#cw for nongraphic medical and hospital stuff. this is post-don's death via housefire.

[supercantaloupe]

okay well. i still haven't come up with a title for this but i don't feel like letting it just sit in my docs in the dark anymore. here's that modern au don g thing for you. oneshot, about 3.6k.

He wakes to the sound of steady beeping and the vague humming of electronics and machinery. Then, bright fluorescent lights, which he squints against the moment he tries to crack his eyes open. Then, the pain.

“Ghhrgh,” he groans, trying to sit up and immediately regretting it. Everything is hot and tingly and it hurts--

“Woah,” someone says, and he feels a hand on his chest lightly pushing him back against the pillow. “Easy. I wouldn’t try to move much if I were you.” He eases back against the pillow and squints to let his eyes adjust, and sees the woman in scrubs fiddling with a remote beside the bed until it raises him into a position somewhere between sitting and laying. 

“Wh--” he tries to say, and immediately regrets it, his words turning into a hacking cough as soon as they leave his mouth. His throat burns. “Where am I?” he asks, and his voice is raspy.

“Saint John’s Hospital,” the nurse answers. “How are you feeling today? Can I get you anything?”

“Bad,” he wheezes. “Water, please.”

The nurse leaves the bedside to grab a paper cup by the sink and fill it at the faucet. She brings it over and gently hands it to him, saying, “I’ll ask the doctor to adjust your pain medication.” Moving around the other side of the bed to note something on a clipboard, she adds, “You have visitors waiting to see you, would you like me to bring them in yet?”

He considers this blankly and slowly drinks his cup of water. His throat is sore and dry and it hurts to swallow, but still the cold water is soothing. “Sure,” he finally says, wondering who exactly would be waiting for him.

The nurse hangs the clipboard up and adjusts something on the IV, then heads for the door. “I’ll let them in,” she says, then disappears into the hallway. He takes the moment of quiet to look around and take in the situation. The hospital room is unremarkable, sterile and white and filled with equipment he doesn’t know the precise purposes of. There’s a clock on the wall, reading about 6:52, but he can’t tell if it’s morning or evening. There’s an IV tube attached to his hand and held in place with a bit of tape; his arms and hands are wrapped with bandages here and there, with the odd patches of undressed skin looking red and patchy. A thin blanket covers his body from the waist down, and in place of clothes he’s draped in a loose, papery hospital gown.

He snaps out of his thoughts when the door practically crashes open, and people spill in. “Leporello!” one of them cries, pushing her way through the small crowd to the front.

He immediately flinches, lifting his arms up over his head and hunching down, the sudden movement sending a flare of pain through his body. “I’m sorry! I didn’t start the fire, I swear!” he cries, his voice hoarse.

Elvira stops moving forward mid-step, wincing at his reaction. “Geez,” somewhere behind her and off to the side, she hears Zerlina comment. “He looks terrible.”

“Zerlina!” Masetto scolds in an attempt at a whisper. 

“What? He does,” Zerlina counters. 

“I do?” Leporello asks, lowering his arms slowly and looking them over. Zerlina and Masetto on the right, Anna and Ottavio on the left, Elvira in the front, all staring him down with varying levels of concern, confusion, and determination. 

“Here,” Elvira exhales, fetching her phone from her pocket. She opens the camera and holds it up for him to use as a mirror. His face isn’t quite as splotchy as his arms and hands, but it certainly doesn’t look pretty either, and his stubble is patchy at best, hair singed and awkward. He grimaces at his reflection, and Elvira takes the phone back. “Are you okay?” she asks.

“We saw you getting loaded into the ambulance by the paramedics,” Zerlina says. “With the, mask thing on,” she continues, making a gesture with her hand over her face. 

“I don’t know,” he says, gently lifting a hand and mimicking her gesture. The fog in his brain starts to clear, and he vaguely remembers the feeling of the oxygen mask, the rattling of the gurney, while he was drifting in and out of consciousness. He glances among their ranks once more. “Where’s-- where’s Giovanni?”

