the bed railing, lips meeting his cheek. When she finally pulled back, tears were still streaming down, but her grip on his jaw remained pure iron. 

“Y-you could remove the mask, you know.” He kept the smile on his face even as he wheezed through the oxygen mask. “Make it easier on you.”

“Shut up.”

“Sh-shutting.”

Ruby let go of his face and leaned back against the railing. “Don’t you ever do that to me again.”

“Wasn’t…” Finn took in another deep breath, the pain easing as he focused on simply getting the words out. “Wasn’t planning on making it a habit.”

“I’m serious, Finn.” The back of her hand met her face in a rough swipe, Ruby smearing those free-flowing tears across her cheek. “I had to watch them wheel you into surgery bleeding everywhere. They worked on you for hours, Finn. Hours.” She shook her head. “They were half sure you wouldn’t make it through the first night.”

First? First night? Finn frowned, struggling to do the math through the painkillers. “How… how  long was I out?”

“Seven days.”

Seven days. If he could gasp without hurting himself, he would have. Jesus.

“Emma?” The name left his lips instead of a gasp. “H-how’s Emma?”

“She’s fine. Bruised up and pissed off, but nothing that could keep her down. Mary Margaret too.” Ruby’s face went dark, jaw tightening hard as she grit her teeth. “The psycho who shot you… Emma said you threw him out the window.”

Finn nodded as best as he could. “I d-did do that, yeah.”

“Well, they can’t find him.”

“…huh.”

Ruby just looked back at him, still grimacing. “There’s no body anywhere. They can’t even find any blood or anything. Only thing on the law around all the glass was one of the guy’s hats or something. It’s like he just vanished into thin air.”

…the fuck?

“Figures.” A rattling sigh slipped free from Finn in one low breath through his oxygen mask. This town was weird enough on a good day, so why the hell wouldn’t the psychotic magic hat-man just pull a Houdini? “Least it’s all well and good now. Everyone’s breathing.”

“Good?” Ruby’s dark eyebrows shot all the way up to her hairline. “Finn, you almost died.”

He raised one eyebrow to match hers. “But did I die?”

“You did die.”

“And I didn’t stay dead.” The other one rose just as high as if he’d said something profound, Ruby glaring back at him. “I take my wins where I can get them, Bee.” He tried to shift his weight on the mattress, immediately regretting that bright idea as his whole body screamed until he went still again. “Where’s Emma anyway?”

“Been by twice already today. She’s dealing with… everything.” Ruby let out a breath from her nose. “All the usual bullshit, Regina included.” She reached out, carefully adjusting one of the pillows behind his head, staying free of all the IV lines taped to his arm and the monitor wires snaking under his gown. “She really wanted to be right here when you woke up, but duty called.”

“Story of her life.”

“Story of yours too, dummy.”

Finn didn’t have anything smart to say to that, and before he could think of what to say back, a new voice cut cleanly through the air. “Looks like the local medical miracle is finally awake.”

A stocky figure stood in the doorway, the wide-bodied man wearing green scrubs under a white doctor’s coat. A thick head of brown hair sat atop a round bespectacled face with a scruffy beard in desperate need of a trim.

“Welcome back to the land of the living, Mr. McHale.” The man walked into the room, a clipboard in his hands. “We weren’t entirely sure you’d actually make the return trip, but here you are, defying modern medical science one aggressive heartbeat at a time.”

Ruby’s hand immediately tightened around Finn’s. “Dr. Swineheart.”

Finn frowned. That’s a fuckin’ name.

“Whale’s already stuck his nose in here, hasn’t he?” The doctor known as Swineheart raised a single bushy eyebrow as he glanced down at the thick plastic chart in his hands, paper snapping as the man flipped a page.

“Not yet.” Ruby answered for him.

“Well, he’ll definitely be by soon. I’d give it a good five, maybe ten.” Swineheart clicked his tongue, the man shaking his head a bit. “Probably to try and talk you into signing waivers for more invasive testing.”

“Yeah.” Finn could see that much. “Probably.”

“Ignore him. Anyway, now that you’re conscious, I’d like to introduce myself. Dr. Kevin Swineheart, Head Surgeon here at Storybrooke General.” The head surgeon finally looked up from the chart, eyes sharp behind his round glasses. “I was your lead and you were my headache.”

“I’m… sorry?” Blue eyes blinked at the man. 

“It’s my job.” Something that was almost a smile flashed across Swineheart’s face. “But you did die on my operating tables three times, and I brought you back each of those times, which means I’ve earned the right to be incredibly blunt with you, young man. You are currently healing at a rate that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.”

“It’s a thing I do.” Finn swallowed a mouthful of nothing, tongue dry and heavy. 

It was honestly, that sort of thing just part-and-parcel of being a sorcerer. Cursed Energy might not do anything like let you regenerate but the way it amped up your body and your brain, natural recovery was just that much faster at scale.

