Chapter Text
They all kept telling him how lucky he was.
Apparently, an injury of this nature could have easily been fatal. Any number of complications, blood loss or strangulation or cutting precisely the wrong tube, could have meant the end for him.
“You’re lucky your sister was on the scene so fast,” a nurse told him when he was conscious enough to understand when people spoke to him. “No time wasted. I’d hate to see what things would have looked like if the ambulance got there just a minute later.”
Yes, Mabel had been there not a second after the deed was done, and he should have been grateful for that at least. He couldn’t blame her for not having gotten there a few seconds sooner.
“The blood loss from an injury like that, it could have done you in if it had gone on much longer,” an EMT said when she came by to check up on his state. “It was awfully lucky we got in there so quickly. Timing can be everything, you know. Don't underestimate the importance of timing. A single minute can make all the difference in the world.”
He could have figured that out for himself. He was the one who had to deal with it firsthand, after all. And even though he was out of the woods now, every time he let his thoughts wander back to the growing puddle of crimson on the floor around him, pooling from the faucet of blood pouring out of his mouth, he felt like he was going to pass out again.
“Did you know that you’re AB-positive?” another nurse, the one who had been in charge of blood transfusions, asked. “Your blood type, I mean. You know what’s special about AB-positive? It’s the universal receiver. You can have any other blood type transfused into you, and your body will still accept it just fine. Lucky you, huh?”
Fascinating. He hadn’t actually known his blood type before, simply because he’d never cared to ask. It certainly wasn’t at the top of his mind when he saw that AB-positive blood glinting off the silvery blades of the lamb shears as Gideon hid them behind his back, as if keeping Mabel from seeing them would also keep her from noticing the figure on the floor behind him struggling not to practically drown in his own blood.
“That will happen, if it’s cut at the root like that.” Or so he was told by the brusque medical intern who checked his vitals in the recovery room and who, apparently, wasn’t particularly concerned about keeping up a good bedside manner. “The hypoglossus and styloglossus were pretty much cut clean through, and it seems he got the facial artery as well. He just nicked it, though, didn’t open it all the way, and it would have been much worse if you were cut just a little farther back – could’ve hit the jugular. So, hey, you lucked out.”
It was hard to imagine that cutting deeper was even a possibility. At the time, with those shears in his mouth, ripping at his tongue with no regard to precision or efficiency, he couldn’t imagine it being worse. It isn’t easy to judge how much damage was being done while it was happening, but in those seconds that felt like hours, he could have sworn that Gideon was tearing at everything he could hope to reach.
“He sure went for the gusto, didn’t he?” the doctor asked him, in a tone that almost seemed to suggest that he should have been flattered someone would take the time to do such a thorough job of mutilating him. “We got the damaged tonsils removed, and patched up the epiglottis and vestibular fold. Your vocal fold is damaged, but he didn’t reach the actual vocal cords. So, it may be a strain on you, but you should still be able to vocalize. You got lucky in that regard.”
He wasn’t sure whose idea it was, but the hospital staff seemed to have gotten it into their heads that if they were able to explain what had happened in technical detail, as if they were simply running through the answers to questions on a test in some med school class, it would somehow make the events seem less horrific. It didn’t. He neither needed nor wanted to know the names of the muscles and veins that were damaged, or why this one could be repaired or this other one would never fully work again. When the damage was being done, the little elements had been blurred together into a single and formless blob of agony. The precise details of what was happening didn’t seem nearly as important as the big picture.
“The whole attack seemed awfully haphazard,” the doctor said, “So it’s extremely lucky that the damage was localized to the mouth as much as it was. Injury to your pharynx was minimal, and your esophagus is unscathed. The assailant seemed to have one goal, and must have been intent on sticking to it.”
That was another thing they kept doing, pointing out ways that the situation could have been worse and expecting him to be overjoyed that they hadn’t happened. Maybe they were trying to give him a point of comparison so that what had happened didn’t seem as bad, relatively, but all it did was add new elements to the nightmares where what had happened played over and over again in his head.
“We got the jaw back into place, and we’ll need to keep the bandaging on for a few days, but it’ll be good as new in no time. We’re lucky it was just dislocated; a jaw that’s fractured or broken is just awful to deal with while it heals up.”
“I know having stitches in your mouth is uncomfortable, but it’s just a few, and it’ll heal fast. If the cut had been deeper it could have gone straight through your cheek, you know, so you can count yourself lucky you don’t have to deal with that mess.”
“Those cuts around your lips are actually pretty shallow. Don’t even need stitches. In fact, odds are you won’t even be left with a scar. How lucky is that?”
Even the police officer he talked to seemed to just want to put a positive spin on things. He didn’t recognize the cop who had come to take his statement, a solidly built no-nonsense type woman who he’d never seen around Blubs or Durland but seemed infinitely more competent, leaving him to wonder just how those two had managed to outrank her.
“You don’t need to worry about anything,” she said to him as she closed her notebook, which was filled far more by his handwriting than by her own, seeing as answering her questions aloud wasn’t really an option. “We’ve got enough eyewitness evidence that there won’t be a shadow of a doubt about what went down. And so you know, this county has no qualms about trying people as adults, so if you’re wanting to see this guy get a fitting penalty, you’re lucky this happened here in Gravity Falls.”
They all kept telling him how lucky he was, but as Dipper Pines lay in that hospital bed, excruciatingly aware of the sensation of every bandage fiber, every stitch, and, most of all, that tauntingly empty space in his mouth where his tongue used to be, he felt like the least lucky person in the world.