Everything (and nothing, all in one)

11

When Shiro next woke up, it was to the steady beeping of a heart-rate monitor.

He felt drained, as if he was swimming through cotton wool in order to reach consciousness. His vision was blurred, greyed and tunnelled at the edges, and whatever he was staring at must have been white anyway since he could only just make out the swirling circular patterns.

Wherever he was, he was warm, tucked up to the chest in a blanket; sure, his arms were exposed to let the needles and monitors on his left arm flow freely. The beeping of the  monitors was accompanied by a buzzing white noise, filling the space and overwhelming his senses with a static-like charge.

He almost didn't notice a dip in the mattress by his side, not until a blurred face appeared in his sights.

Could that be-?
It had to be.

"Lance?" He stuttered out, attempting to lift his right hand but-

A hand gently stroked over his shoulder.

His arm had gone. Again.

Had Lance taken his arm? No, wait, he wouldn't do that. But why was Lance here? He didn't want him - Lance, beautiful, wonderful Lance, who smelt and tasted of the oceans he held in his eyes - to see him like this.

"Takashi," the figure cooed, a second hand appearing to smooth through his hair, "Takashi, it's me."

That wasn't the voice he wanted to hear.

Fingers rolled over skin and scar tissues once again, in time with the pricking of tears in his eyes.
"Say something, Takashi, tell me you're awake."

"I hear you, mom," he replied, throat burning and scratching from disuse, and he heard Honerva practically crying from relief.

But Lance wasn't here. Lance was somewhere else, after Shiro had ruined easily the best holiday of his life after just one day.

The hand on his face smoothed over his cheeks, wiping tears into his skin.

"It's okay, Takashi," she whispered, choked but gentle, and Shiro felt himself keen to the touch, yearning for just a bit of familiarity in his hazy hell, "you're going to be okay."

He felt himself whimper slightly, vision beginning to tunnel again. He could feel himself slip away again, and the hand on his shoulder squeezed gently.
"Rest now, Takashi, I'll be here when you wake up."

He let himself sleep.

~

When Shiro woke up again, he was surprisingly more lucid.

He was more aware of the IV in his arm, and the oxygen pipe under his nose. His arm was back, but it couldn't have been there for long; there wasn't the ache in his shoulder that came after having it on for ages.

He was also aware of a phantom pain in his stomach, albeit more of a tentative poke than the stabbing he remembered.

Oh yeah, he'd collapsed in his and Lance's bathroom in a Clearwater hotel.

So how the hell was he currently in his own bed, in his home in suburban Anaheim?

"Takashi?" He heard a voice from the doorway call, and he turned his head to get a better look.

Honerva was lingering in the door, still in full doctor's scrubs, with the most broken expression on her face. Even from this distance, he could see tear tracks, either from sorrow or relief.

Either way, he had caused them.

"Mom?" He replied, wincing at the scratch of his throat.