“Is it? Good.” Swineheart might have said that, but it didn’t seem like he meant it. “That means I don’t have to waste my extremely valuable time trying to explain that to you.” The surgeon set the heavy chart, letting it thwack at his side. “Here’s what I actually care about: You had a bullet fragment lodged directly in your heart that nearly forced us to kill you again just trying to remove the damn thing. Your left lung, completely collapsed; we re-inflated that.”

“Thanks, doc.”

Swineheart clicked his tongue. “You’re welcome but you currently have three very large holes in your torso that, while admittedly closing significantly faster than they should, are still very much serious wounds. If you do anything remotely stupid —and I am defining ‘stupid’ as ‘basically existing outside of this bed’ — you could easily tear something vital and die. Again.”

“Noted.”

“I seriously doubt that, Mr. McHale, but I’ll accept it.” The man crossed his arms over his chest, looking down his glasses at the bedridden redhead. “Now look, I’m not Whale. I don’t care why you’re healing fast. And I’m not paid to care either. I did my part so I need you to do yours and not go out there and die. Because that makes my surgical work look bad and I’m too good at what I do to have that happen if I can help it. So you’re going to stay right here in this bed for at least another full week of medical observation.”

“A full week?”

Swineheart paused. “Yes, a full week.”

“I…” He met the surgeon’s glare with his own flat stare. “I kinda wanted to leave already.”

“Finn!” Ruby gasped at his side, blue eyes darting over to her. 

“You said seven days, like…” Finn shook his head as best he could. “That already sounded like too much to me.”

Swineheart’s jaw worked, the man clearly on the verge of grinding his teeth. “That is without a doubt the stupidest thing I’ve heard all day, and I work in a hospital.”

“Put it in my chart.”

“Oh, I absolutely will. With detailed annotations.”

“Don’t worry, Doc.” Ruby gripped his fingers tighter, Finn biting back a groan. “He’s not going anywhere.”

Oh great…. He sighed as she fixed him with another dark green glare. I’m being taken care of.

“You make sure of that.” Swineheart nodded at her before turning back to Finn. “And you, when you inevitably collapse in the middle of Main Street and the paramedics wheel you right back in here, I am going to personally stand over you and tell you ‘I told you so’ while you’re actively bleeding out.”

The grin that split Finn’s face was as real as it could get. “Looking forward to it, Doc.”

Swineheart muttered something under his breath about ‘idiots’, then spun on his heel and marched out of the room.

Ruby waited until the glass door closed all the way before leaning in and whispering, “I actually like him.”

You would. As Finn rolled his eyes toward the ceiling tiles, the door immediately swung open again. Where there once stood a schlubby short brunette with a beard, a tall slim clean-shaven man with perfectly styled platinum blond hair had taken his place. Oh god…

Dr. Whale stepped into the room, pristine white coat over his shoulders and that slick, practiced, I-know-I’m-handsome smile firmly locked in place. “Mr. McHale, I hear through the grapevine you’re planning an early departure…”

What grapevine? It’s been thirty seconds. Blue eyes narrowed at the man. “You heard wrong, doc. I’ll be here for a little while longer.”

“Glad to hear it.” Whale moved closer to the bed, the smug little glide in his phrasing setting Finn’s teeth on edge. “Because I’ve been looking forward to discussing something with you.”

Ruby’s hand tightened on Finn’s one more time, voice dropping into a warning growl. “No testing, Whale.”

“I assumed as much.” Whale’s bright smile didn’t fade as his eyes slid off Ruby to focus entirely on Finn. “But Mr. McHale, consider this for a second, the way you heal… understanding it could do so much f-“

“No.”

The smile curdled just a bit, charm not vanishing so much as flattening as Whale jumped to a different track. “And if this unfortunate situation happens again and you’re not so incredibly lucky next time? Don’t you want to act-“

“I said, no.” 

“Not even the slightest bit curious?” The doctor leaned forward, the man still pressing. “About why you’re so different? About what exactly makes you so special?”

“I already know what makes me special.” Finn glared back, the blue of his eyes ice-cold. “I’m saying that you don’t need to know.”

“Of course” Whale straightened up immediately, stepping back and smoothing the lapels of his white coat. “But if you should happen to change your mi-“

“I won’t.”

“If you do change your mind, the offer remains entirely open.” Whale inclined his head slightly, that slick, practiced smile snapping right back into place like a rubber band. “Do try not to die out there, Mr. McHale.”

He turned and left, his expensive dress shoes clicking sharply down the hallway.

Ruby exhaled hard, her shoulders dropping. “I really, really don’t like him.”

“Yeah.” Finn let his heavy eyelids slide shut, the adrenaline spike fading and leaving him suddenly, bone-deep exhausted despite having just woken up from a four-day coma. “I noticed.”