They look among each other. “We were hoping you knew that,” Ottavio answers, staring him down with a strange look. 

Leporello fiddles with the empty paper cup. His mouth still feels dry, he wishes he had some more water. “I don’t know,” he admits. 

“He was in the house with you, right?” Ottavio presses.

“Yes, but I don’t know what happened to him,” Leporello says. “I didn’t see-- I passed out,” he stammers. “I vaguely remember the firefighters, and the paramedics, but I really-- I don’t remember anything. I just woke up here. They had to-- they must’ve pulled him out too. He must be in another room.”

“You--” Ottavio starts, leaning forward.

“Love, please,” Anna says gently, her hand on his arm. He glances back at her and stops. 

“He’s--” Leporello coughs, reading their expressions. “He’s not here?”

“They only pulled one body out of the house,” Masetto starts cautiously, after a beat of awkward silence. 

“Alive body,” Zerlina adds quickly. 

Leporello pales. “Then he’s--?” he starts, choking on the last syllable. 

“We don’t know,” Ottavio cuts in again, his face stony. “...They didn’t find anybody else….Living or otherwise.”

A beat. “There was no body?” Most of them shake their heads. “I…then…” Leporello tries to say, words failing him. He stares down at his lap, thinking back. “It was…I don’t…” He crinkles the paper cup again, and swallows dumbly, throat parched and scratchy again. 

Elvira watches him, then glances around the room. Spying the sink, she reaches for it; Zerlina catches on, and, standing closer, moves over to grab another cup and fill it at the sink. She hands it to Elvira, who passes it on to Leporello. He glances up at her as she offers it to him, and he takes it, drinking it down gratefully.

“Okay,” he says, when the cup is empty. “I know where he is. Well, I know where he’s not. But…you won’t believe me.”

Brows furrow. “What do you mean?” Ottavio asks, while Masetto says, “Just tell us.”

“Okay, okay, but…don’t be mad,” Leporello cautions. “He’s not, uh, here, anymore. He’s gone.” 

“Gone,” Zerlina repeats.

“Gone! Okay, gone where?” Ottavio asks firmly. 

“I don’t know, okay!? He’s just gone!” Leporello answers defensively. “He was having one of his parties and, and--” His eyes dart over to Anna, and a pang of guilt hits his heart over what he’s about to say. “--Your father was there -- I don’t know how, alright!? -- But he was there, like a ghost or something, and he showed up -- you saw him too,” he adds, looking to Elvira, who stares at him like a deer in the headlights (he can’t bear to look at Anna anymore; it’s like a knife plunged into her heart, her expression). “--And he grabbed him, and wouldn’t let go, and Giovanni wouldn’t give in, and -- I couldn't reach him -- and then, the fire--” Leporello stammers through the story, getting worked up. His face feels hot, not just from the burns, but from everyone’s searing stares. “He just…took him away. I don’t know where, or how, I didn’t see anything else -- the fire, I -- but he’s…gone. I know that. Not coming back. He’s just…gone.”  

Silence. A bit stunned, a bit disbelieving. 

“You have to believe me,” Leporello pleads softly. He makes eye contact with Elvira again, and reaches over to her. She steps back, just out of his reach. “You saw him too, didn’t you? It was real, I swear.”

A stifling silence falls over the room. Leporello feels he might cry, if he wasn’t so parched still. 

“So,” Ottavio finally breaks the quiet. His voice is low and cold. “That’s it, then?”

“You don’t believe me,” Leporello says, more a statement for himself than a question. Ottavio opens his mouth to respond, but comes up empty. Leporello chuckles once, hollow and humorless. “Well, don’t then, but that’s the truth. Giovanni is just…”

“Let’s go, Zerlina,” Masetto says as Leporello trails off, taking Zerlina by the hand. She looks up at him, then glances back at Leporello.

“No, yeah, please, you two,” he says, coughing a little, and trying not to sound sarcastic. “Go on with your lives, please. He’s gone. You can go home, it’s fine.” 

