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[thisisalex]

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Prompt: Fifteen by Aiden. Though I'm pretty sure Ani just cheated on this one, considering I use TWO LINES and it's MASSIVE. Character: Ani Jones. Summary: Right after Ani's accident, up until his family comes to see him at last. The first part's probably my favorite, though Ani was just hurting my head near the bottom, and I wanted to finish before I left. Looking back, he'd had a good life. He had a loving mother, a caring father, an older brother who didn't kick the shit out of him, a psychopathic younger brother, and five little sisters who were bound to be trouble for the boys. There had been some damn interesting experiences, unique to those raised by the Parasites, touring the world and spending the night in jail with his father and uncle, jumping between Halo tournaments and rock concerts, and even having his wrist broken at the age of ten by Tank, the original Paraspawn, in his first ever mosh pit. He'd lived and he'd loved, experienced highs and lows at their most extreme, and loved and hated every minute of it with youthful exuberance. And, at the end of it all, he had broken free, seen Europe through his own eyes, actually experienced the lands he had watched slip away from a tour bus window in those early morning hours that bridge the gap between twilight and dawn. He had only been 20 years old, but in those 20 years he had lived. He had taken his father's advice to live fast and leave a wake of beauty. Live fast and die young. Ąžuolas Steponas Elyashkevich-Juozapavicius had followed his father's advice, and he knew, in those painful moments, as his life spilled onto the pavement at his feet, that he had lived fast, died young, and would leave one ugly as fuck corpse. But as much peace as Ąžuolas, or Ani (don't ask, really), felt at this moment, his feeling was not communicated to those around him. Frantic shouting in a language he could not speak but vaguely recognized ran around in circles in his head, swimming through his mind and before his bleary eyes. He didn't need to know the language to know what the urgency in their voice meant, that they were going to try and save him. They were wasting their time. When one makes peace with their own passing, there's little point in going back, and when one's death is as certain as Ani's was, it all turned into a futile effort to save their own conscience. Ani couldn't let them waste their time like this. They had to know he was going to die, and all he wanted them to do was call his mother and tell her he had no regrets. It didn't matter that they didn't know his mother, or that they didn't know his language; a little broken Spanish could hopefully communicate to his Portuguese rescuers what he had to say, and various forms of identification on his body would find his mother in time. He opened his mouth to speak to them, but all that came out was a bubble of blood. Then his eyes rolled back in his head, and he was gone. ... It was white. Very white. White and blindingly bright, with that sickeningly stale sterile smell. It was the smell of death and disease. The tired and rusty mind of the young man lying in the middle of this blinding, sickening room could not comprehend the room that he was in, could not put the white walls, the IV drip in his arm, the steady beep or the muffled and impossible to understand words being called out into some speaker system in the hallway. His right eyelid was heavy and his vision blurry, while his left eye didn't seem to want to open at all; his arms and legs were resisting his feeble demands that they move, his throat seemed blocked off, and yet he was breathing just fine, and his head was beginning to ache. Where was he? What had happened? What brought him here and why couldn't he hear much of anything? Why were his gums killing him, and why couldn't he feel his teeth? What was this thing in his mouth? Ani's head was very sluggishly spinning, unable to figure out where he was or what he was doing there. He couldn't remember anything past arriving in Amsterdam, but he knew Dutch, and this was not a Dutch-speaking country he was in. Turning his head to the side, as much as he could, Ani spied a plump, dark-haired woman, probably of Spanish descent, quietly entering the room. She shut the door behind her and headed over towards his bed, reaching up to check his IV before glancing down at his bed. She jumped when she saw his eyes were open for the first time, and he was blinking very slowly up in her general direction. "Oh! Você está acordado! Seu doutor será excitado," she told him with a smile on her face, continuing to fiddle with his IV, and all the other bits and pieces of equipment surrounding him. Ani blinked. Her words sounded vaguely like Spanish, maybe even French, but his mind could not piece them together to form a translation. It couldn't be either, because Ani knew both Spanish and French. Hell, there weren't many European languages Ani didn't at least have a superficial knowledge of. But unless it was second nature to him, unless it was English, Russian, or Lithuanian, there was a good chance he wasn't going to be able to do more than stare blankly and blink. Not that he could speak right now anyways. "Nós veremos sobre começar que fora de você assim que você pode nos falar logo, toda para a direita?" Ani blinked again. His head was hurting, he felt dizzy and sick, weak even though all he was doing was lying in bed. God this fucking sucked, whatever it was. "Não se preocupe sobre qualquer coisa. Nós começá-lo-emos melhor." This time, Ani just nodded. Then he shut his eyes, and he was gone again. ... The case of the boy in intensive care, still known to the staff as the Russian John Doe, was a difficult one. Aside from the obvious severe injuries he had suffered, no one had managed to find a way to communicate with him. The moment he had proved able to breathe on his own, they had removed the tube from his mouth, enabling him to speak. Though it took him a