Work Text:
As sensation faded back after his underwhelming nap, Mike noticed a heavy weight on his right leg. Almost like something was on top of it, pushing down sharply and jabbing into his thigh.
He flicked open his eyes, groaning at the bright fluorescent lighting of the hospital. Catching sight of red hair, he looked down to find an entire child sprawled across his side, leaning her head over the remains of his right arm.
He raised an eyebrow, voice still raspy with sleep, “Liz, what are you doing?”
She looked up from where she was diligently coloring his bandages in with markers and leveled him with a glare unbefitting of a seven-year-old girl, “Obviously, dummy, I'm decorating your cast.”
He wasn't appreciating her attitude today. “It don't have a cast, those are called bandages and they need to stay clean.”
She pouted, “The markers are clean! I washed them!”
One of them is stupid, and he's starting to think it's not him. “Why are you drawing on me, Liz?”
She hummed and looked back down at her masterpiece, “When Jessica came into school with a broken arm, Mrs. Smith told us all to sign it so she'd get better faster.”
He doesn't really have the heart to tell her it doesn't work like that and his arm can't get better. He can’t get a new one, and that’s the end of it, even if Jeremy thinks he’s a pessimist.
He also can't force himself to thank her right now, he's already vulnerable enough stuck in the hospital. He doesn't need feelings time on top of it.
“What are you drawing?”
“A unicorn.”
He leaned over her slightly to get a better look and– well. It definitely looks like something. The mean, bitter part of him wants to tell her it looks like rainbow vomit. He doesn't need to make anyone's life any harder than he already has.
“I like it. It's nice.” He's only half-lying.
“You can't take it off.”
Well obviously he wasn't going to take it off, “That's– kind of the point of bandages.”
She looked him dead in the eye, “You can't take them off ever.”
“Ever?”
“Ever. You have to wear them forever.”
“Liz, the nurse will come take them off. I can't really control how long I wear–”
She pouted dramatically and whined, “Don't you love me, Mikey?”
And he does, because if he didn't he would have told her to get off him as soon as his leg went numb. But she's seven, and hasn't quite put two and two together there, so clearly he's going to be a terrible person if the nurse changes his bandages.
Maybe it's a mix of her asking if he loves her, the drugs, and that “terrible person” is now bouncing through his skull like a pinball machine because he's really depressed all of the sudden. He is a terrible person, he’s not arguing with that. Good people don’t do what he did, and that doesn’t go away just because his arm got cut off.
He is a terrible person, that's just what he is.
He blinks and Elizabeth has wrapped her arms around his neck, clinging to him like a koala. “I'm sorry, Mikey. Please don't cry, I didn't mean it!”
He's crying? It's the drugs, then. He needs to get out of here as soon as possible, the hospital is doing things to him.
He pulled his arm up to run a hand through her hair, “You didn't make me cry, Lizzy. Calm down.”
“You don’t have to keep them on if you don’t like them!”
“I do like them– Really, I do.”
She scrunched up her nose, “Then why are you crying?”
He has to think about it for a moment. It's not about what happened, he doesn't get to cry about that when it's his fault. It's not really because his arm is gone either. Finally, he comes up with something.
“I just–” don't deserve you “–I really like the drawing.”
She huffed, blowing air directly into his face, “That's it? That's not something to cry about.”
He pulled his arm up to wipe his face off, “Yeah, I know.” A pause. “–Won't do it again.”
“I love you, Mikey.”
“Thank you, Liz.”
She pushed herself off of him and started to pick up the markers strewn across his bedsheets. As she turned away to put them back into her pencil case, she offhandedly added, “I cry too, it's okay.”
“I know.”
She unzipped her backpack, “Ev’ cries like– all the time.”
“I… Yeah, I know.”
She added on again, softer, “I saw Daddy cry once.”
“I know I'm allowed to cry, you can stop.”
She pulled her backpack on and looked at him for a moment. They both hear their father call for her from the hallway, and she gives a sheepish smile before bolting out the door with her stuff.
Instead of spending the next few hours staring at the ceiling, he traces the outline of her unicorn instead. When the nurse did come in, both to give him more morphine (Yay!) and change his bandages, she commented on it.
“Did you draw that? I didn't think you had markers in here.”
He doesn’t really want to get in trouble for it, and people don't get mad at seven-year-old girls.“My little sister did it– while I was asleep.”
“That's sweet. She really shouldn't do that though, it's important these stay clean.”
He murmured something in agreement, making a point to turn away once she started unwrapping them. Jeremy had watched once and vaguely told him what it looked like but– that's not really his arm anymore, at least not to him.
He's not ready for that.
She let him know once his wound was wrapped back up, the old bandages piled in a tray. She asked if he needed anything, he said no like always, then she moved to leave.
He held his left hand out to stop her, “Wait. Uh– can I keep those?”
“The bandages? They're a little bloody–”
“I don't really care, I just– she wanted me to keep them. Please.”
He barely ever begs for things.
Her expression softened, “Sure, kid. Just don't tell anyone.”
She placed the bandages back on his bedside table and he waited until she left to grab them off. He laid them out in his lap, taking the time to line the drawing up again. It warped without the original shape, but he could still make it out.
He whispered, mainly to himself, “I love you, Liz.”