They both regard him for a moment longer before Zerlina nods and Masetto turns to follow her out of the room. As they go, Ottavio moves to follow, taking Anna by the hand.

“Anna,” Leporello says, and they stop, looking back at him. “I’m-- I’m really sorry-- I’m telling the truth, I swear, I just…I’m sorry, for everything.” 

She bites her lip and glances away. Leporello thinks she’s fighting tears, and he can’t blame her; he couldn’t bear to look at himself if he were in her position, that’s for sure. Ottavio again moves to lead her out of the room, and she starts to go with him. Elvira locks eyes with Leporello for a second before following them out of the room. Leporello groans and falls back against his pillow.

“Shit,” he sighs, closing his eyes. 

In the hallway, Elvira catches up to Ottavio and Anna. “May I have a word with you, Anna?” she asks, pausing her stride. Anna pauses too, looking at her, and Ottavio follows suit reluctantly.

“We ought to get going,” Ottavio says. 

“Just for a moment, please,” Elvira replies.

“You can chat on the way,” he says, taking another step.

“Ottavio,” Anna says gently, and he stops in his tracks. “It’s alright. I’ll meet you downstairs.” He makes a face like he wants to protest again, then sighs, nods, and proceeds down the hall without them. When he’s out of sight, Anna turns back to Elvira. “What is it?” she asks.

“I know it sounds absurd, but, he really is telling the truth,” Elvira says, in a soft voice. “About-- about your…”

“My father,” Anna finishes for her. Her voice catches on the second syllable, like a hiccup or a sob. Elvira nods. Anna takes her hands. “So you saw--?”

“Only briefly,” Elvira answers. “I didn’t believe it at first -- I mean, I don’t even know how I recognized him, he didn’t look…but -- I was there, I tried to knock some tiny bit of sense into Giovanni’s head, and he wouldn’t have any of it, and as I was leaving, he was, I mean, your father, he was at the door…I left so quickly, it was so startling, and then there was the fire, but…I saw him. It wasn’t a lie, he was there.”

Elvira feels Anna squeeze her hands gently. Her eyes and cheeks are moist, and though her voice quivers, she says, “I believe you.”

Elvira nods, and feels as if she may cry, too. “Okay. Good.”

“Thank you,” Anna adds, nodding as well. She squeezes Elvira’s hands again, and offers a small smile, before turning and heading down the hallway to go. Elvira watches, then sniffles and wipes her eye, then turns back and re-enters Leporello’s hospital room.

Hearing the door, Leporello opens his eyes again and turns his head to look. “You’re back?” he asks, expecting the nurse, not Elvira.

“Anna believes you,” Elvira says simply. “I don’t know about the others, but Anna believes you.” 

Leporello studies her for a moment. “You did see him,” he says, again a statement more than a question. Elvira nods. Leporello sighs and lets his head fall back, looking up at the ceiling. “What time is it?”

Elvira glances at the clock on the wall. “About 7:15.”

“Is it morning or night?”

“Oh, uh, morning.”

Leporello breathes, then coughs a bit, throat still ragged, like torn-up pavement. “Are you alright? You look…” he starts, then pauses, realizing he had no end to that sentence yet that didn’t sound rude. “...well, not as bad as me, but…”

“I’m fine,” Elvira says, frowning. “What do I look like?”

“Like you’ve been up all night,” Leporello answers, turning his head to look at her again. Her hair is pulled back in a loose, messy bun, her makeup looks old and smudged, her outfit the same one he remembers from just before the fire.

“Well,” Elvira starts, plopping herself down in the chair in the corner of the room with an exhale. “I have been.”

“You should have gone home and rested,” Leporello says. “Giovanni’s gone, anyhow. You didn’t need to come see me.”

“I waited for you,” Elvira corrects. “I needed to make sure you were alright.”

Leporello is quiet for a moment. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“I couldn’t just watch the paramedics haul you into the ambulance and leave it at that.”

“Sure you could’ve--”

“I mean, you looked terrible, Leporello, you might’ve died.” 

