There are two things Tiza notices when his eyes slowly open, and his consciousness returns. He doesn't know where he is. And he can't feel his legs. His eyes try to focus, but everything is still blurry, his mind fighting him to go back to sleep in every way possible. Lifting his head up just a fraction is enough to send him reeling and back down to his pillow. Everything fucking hurt.
Glancing down he can barely make out the tubes that connect him to the IV next to his hospital bed. Through the grogginess he registers that his heat is over, he must've been out for a while. That alone is...disconcerting. He still ignores the numbness of not being able to move his feet.
Slowly, agonizingly slowly, he starts to register everything in his surroundings. The pale grey walls that make up the dimly lit room and the smell of sanitizer and antiseptics; the way they burn his nose just slightly making his mind buzz. The brightly colored flowers and cards on the table next to the bed, along with a familiar little cactus. The hand that rests on top of his. It's heavy and warm, unlike the rest of Tiza right now. It's very...tan. And it has black ink crawling up its wrist. He follows the ink until it begins to hide under the red hoodie the person is wearing. His vision catches black hair, loose and wild draped over broad shoulders, a little knotted at the ends. The Omega's gaze continues to wander, catching sight of stubble; dark and...new, casting a shadow on the person's face. For a moment Tiza wonders how it would feel under his fingertips.
'Prickly,' he thinks.
It made the man look tired even though he was fast asleep. It made him look as broken as Tiza felt. And then peonies. Beautifully drawn peonies upon high cheekbones, thick eyelashes ghosting on top of them. The longer his eyes were open the more Tiza's head hurt. But he persisted through the pounding in his head.
Weakly his hand moves, and with clumsy fingers, he rakes them through Aosh's hair. Gently trying to unfurl the knots. Not really thinking before he acted, just...doing. The only thought that passed the grogginess of his mind was:
'He really needs to take care of himself.'
It stays like that for a few minutes that stretch on to feel like hours. Tiza quietly running Aosh's knotted hair through his fingertips. The feel of it is slightly comforting, considering he still hasn't made an effort to understand why and how he is here. The Omega instead chooses this. One knot is particularly stubborn and, if Tiza had the strength, would be getting a little agitated. Instead, he yanks a little harder than he should've. Aosh's eyes shoot open at the quick burst of pain.
Aosh looks at him, blinking the sleep out of his eyes.
"Ah...I'm sorr-ry!"
The words squeezed out of him, Aosh leaned over from where he sat and brought Tiza into a crushing hug. A hug that makes his ribs hurt more than they already did and brings attention back to his lower half that still feels numb. The hospital gown he wears slowly starts to become wet on the shoulder Aosh has his head buried into. It's also then that he notices the lack of his own hair brushing against his neck.
Tiza doesn't hug him back, but he doesn't push him away either.
He does however let out a quiet 'ow' with how hard he's being squeezed. This makes Aosh pull back quickly. Using the backs of his hands he wipes at the stray tears collected in his eyes and apologizes.
"Sorry, you've just been in and out of consciousness for days. It was the first time you looked...responsive."
The dark circles under Aosh's eyes are a testament to how tired the Alpha really is and suddenly Tiza feels bad for waking him up. Aosh abruptly gets up from his chair.
"Let me go get a nurse," he said, turning on his heel to leave. But Aosh is forced to stop. Pale fingers curl themselves into his sleeve.
"Don't...don't leave." Tiza grips the fabric a fraction harder as if afraid Aosh would still walk away.
Aosh's lips press themselves in a thin line, but he sits back down.
"I...uh...what happened?" Tiza watches Aosh's face go through a range of emotions, none of them good.
"An easier question might be, what do you remember?"
"Not a lot. I..um...uh."
Tiza's gaze becomes downcast as he slowly remembers the events leading up to now. Three months of self-loathing, being with Valencia again, and...dealing with Sean. Slowly he realizes this is the first actual conversation Aosh and he has had in months. Fondly he remembered the last time they saw each other, how everything wasn't so…difficult. The emotions from that time felt too far away right now. Like they were on the other side of a wall of glass. That lighter than air feeling, the urge to smile because he was happy.
"Sorry," he says, "for everything." It was a lame apology, but all Tiza could muster up considering the circumstances.
"You're the one laying in a hospital bed right now, not me, you don't have to apologize for anything. If you really don't remember anything, you fell...down a flight of stairs."
Tiza's face goes a shade paler if possible, Aosh continues.
"You're fine though. Or at least that's what the doctor told us. They did have to do a couple of surgeries. I think it would be better if the doctor explained though."
