59- Ordeals

They spent the rest of the day watching television. Ryan dozed off and on because of the pain meds. By his own rules, the teddy bear wasn't allowed out of the bed. If he was awake he was talking, even if he didn't have much to say. Dinner was served early, and even though Ryan got to pick what he wanted from the hospital menu, it still wasn't very good. Scott got him to eat most of it, promising he himself would get something to eat later.

After dinner came bath time. A team of two nurses came in to do the job, and Scott was right in there with them, determined to learn every minute thing he would need to know how to do to take care of his fiance. Nursing was a whole different discipline, after all.

Ryan was... tolerant of it for the most part. He insisted Scott be the one to clean his privates, and wanted the nurses out of the room for it. They didn't do a full bath, but it gave Scott a chance to look at Ryan's body a little better without being too invasive about it. His bruises were starting to develop. No doubt he'd be splotched purple by tomorrow.

They also changed the dressing on Ryan's head wound. At the first sight of red in the bandages, Scott advised Ryan to close his eyes. He didn't want to cause more distress by triggering any of Ryan's hemophobia.

The wound itself was a nasty gash, running from the end of Ryan's hairline and up into his scalp. The hair was shaved away in a wide swath around it, blood caked the edges. Scott put a lot of effort in not reacting or commenting on it. The nurses cleaned it gently before wrapping it up in new gauze.

They were in and out in a half hour. It wore Ryan out, but he was very happy they agreed to take the catheter out. He'd have to wait until tomorrow for the neck and shoulder braces to come off, but it was a start. They even changed his oxygen mask for tubes, which was nice. He was also glad they helped him move around what little he could. He was starting to feel stiff.

"That wasn't too bad, was it?" Scott asked.

"Speak for yourself," Ryan grumbled.

Ryan felt like pouting about it, so he kicked Scott out to go get himself some dinner, after having him replace his bear which had to be moved out of the way to bathe him properly. It's not that getting bathed was a horrible experience, but it was embarrassing. It was bad enough he couldn't feed himself, though Scott had told him he'd probably be able to do a little more once they took off the shoulder brace.

He was well aware the morphine they were giving him was making him too talkative for his own good. Even now he had a bit of running monologue going, muttering as he thought about all the things he either couldn't do or would need help with over the next few months. The more he thought about it, the longer the list got. It made him feel a little better to think that he was voicing his concerns to his new teddy bear rather than talking to himself.

They were going to send him home eventually, right? There was no way he could live on his own like this. Did that mean Scott would be the person stuck helping him out? Would Scott be the one brushing his teeth, helping him dress, wiping his ass? That brought up a whole other string of questions, the top one being 'what happens when he needs to poop?' He didn't want to think about that too hard.

What about his apartment? And his jobs? How was he going to pay his phone bill? Everything he worked for, all the independence he'd gained, was gone? If that damned Jack hadn't beamed him in the head with a pipe, he wouldn't be in this mess!

He shivered in the realization as though the temperature in the room dropped ten degrees. His co-worker assaulted him. Michael was right. Jack and his nephew were bad news. He'd done nothing but try and be polite, even friendly, and they tried to murder him. Did they hate him that badly? Or, was it just that they hated omegas? They really tried to murder him, didn't they?

He took stock of his current condition. Maybe it would have been better if they succeeded...

--------------------

Scott had only gone to the hospital cafeteria for food, opting to bring it back to the room to eat so Ryan wouldn't be left alone too long. He gave the door a gentle courtesy knock before swinging it open cheerfully to announce his return. Ryan didn't respond, but seemed dazed as he ran his free fingers through the fur of his stuffed animal.

"Everything okay?" Scott asked as he put down his styrofoam takeout box.

Ryan's face just... broke. Puffy eyes, and snotty nose, and big fat teardrops as he told Scott he finally remembered what happened, as he apologized for surviving it...

Scott tried to calm him down as best he could while keeping his cool himself, but in the end it took a nurse with a sedative injection. They even offered Scott a Xanax when it was all said and done after seeing how visibly shaken he was. He took it gratefully.

He ended up eating less dinner than Ryan did.

--------------------

The next day was nowhere near as dramatic. Scott's parents brought breakfast again. Michael came to visit for a while. They were able to get a police officer to come by and get Ryan's statement. By now, Ryan's bruises were fully developed, making for quite the display. Photos were taken for the police report.

The morning news had run a blurb about Ryan's assault, citing it as a recent addition in a nationwide string of attacks on omega individuals. They didn't have any information on Ryan's identity or his condition, but they did note that Ryan's attackers had been arrested. What turned Scott sour about it was when one of the anchors made an offhand comment about damaged packages.

That afternoon, Ryan was finally free of his neck and shoulder braces, and a physical therapist came in to work with him for a while. Ryan showed little to none of the distress he'd felt the night before, focusing instead on the simple joy of kinda being able to feed himself a little, and the fact that he was able to trade that stuffy neck brace for a standard hospital issue omega collar.

Dr. Benri came by a little after to tip Scott off that a reporter who was asking about Ryan had been turned away. Michael made it a point to note that "justice for omegas" was a trending social media topic.

Day three saw Ryan taken off of morphine and put on other painkillers. He was happy he could finally keep some of his thoughts to himself. He apologized for some of the things he remembered saying.

Day four was an ordeal. The nurses, plus Scott, were concerned that even though Ryan seemed to be eating properly, he'd yet to have a bowel movement. He'd done well with using a urinal, even though he wanted absolute privacy while doing so. He wasn't thrilled at all with the bedpan.

Simply trying to use it produced no results. It turned into enemas, and softeners, and WAITING, and Ryan didn't even want Scott in the room while the nurses buzzed around him in their prep work. He was EVENTUALLY able to go, but the whole thing made him so exhausted and embarrassed he was inconsolable for a while. The only company he wanted was his teddy bear.

At the end of a week, Scott had to spring his own version of bad news. Ryan was now recovered enough to have his heat induced.

"Do I really have to go through all that?" Ryan asked after Scott explained the procedure.

"You're on powerful suppressants right now. You can't stay on them until you get out of the casts, and as soon as you're off them, your heat WILL come, so this is to keep you safe"

"And you really can't stay with me the whole time?"

Scott shook his head sadly, grabbing for Ryan's hands trying to reassure him. Ryan was able to spend most of his time out of the traction supports now.

"The ward rules are very strict," Scott explained. "Even in full PPE unpaired alphas can only spend a max of four hours a day in the omega ward. It's a matter of patient safety. It wouldn't be good to have stray pheromones floating around a bunch of vulnerable omegas, and it's to reduce the risk of alphas reacting to any pheromones the omegas may be giving off."

"Is it going to hurt?"

"Not at all. I promise you, you'll be under such a heavy sedative you won't even realize your heat came. You'll sleep the whole thing away while your body does what it needs to do."

Ryan hesitantly agreed to the procedure, not that he really had a choice, but him thinking that he made a decision about it made him feel a little better.