He doesn’t respond to that for a moment, and looks blankly at the ceiling again. 

“And yet, here I am,” he finally says, with no inflection.

“I wasn’t just going to just stand there and watch the house burn down, my God,” Elvira says, “I had to do something--”

“Wait,” Leporello says, looking back at her. It hadn’t occurred to Leporello, in the chaos of it all, how he’d even ended up at the hospital. Pulled out of the flames by firefighters, tended to by paramedics, rushed here in the ambulance, sure, that all seemed obvious, but how did the firefighters know to come in the first place? He didn’t call, and Giovanni certainly didn’t (couldn’t), and there was no one else around, except… “You called 911,” he states, not a question. Elvira looks at him quietly and nods. “...you saved my life,” Leporello adds.

“The doctors did that, and the firemen,” she protests. “Not me.”

“You called them. The security system was off, John'd disabled it when we got there, he always…and I couldn’t call. They never would’ve -- Elvira, I would’ve died without you.”

Elvira’s lips twist into a frown. “Please, let’s not…”

The door opens, interrupting them. The nurse returns, followed by a man in a lab coat. “Ah, how are you doing this morning, mister…?” the doctor asks, looking over at Leporello in the bed.

“Perez. Ethan,” he fills in, voice hoarse. He tries to clear his throat, and winces, regretting it. “Uh, bad.” 

“Second- and third-degree burns to half the body, plus a couple of bruised ribs; I’d say so. Well, let’s increase your pain medication and see how that helps, okay?” he says, nodding to the nurse. She walks around the other side of the bed and begins to set up the IV.

“I hope it’s morphine,” he mutters. The doctor chuckles. 

“Well, it should kick in soon, and then we’ll come back in and check your dressings, alright? Ring the buzzer if you need anything,” he continues.

“My throat--” he starts again, chokingly. “My throat hurts.”

“That’ll happen when you inhale superheated gas,” the doctor explains. “Would you like something for it?”

“Yes please,” he croaks in response. The doctor looks over at the nurse and she nods. 

“Alright, I’ll be back soon.” The doctor and the nurse leave the room. It’s quiet for a moment, and he goes back to staring at the ceiling, while Elvira looks him over from her seat in the corner.

“...Ethan Perez?” she repeats, breaking the silence. 

“You thought ‘Leporello’ was real?” he answers, sounding tired but not rude. “Giovanni came up with it. I don’t know where it came from.”

“Oh,” Elvira says. She feels like she should’ve known that, somehow. 

“Well,” Ethan continues, taking another deep breath and letting it out, and managing not to wheeze this time. “I estimate I’ve got about ten minutes max before the drugs kick in and I get all loopy, so, if you want to say something else, now’s probably a good time.” He lifts his hand lazily to show off the IV taped to the reddened skin.

“I…” Elvira starts, and trails off, drawing a blank. The door opens again, and the nurse returns. 

“Here you go,” she says, walking over and handing a plastic wrapped popsicle to Ethan.

“Oh,” he says, blinking and taking it gently. He’d expected a lozenge or something, not this. “Thanks.” The nurse nods and leaves again. Ethan fiddles to rip the plastic off, then blinks again and repeats himself, “oh,” noticing the bright red popsicle is one of the ones with two sticks at the bottom. He pinches each stick with each hand and pulls the halves apart, then turns and reaches to offer one half to Elvira. “Here.”

“Oh, no, thanks, it’s fine, you can have it,” she declines awkwardly.

He bounces his wrist slightly, still holding the popsicle out. “You saved my life. Have a popsicle.” 

Elvira sighs. “Alright,” she gives in, and gets up, taking the offered popsicle. Ethan relaxes back into the hospital bed and lifts his half of the popsicle to his mouth. It’s cold and sweet and surprisingly soothing going down his burned throat. 

“I haven’t had one of these since I was little,” Elvira says. 

“My sisters used to love them,” Ethan replies. “In summer, I’d take them down to the corner store, and buy two, and split them up for each of us.” He licks a bit of melted juice off the popsicle stick before it drips onto his finger. 