little while to finally gather enough breath to speak, his first words were, quite simply, "Govorite li vy po russki?" in a thick, Eastern European accent. So, they found him a Russian translator. By the time the Russian translator got there, however, the kid had switched gears, and had begun muttering rather incoherently in what the translator said sounded like Latvian or Lithuanian, possibly. When they got him a Latvian translator, he began speaking Finnish. Then French. For each translator they found, their patient revealed a new language, or mixed and matched enough to require their whole team of translators. Or at least whoever had taught him all these languages. It took two and a half weeks for the Russian John Doe to nail down a language (or two, actually), and a translator straight out of Lithuania was asked to help figure out the Lithuanian-Russian (with a dash of English and mangled Finnish thrown in there) mess he was coughing out. It took the translator an hour to get anything truly coherent out of him, to figure out his name and where his family, if he had any, lived. Leaving the hospital room, the translator simply sighed. "He's out now, but he kept saying the same thing. He wants his mother." ... "Veta, don't hit your sister again, you gave her a black eye last time. Wampa, you know you're not allowed to light your arrows on fire in the house. I am not going to believe you accidentally burned Boba's entire wardrobe again. Stacia... okay where'd Stacia go?" The Juozapavicius house was a chaotic one. It was that fun, homey kind of chaotic, the kind that made you feel like it was constantly Christmas, without the family drunk passing out and starting a fight with everyone over the egg nog. It was comforting. Frustrating at times, and one really couldn't blame the oldest three for clawing at the doors most nights to get out, and one day maybe even move out, but it was nice. And Burton and Liz could usually keep all nine kids in control without very much of a problem. But lately, things had been a little stressful. The second oldest Jones son, Ani, had left to travel Europe on his motorcycle a few months ago. Every week or so, every time he came to a new country, reached a new city, tried a new food or just felt a little lonely, he would call, write, send a postcard, communicate with them in some way. He was scatterbrained, disorganized, and got lost quite a few times already, but he never left them hanging for too long. Even when he lost about three weeks in Amsterdam. Hell, he had probably called them the most when he was high off his ass and couldn't remember any other numbers. But it had been four weeks since they had last heard from Ani. Four weeks since he had called them from Madrid, not sure how long he was planning on staying there, and telling them he would call when he reached his next location. Four weeks. The first week they hadn't worried more than usual. They had been a little concerned when he decided to go around Europe on a motorcycle, but who were they to say he couldn't take a few chances and have some fun? The rock stars from Eastern Europe who had been illegal and had been smuggled across borders, or had spent several nights in jail, only to escape in the dead of night and swear never to return to that damn country again (until, of course, the administration changed and they forgot about them). The second week they had been concerned and had started calling the other Parasites to see if any of them or any of their kids had heard from him. But it had been all silence on their end. Still, there was just a chance he had forgotten or had been having a particularly lonely (or particularly eventful) time in Spain. By the end of the third week, they were calling in favors from Spain and asking Paco to translate for them. By the end of the fourth week, Burton and Liz were terrified. Ani had never gone this long without calling them, they hadn't been able to find him in Spain, despite the fact that they had called the authorities and asked them to keep an eye out for him, and they had no clue where he was going to be next. Ani had had no real set plan. He was just going to travel and exist. But now he had apparently ceased to do either. And when a knock came at the door, an official looking man standing rather stiffly on their porch, Burton's heart stopped. Was he going to tell him his son was dead? That he had been killed because Burton had thought it about time he took a chance and not only supported, but encouraged this trip? The man who had been to jail hundreds of times, had his life laid on the line time and time again, watched his wife stand, helpless, in front of hundreds of angry people with a noose wrapped around her neck, froze in his tracks for the first time in his life. Standing silently in the kitchen, he watched as Wampa jumped up and casually opened the door, sticking his gum on the doorframe before greeting the man with a nod. He always avoided speaking first in situations like this, there was no telliing what language was going to come out of that man's mouth. "Hello, is Svitrigaila or Anastasia Ju...Juoza...um?" He spoke in English, but his accent was more exotic, closer to Spanish or Portuguese. Wampa nodded again. "Jones," he corrected with a deadpan face. Leaning back to see if his father was still in the kitchen, Wampa turned from the caller, shouting out, "HEY, DAD, MUM. SOMEONE'S HERE FOR YOU TWO!" The stiffness immediately left Burton's body, and he dropped the knife held in his hand, poised over the tomato he had been chopping, and rushed to the door. His heart was thudding. He could feel it in his throat. He hadn't been this nervous at his wedding or when his kids were born. This was the kind of nervous he felt when someone was dying or dead. He couldn't do this. He didn't want to do this. He couldn't lose his son. "I'm Svitrigaila." He shook the man's hand, wiping them off on his shirt first. "And you are?" "Felix Ornelas Vera." Burton straightened up as the man began to speak, ignoring the offices and titles he rambled off for