#nonna! (francesca danthis)

[take-a-minute]

19/05/2010, 17:24

Gus wakes up confused.

Everything is weirdly sterile and bright, the room smells of disinfectant, it's cold, and his right eye feels like it's been scooped out and covered with a bandage. He thinks he can hear someone crying next to him.

As he opens his eye properly, he realises that he's in the hospital, the quiet sobbing he hears being his grandmother's, which stops abruptly when she notices that he's awake.

"Oh, il mio povero angelo, what happened to you?" she asks tearfully, clearly concerned. Her accent is stronger than he's ever heard it. "The doctor said you were malnourished – Do they not feed you?"

It takes Gus a couple of seconds to find his tongue, coughing like a 90 year old chainsmoker. "I'm fine, Nonna, really... Jus' haven't had much of an appetite lately."

His grandmother frowns, always quick to fret over her family. "You're sick, piccolo angelo. Have you been sleeping, dear?"

"'S not that bad, Nonna, I swea–"

"Augustus. No sleep, no food– Your friend tells me you've been sick often since you started university," Nonna chides, making Gus attempt to hide in the blanket. "I knew I should have made you visit us more, how could you treat yourself so poorly?"

"Why'm I even in the hospital?" he grumbles, though he knows that she's right.

"You collapsed the moment you went up to get your diploma. Fell on a loose nail and managed to pass out with it stuck in yer eye," Max, who had definitely not been there a moment ago, explains, setting a glass of water on the small table beside the hospital bed.

"That's why my eye's been feelin' funny since I woke up..." That checks out. Is it even still there?

Max's fist clenches, as if he wants to punch Gus for being so negligent of his own wellbeing. "Auggie, I'm always tellin' you t' get some sleep, why can't you ever listen t' me?"

"I'm sorry, Max, I– Wait, how come yer not at graduation?"

"I care about ya too much, du–"

Gus gives him a pointed look, gesturing with his eye to Nonna in the chair.

"... Dingus. If I gotta take care a' you outside'a college, I will. Yer movin' in with me or yer granny when ya get outta here, Augs." It's clear through Max's tone that this is not up for debate.

Gus goes quiet before flopping back down into the bed with a frustrated noise. "Only if ya promise not ta coddle me," he eventually relents, glaring at Max with a pout.

"Sure. Now, get some sleep, alright? Doc's orders."

Gus isn't sure if Max is referring to himself or the doctor that treated him, but he is exhausted. Soon enough, he's fast asleep, snoring softly.

He's got a lot of rest to catch up on.