“You have sisters?”

“Shaina, Adi, and Miriam.” He turns the popsicle sideways, pressing the cold against his lips. “I haven’t seen them in years.” A beat, while he works at his popsicle. “Why did you come back to Giovanni’s house?” he asks, turning his head to look over at her.

Elvira thinks about this, idly rolling the popsicle stick between her fingers. “I dunno. I guess I hoped…” She sighs. “I dunno.” 

“That he’d change?” Ethan answers for her. She shrugs. “I get that.” 

“It seems stupid. Like, ‘I could fix him’ and all that.”

“No, I get it.” 

“I didn’t expect it to…end. Not like that.”

Ethan chuckles and slurps a bit more melted popsicle before it falls. “Neither did I, ha. I’m glad the others got out okay.”

God, she’d forgotten there were others, at Giovanni’s party. “They did? Oh, good.”

Ethan nods. “They got scared off when you showed up, I told them to leave out the back.” He lazily waves his half eaten popsicle in the air a bit before saying, “I wonder if they realize what they missed,” before popping it back in his mouth. “Good for them.”

“And, the, uh…the ghost…” Elvira says, failing to come up with a better description for it than that. It wasn’t a man and it wasn’t a ghost really, but it was something, and it was recognizable, somehow, and it was terrifying. She nibbles her popsicle and watches him.

Ethan shrugs. “Who knows?” He’s quiet for a moment, staring vaguely at the last little bit of his popsicle. “All I know is Giovanni’s gone.”

“And you survived,” Elvira points out. Ethan grunts and bites off the last bit of his popsicle, letting it melt on his tongue. His eyes are half-lidded, his expression calm and sleepy, his fingers rolling the pink-stained popsicle stick around between them. “Will you be alright?”

“Hm?” he asks, glancing back over at her, eyelids fluttering back to alertness.

“Will you be alright after…?” she repeats, not exactly knowing what after she meant.

“I guess,” he answers, blinking slowly. “I mean, I have no clue how I’m going to pay for any of this,” he gestures vaguely to himself, all wrapped up in gauze and tape and papery hospital cotton, “since John’s not paying for anything now…” God, he thinks about the bills already waiting for him, and the new ones accumulating every second he spends here, and presses his head back into his pillow. He’ll stress about it later, surely, but he’s growing far too drowsy to worry right now. Just forming sentences is an effort right now. “But I guess I’m still alive, so.” A beat. He shrugs again, and lets his hand drop to his lap. “Will you?”

“I…” she starts, looking down. She hasn’t really thought about it yet, honestly. “I guess,” she echoes, after another beat. “I guess, if he’s really…gone, that’s…some kind of closure, even if it’s kind of twisted…” She sighs and runs her free hand through her hair, combs her fingers through the loose strands escaped from the hastily-tied bun. “I don’t know. I’ll figure something out, I guess. I’m not going back home again, anyway, I don’t think I can…” she trails off, looking up from her lap again, and noticing Ethan’s gone still, his breathing still slightly ragged-sounding but regular now, eyes slipped closed. The popsicle stick is loose in his hand on his lap. Time’s up, she supposes; the drugs must’ve kicked in by now. Well, they could both use their rest. 

Finishing the last of her popsicle, she gets up and quietly comes over, collecting the wrapper and stick and crumpled paper cup from his lap and disposing of them in the garbage can, then rinses her hands in the sink before turning to go. Maybe she should stay to keep an eye on him, but, no, she needs to go home, she needs to eat and rest and figure out how to live now, After. She could message him, tomorrow maybe, to check in -- no, she doesn’t have his number, doesn’t even know if he still has a phone, or if it was lost in the fire too, all she has is a name. He’ll have to stay here for a while, probably, healing, just look at him, but, no, he seemed pretty embarrassed about being looked after. Uncomfortable with everyone staring him down, interrogating him. Maybe she ought to just get out of his hair and leave him be. Well, she hopes, at least, for the best for him, and leaves the room, shutting the door quietly behind her.