himself. He was here about Ani. And even though Burton had been sure since the moment he laid eyes on him that this was about his son, he still didn't expect the news when it came. "Mr. Jones, we've located your son, Ąžuolas. He's in a hospital in Portalegre, Portugal." He was alive. Eyes sliding shut, Burton leaned back against the doorframe. "Lena, go find your mother." Burton didn't ask why Ani was in the hospital. He didn't ask how he was doing or whether he was going to get out any time soon. He didn't want to spoil this relief. Ani was alive, and they had found him. Of course, Wampa had to be the buzz kill. "Wait wait wait a minute. Hospital?" he cut in from behind his father, a shadow of concern passing over his face. "What's wrong with him?" Felix sighed. "He was in a major motorcycle accident. At the moment he's in intensive care, and, though he's recovering, we only just now got something semi-coherent out of him." Burton nodded along, soaking in the information. He wouldn't listen to it now, he would process it another time, later, when he could take it. "Only just now? How long has he fucking been there?" Wampa spoke up again, stepping towards Felix. Burton said nothing. It was typical of Wampa to threaten the guests. "About three or four weeks--" "FOUR FUCKING WEEKS?" "We couldn't find a translator for him--" "HOW HARD IS IT TO FIND A TRANSLATOR FOR SOMEONE WHO SPEAKS EVERY FUCKING LANGUAGE IN EUROPE?!" Burton stuck his hand out, placing it on Wampa's shoulder. He didn't say a word. Wampa relaxed. "Fucker." Felix took a deep breath. "The doctors will be able to tell you more about his condition when you get there, but I recommend he gets transferred to a magical facility as soon as possible. We've arranged for a portkey for your family. It leaves in twenty minutes." Burton lifted his head from the doorframe and turned to Felix, a grim look on his features. "Thanks." Footsteps came from the stairs behind the trio at the door, and Burton knew it was his wife, followed quickly by Lena. "Svitty? What is it? Why do you have gum in your hair?" "Find Anya and Boba. We're going to Portugal." ... It was still white. It was still too bright and smelled of sick. It was still dull and cold and made Ani's head ache in one way or another. But he was getting used to it. After two weeks of consciousness, lying in bed and staring at the wall, he was getting accustomed to these blank, expressionless walls, the language he didn't know, and his general inability to do anything but lie there with a fever, bandaged the fuck up and wonder why he couldn't wiggle his toe. Ani had only really been fully conscious for about a week, but these walls had been in his dreams as he floated in and out. They had surrounded him as he tried to decipher the mysterious language booming from the walls, the people who smiled and tried to speak to him in languages he knew but couldn't understand, when he turned to see the bleeding boy in the corner, his entire torso torn open, a barely beating heart visible within. He was getting used to finding ways to amuse himself, trying his damndest not to think about what had happened, to remember the accident that had landed him in here, the motorcycle skidding along the pavement into a tree, his blood spilling onto the pavement and frantic Portuguese men with a flat tire trying to call for help, the pain, the rattling breaths. He tried not to think of how close he had been to death. How prepared he had been for it all. He really tried. But damn was it hard. After all, what else had happened to take his mind off things? Everything that had happened to him lately had been accident related. All his treatments, all the talk around him, even if he couldn't understand it, he knew to be about his accident. All his visitors had been either translators or the men who had saved him, four men who recognized him, but he had never before seen in his life. They knew him. He didn't know them. He didn't care about them. So he shut his eyes and waited for them to leave. He waited to drift off to sleep again, to go into one of those four-day-long rests where he wasn't aware of anything but the pain in his head. Or maybe, just maybe, he'd go back into his coma and he wouldn't have to wake up again. He didn't want to lie in this hospital bed any longer. He didn't want to be alone with people he didn't know and didn't understand. He didn't want this. So he prayed for sleep. Unfortunately, in Portugal, God speaks Portuguese. "Ąžuolas! Mister Ąžuolas! Visitors!" the nurse for the day, a small woman originally from Sweden whose name Ani didn't even bother to remember, came bustling in, a smile on her face. Ani half-groaned, keeping his eyes shut. "Oh... maybe just one or two at a time? Immediate... oh so you're all... okay, just--you can figure it out, but keep it to two or three at a time." The sounds out in the hall caught Ani's attention, and he nearly opened his eyes. But that was too much work for someone he might not care about. "Out of my way, I'm coming in first, Stacia stop, I'm getting in--FIRST." The voice was unmistakable in and of itself, not to mention the mention of his little sister's name, but the minute Liz Jones burst into the room, he knew. Even if she hadn't spoken, even if she had slipped in and stood in the corner, Ani would have known his mother was there. She always made him feel so much better. As she rushed up to the bed, Ani rolled his head to the side as much as he could, sliding his eyes open just enough to see her. She was on the wrong side for him to see her completely, the vision in his left eye still shot, and not likely to come back, but he didn't care. It was his mother. "Oh god Ani Ani Ani, how are you? Do you need anything? We've missed you so much at home." She was gushing. He didn't care, and he cracked the biggest grin he could manage, despite the absence of half his teeth. "Can't you see Mum? I'm on my own now. And I'm doing great." There was a pause. "And I'm so fucking glad to see you guys."

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