Aosh didn't want to be the one to tell Tiza the bad news. The Alpha got up again, but put a reassuring hand on Tiza's shoulder.
"I promise I'll be back, but I really need to go grab a nurse since you are finally awake."
Tiza is left to wait, alone and with his thoughts.
.............................................................
Nurses come in to poke and prod at him, then finally a doctor with a serious look on his face. He kindly asks Aosh to step out so that they can talk in private. The two share a look, neither wanting to leave the other. Ultimately Aosh leaves him, but with the promise to return.
"Mr. Jeannot, how are you feeling?"
Veridian eyes still stare at the door, like he can sense Aosh on the other side of it. His gaze drops to his lap, where his hands wring themselves together. The weight of them; he can barely feel it on his thighs. He doesn't want to say it. But he has to, doesn't he?
"I...I can't feel my legs," he says, breathless. The click of a pen startles the Omega as the doctor writes in the folder he holds.
"The lack of feeling will only be temporary, but you had a nasty fall, amongst other things. A fractured skull, fractured femur and ankle, the input of a pacemaker, and your hip needed extensive surgery. Lucky for you, you will be able to walk again, but it will be a while. Since your bone density is low the healing process is slower than usual."
He continues to write in the folder then closes it, looking at Tiza pointedly.
"Mr. Jeannot, keeping yourself healthy will help tremendously. That includes giving your body the nourishment it needs. I would like to recommend you to a colleague of mine that specializes in disordered eating. It's not my area of expertise but I want to get you the help you need."
Tiza hasn't been able to process the information yet. His head is looping 'walk again' over and over in his mind. 'Walk again' meaning he currently couldn't? But if he can't walk he can't dance. If he can't dance...what good was he to anyone? The doctor is still talking, something about physical therapy, and staying in the hospital for a while for observation. But none of it sticks. He can't dance. That's all that matters. The man turns to leave and Tiza calls out to him before he can think.
"I'll still be able to dance, right?" he says, almost frantic, hopeful even.
A look of pity crossed the doctor's tired features.
"With the amount of damage your hip sustained...I'm afraid not." He says before leaving the room.
It's like the doctor's words were a sledgehammer that hit Tiza right in the lungs. No. No, that can't be right. He must've heard wrong. There's no way that he couldn't be able to dance. It's all Tiza knew, it's all he's ever known. Tiza is about to walk out there and tell the doctor he must've come into the wrong room, that he talked to the wrong patient. But he can't move. The familiar curl of his toes is gone. The way his calves flex when he stretches is nonexistent. In a panic, he throws off the blankets and is met with an unsightly cast that covers most of his lower body.
A shuddering gasp racks his body, a hand comes up to hold back a choked sob.
............................................................
The doctor explains to Aosh the situation and tells him to pass along the information to his family. He says it most likely is okay for Sean to see him now, but they should monitor his stress nonetheless. Aosh nods and then enters the room again.
Tiza takes one look at Aosh and bursts into tears. Aosh is at his side in an instant. It's the first time he's seen what lay under those covers as well but he tries not to dwell on it, as it's obviously the cause of Tiza's distress. Aosh puts a gentle hand on Tiza's back, but he shrinks away immediately. The Alpha is left to sit there and just let him cry it out. Aosh doesn't want to say 'It'll be ok.' because that's not what Tiza wants to hear right now, it's not going to fix anything.
After a while, it comes to the point the tears stop falling and the streaks they leave on Tiza's ruddy cheeks start to dry up. Tiza hiccups here and there, trying to catch his breath.
A long stretch of silence sits in the air. Then Tiza looks at Aosh.
His face is a mess. Snot runs down his nose and his eyes are bloodshot, rubbed raw from moments earlier. He looks utterly defeated and Aosh's chest tightens. Turning around to grab a few tissues, the Alpha tentatively offers them. With a frown set to his features, Tiza leans forward, offering Aosh his face.
Aosh reaches forward and cleans Tiza's face gently. Five tissues later and the Omega is just like new…for the most part.
"Do you want to talk about what the doctor said?"
Tiza shakes his head, no.
"What do you want to do?"
Tiza's face screws up in confusion like it's the first time he has heard that question.
"I…I don't know."
.......................................................................
Snow falls outside, sheeting the parking lot and the park beside it in a white blanket. Snowflakes stick every once and a while to the window, but soon disappear as the heat from inside melts each one.
It's still early December but Tiza has noticed that the snow has come earlier this year than the last. Maybe it's because he's had more time to observe it. Or because he's trying to keep his mind busy.
