Healthy

[bunnysworld.livejournal.com]

Author: bunnysworld
Title: Healthy
Rating: PG
Pairing: Merlin/Arthur
Warnings: illness
Word count: 1056, oops
Prompt: 332: Contest
Summary: Arthur had his surgery and thinks he’s on his own.
Author’s notes: Not beta’d. This is a sequel to I’m sorry Mr. Pendragon. Sorry that I’m so late. Had so many appointments that I lost track of time.



When Arthur opened his eyes again, there was a nurse at his bed and smiled widely at him. “You did it! Welcome back!”

Blinking, he wondered what he did until his thoughts gained a bit more focus. Oh, the surgery. Was it over? He had just talked to the anaesthetist about…well, about what? That he would rather be somewhere else? Most likely.

After that horrible morning when he had made the call and learned that he had a tumour in his chest, his life had been a whirlwind. He had gotten the diagnosis on a Tuesday, gone to the hospital for a first talk on Wednesday, been admitted on Thursday…so it had to be Friday.

Yes, it was Friday. He had been the first one in the operating theatre and now they had brought him back to the room.

“How late is it?”

The nurse, who had checked a few things, smiled at him again. “A couple of minutes past eleven. Are you feeling dizzy? Sick? Need anything?”

Past eleven. So he was basically missing three hours. Which was very weird. Usually, he had every little aspect of his life under control. And now he was missing three hours and he had no idea what had happened during that time.

“No, I’m…” Fine? Was he really fine? Did they catch that stupid invader? Tossed it out? Had it caused more damage? “No, not dizzy, not sick. A sip of water would be nice, though.” His throat felt sore.

The nurse handed him a cup and helped him drinking a few sips.

“Thanks.” Arthur sank back into the pillow. It was weird. He thought he should be in pain. They had cut something out of his body, that was supposed to hurt, wasn’t it? Then again, he had no idea what that weird liquid was that they had put into an IV before the surgery. He was probably drugged up pretty well. At least, this way, his knee didn’t hurt either.

Arthur closed his eyes and pondered calling someone. He hadn’t told anyone that this was happening, though. Nobody knew he was in hospital. He would tell them when he was certain that he was rid of this.

First things first, though. He had made it through the anaesthesia. He didn’t have to have one since he had been four years old, so he had been quite scared of it. Not that he would ever admit that to anyone.

When he opened his eyes again – he hadn’t even been aware that he had fallen back asleep – he looked into the concerned faces of Merlin and Leon.

“Hey there,” Merlin smiled carefully while Leon just nodded at him.

“Hi.” Arthur tried to scramble up a bit, which wasn’t too easy. His left side felt a little weird and his right hand still had two of those IV needle thingies in it. Arthur hated needles.

“Anything you need?” Merlin had put a hand on his shoulder to hold him back while his face clearly said ‘why haven’t you told us?’

“Loo. Need to go.”

Leon helped him sit and Arthur made a face when he saw the little plastic bottle that was attached to his chest by a plastic tube to drain the blood out of the wound. He really needed to carry this disgusting thing around for a while now? Nobody had warned him about that!

Merlin, helpful as ever, produced a little canvas bag and swiftly put the plastic bottle in it. “Here, now you don’t have to look at it.”

“But carry around a purse…neat.” Arthur threw him a grin. “I really have to go to the bathroom now.” He slipped off the bed, Merlin helped to find his shoes, and carefully got up. Whoa. He had felt alright just sitting on the edge of the bed, but he had never felt so weak before. But his friends were here, he couldn’t show any weakness.

He knew he just shuffled along – those ridiculous compression hosiery doing nothing for him feeling manly – while he pretended to walk at a normal pace.

Merlin reached for his arm and he felt Leon being very close behind him.

“It’s not a contest, Arthur. You’ve had surgery today, take your time.”

The tour to the bathroom had been exhausting but Arthur felt a lot better. He had made his first trip and even though he pretended to not like it, it was nice that Merlin pulled the blanket up for him and Leon went to get some fresh water.

“You don’t have to hang about, Merlin. I am not great company at the moment.”

“Nonsense. Just sleep, I’ll be right here.” Merlin sat down on the big window sill.

When Arthur woke up again, Merlin had made true of his words. Leon had picked up the dirty laundry and had left, but Merlin was still there, smiling at him.

“The doctor has been here.”

“Why didn’t you wake me up?”
O d
“Had to trick him to get some info.” Merlin ignored the question.

“What kind of info?”

“They got that fucker out of you. And the lymph nodes they took out were clean.” Merlin grinned like a loon and his eyes teared up.

“Alright.” That was all Arthur could say. The past four days had been such a rollercoaster that his mind had quite some difficulty to follow.

“He said if pathology confirms that, you will be fine.”

“Fine…”

The doctor chose that very moment to enter the room again.

“Mr. Pendragon. You’re awake, that’s good.” The doctor smiled widely at him. “How are you feeling?”

“Too drugged up to feel much.” Arthur threw him a wry smile.

“Good, good. As I told your husband this afternoon, we got the tumour properly and the lymph nodes weren’t affected. Mr. Pendragon, you’re a healthy man. We just need to take care that it’ll stay this way.”

The doctor said a lot more about probably therapies and what else had to be checked, but Arthur didn’t remember any of that.

It all went too fast. Only four days ago, he thought he would croak it, miserably, and now the doctor said he was healthy?

His eyes searched for Merlin and only when Merlin beamed at him, a little fragment of what the doctor had said came back to him. “Wait a minute…husband?”