He wants to reach his hand over to the window and touch it; feel the coldness on the other side. He's never wanted to walk in the snow more than now, he's always hated it. Growing up by the sea, he was more used to a warm sea breeze than the cold nip of winter. That being said, snow had always been a fascinating thing to him, it was a rare sight to see where he grew up.
It's been a day since he woke up. Last night Tiza feared that he was going to be left here, alone and broken. But Aosh never left. The Alpha went to the cafeteria and brought back some food for dinner, and Tiza was surprised when there wasn't a set of eyes on him while he was trying to eat. Aosh sat next to him, watching tv and eating his own food. After all his emotions running high today, Tiza was starving. For once he didn't have the pressure of someone forcing him to eat everything on his plate. Going around the plate, Tiza picked at each thing Aosh picked out for him. He didn't eat much but it was definitely more than he had eaten in a while and he could tell his stomach thanked him for it.
After dinner, Tiza was sure Aosh would leave. Instead, the Alpha threw away their garbage, turned the lights down, and came back to sit in that chair. There was a backpack at his feet and he pulled out a plush blanket to cover himself. Aosh lays his head on the back of the chair awkwardly.
"You should get some sleep too." He says after a yawn.
Aosh really wasn't going to sleep there tonight, was he? It looked so uncomfortable! The Alpha would forgo sleeping in his own bed just to be here with him? After everything that happened today, Tiza didn't know how to process that. Maybe… he didn't need to. It's not like he was going to kick Aosh out. But Tiza wished that this idiot would think about himself for once. Ideally, Aosh should sleep in a bed, but the only bed in the room was his own.
Aosh just sleeping next to him feels wrong. Not in a bad way but in an 'I feel bad because you have to sleep in a chair' kind of way. Tiza's first inclination surprised him; he almost told the Alpha to climb in his hospital bed with him. It would be a tight fit and he was still hooked up to all these machines, so it was probably not a good idea. Instead, Tiza takes one of his two pillows and hands it over.
"Are you sure?" Aosh asks.
Tiza nods his head.
Putting the pillow behind his head, Aosh holds Tiza's hand and squeezes it.
"Thank you." the Alpha mumbles, as he closes his eyes, hand still on Tiza's. Tiza lays back as well, careful to not shake Aosh's hand off, and falls asleep with his fingers laced between the others. The comforting warmth of another person was too good for the Omega not to accept.
But now Aosh is gone. The urge to beg him to stay was…odd. Tiza didn't want to be alone, which was a first, still, he couldn't force himself to vocalize it. Aosh had to work, his life couldn't just stop because of Tiza. And he promised he would be back. Unlike all the other promises that had been given to him somehow Aosh's meant more like they were more solid than rock.
But he wished the Alpha was here. Without him here Tiza felt weaker. Like everything was a little bit harder to deal with…which was also odd. Everything was odd and weird. He just wanted to ignore it all.
In his mind he did.
In his mind, he wasn't stuck to this bed but chose to be here. In his mind, he couldn't move his feet because he chose not to. He wanted to go for a walk outside and touch the snow but stayed inside for no other reason than it was better that way. In his mind everything was ok.
There's a knock on his room door followed by a male Beta waking in. His brunette hair is pulled neatly back in a low ponytail and his scrubs are a light blue. He's got a friendly aura about him, but even so, Tiza is on edge; the only person he wants to see right now is at work.
"Hi Mr. Jeannot, my name is Lori! I'm here to get you started on the physical therapy regimen we had talked about last night."
Tiza doesn't know what he's talking about. The only person he has talked to is Aosh and he wants to keep it that way. Without a response, the man continues the one-sided conversation. He brings with him a cart with tools laid out on the top to the side of Tiza's bed.
"First we need to get your cast off, assess things, and then start with some basic moves to encourage blood flow. After that, we can see if we are ready to move on to using a walker to keep our balance, ok?"
The Omega stays silent, chewing on his bottom lip. Lori pulls the covers back and takes a small rotary saw off the cart. It buzzes to life and Lori can see Tiza flinch at the sound.
"It's ok," he pressed the blade of it to his palm showing that it doesn't cut skin, "this is only to cut off the hard part of the cast."
The Beta continues and starts cutting away the cast while Tiza keeps his gaze locked outside the window. He grits his teeth together, wishing to be outside in the snow and that Aosh was there with him.
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A lot of things bother Tiza right now.
The fact that he still can't walk makes him feel helpless and try as he might he can't help but focus on it. When Aosh gets back from work the first thing Tiza asks is if he can go outside. Within minutes the Alpha comes back into the room bearing a wheelchair. One of the nurses comes to his bedside to help him into the chair, but the Omega refuses her. He doesn't want to be touched by just anyone. Especially not after that physical therapist.
She instructs Aosh on how to transfer him from the bed to the wheelchair. Aosh stands in front of Tiza and silently asks for permission with his eyes to touch the Omega. Tiza's hands come up and rest themselves on Aosh's biceps, gripping them tightly. Lifting Tiza off the bed is easy, even if the Alpha hasn't been to the gym in weeks. Tiza is lifted from under his arms until his toes barely touch the ground, then Aosh turns slightly to set him down in the wheelchair. Aosh thanks the nurse for supervising then the two leave the room.
They come to the hospital's courtyard and Aosh rolls them under one of the pavilions that's close by to not get snowed on. The heavy coat the Alpha has on slips from his shoulders and he puts it over Tiza before he settles onto the bench. Tiza pulls the coat tighter around him, the residual body heat in it calming him slightly. Although his anxiety doesn't go away, a question burns in the back of his mind and he searches the white dusted courtyard in front of him for the words he wants to say.
"Can you smile for me?"
Aosh's brow furrows, like Tiza asking that from him, was odd. A moment passes and Tiza turns his head to look at the Alpha. The corners of Aosh's mouth don't move. A rough laugh leaves Tiza.
"I knew it." Tiza's face is like an open book now more than ever; it was easy to see he was distressed. The Omega continues.
"When you stopped smiling," Tiza sucks in a breath, correcting himself, "I always thought that if you ever stopped smiling I wouldn't know what I would do."
The way that Aosh smiled, ever since the first time Tiza saw it, stunned him. It made its mark on him, with how his eyes would curve up into half-moons and the little dimples he had made themselves known. His smile was warm, Tiza just knew that if Aosh smiled right now that it would cause the snow to melt. But there's no hint of it there. Instead, the Alpha's features are set in seriousness, ever since he woke up yesterday. The toe of Aosh's shoe rubs itself into the concrete, skidding into some of the snow that has been blown under the awning.
"There's a reason I stopped smiling," he says quietly.
'You were the reason,' hung in the air without being said, but both men knew it was the logical ending to the sentence. Tiza doesn't blame him. He was the reason a lot of people stopped being happy. If it wasn't for him existing, people would still be alive, happy, and healthy. He really would be better off-
"There's also a reason why I kept going. You were the reason. You were always what kept me going, before and after I met you." the Alpha sighs, his breath a cloud in the frigid air.
Tiza's hands grip the ends of the armrest, fingers digging into the material.
'Stop it,' Tiza thinks, 'Stop thinking so highly of me. Stop looking at me like I'm the only one in the entire world. I...don't deserve it.'
"You need to keep going too."
'Stop.'
"Not for anyone else but yourself. You're worth that much."
The wheelchair creaks beside him and Aosh's gaze flashes to the side to see Tiza lifting himself out of the wheelchair with his arms. Aosh's knees hit the freezing concrete, the snow there seeping through his jeans, as he braces Tiza above him so he doesn't fall. If anyone had been passing by it would have looked like Aosh was proposing and Tiza was holding onto him by the shoulders. Tiza would've come tumbling to the ground without Aosh supporting him. The Alpha is about to say as much until the hands on his shoulders grip him tight enough that they shake.
"Stop it…" Tiza says weakly. With his newly short haircut, he can't hide behind his bangs. He can only let the Alpha see him, raw and undone like he had yesterday.
"I'm useless. Being a dancer, it's all I've ever known. I'm nothing without it. Without it...I don't even know who I am."
Strong hands come to where Tiza grips his shoulders and squeeze them.
"I'll tell you who you are because I've seen it. You are dedicated and passionate. You are competitive and proud. You like cheesy horror films, drinking coffee, and have a major sweet tooth. You enjoy jogging along the hiking trails in the park instead of taking the sidewalks. There are so many things you want to do but won't let yourself do them. You once asked me what I was so afraid of, and now I'll ask you the same thing. Tiza Jeannot, what are you so afraid of? Because whatever it is obviously hasn't met the real you yet. You are you. Not Tiza the Omega or Tiza the Prima Ballerina, just Tiza. You were never allowed to be just Tiza and now you need to decide if you are ready to be that."
A small smile ends Aosh's speech. Not the toothy grin that Tiza was asking for, but it is still enough for the Omega to crumple in Aosh's grasp. His arms wrap around Aosh's shoulders while his lower half joins Aosh's on the concrete. Through the numbness, his hips and legs scream at him in pain, but Tiza fights through it. He hugs Aosh, burying his head in the other's neck.
"Will you help me find out who I am...?"
"Of course."