Bad Luck
"I'm cursed," Chris mumbled, out loud despite the fact he was alone, staring at the swirling water of his toilet.
Ever since morning he had been feeling out of sorts. At first, he had blamed it on sleeping wrongly, crumpled into some pretzel position that had caused his limbs to fall asleep, maybe? Then by the time lunch rolled around, he wasn't hungry. That was fine, but it was against the rules taped to his fridge, so it meant he had to eat. Important to keep himself alive and all that.
All he had been able to stomach was scrambled eggs and some apple juice, which immediately decided to riot inside of him and had him camping the bathroom for the best part of his day, fighting the nausea for the past two hours only to ultimately loose the war.
There had to be some sort of curse placed on him, because how in the hell he had managed to get some sort of stomach bug, a week after recovering from that horrible cold that had him incapacitated?
Across the house, his phone started to ring and he let out a loud groan, thumping his feverish forehead to his forearm resting on the toilet's rim. Who could be possibly calling him?
Emerald wasn't a caller, much more of a texter and his brothers only spoke to him once every other week. It could be one of his parents and that was the only reason Chris forced himself to get up and stumble out of the bathroom.
He wasn't in any mood to chit chat, but his parents were both well into their late sixties. He couldn't in good conscience ignore a call, even if he knew it was probably his mother complaining about Shark Tank or his father about football.
Lois Dawson.
Fuck, he'd rather it was his mother. Dawson was the hospital director, aka his boss, aka trouble. He squinted blearily at the screen, marking a little past 5 PM, then cleared his throat, picking up.
"Yes?"
"Hello, Dr. Lavin?"
"Hi, Dawson," he rubbed a hand over his face, "what's going on?"
"I'm so sorry to call today, I know you're on break-" oh no. Absolutely not. Chris' stomach clenched, mouth flooding with sticky saliva. They couldn't possibly want him in the hospital like this... "-one too many absences and you're my last resource."
"Ma'am," he groaned, rubbing the back of his achy neck, "I'd go in, but I can't-"
"I know it's your day off, we'll double your pay, Dr. Lavin," Dawson said, as if that was even a question. Of course they would.
"No, it's not that, I-" he pulled the cellphone away from his face, muffling a gurgly burp in his fist, "I'm sick, Dawson. Just puked my guts up."
There was a beat. A heavy sigh, "we'll keep you doing paperwork, I just need you to free one of the others, Chris," she had dropped the Dr. Lavin schtick, which meant business, "we're truly overflowing thanks to the bus accident that happened in the interstate and we're down six doctors, either because they're not in town or stuck in the jam or not picking up."
Damn his stupid luck for picking up the phone. He should've stayed on the bathroom floor.
"Fine," Chris sighed, pressing a hand to his stomach, hating the way it was sticking out and how sore the muscles were, "give me thirty minutes, I'll be down."
"Thank you," she sounded genuinely relieved. He rolled his eyes.
"It's fine," he brushed it off, muffling another gross belch by turning his face towards his bicep, "I- I got'sgo-"
"Yes, of course, of course- I'll make sure to warn Dr. Banks you'll be on paperwork only... Thank you again-" he barely heard the rest of what she said, pressing the big red button and lurching to the side with a violent retch, bringing up a mouthful of watery vomit on the monstera plant he had near his couch.
Fuuuuck.
By the time he had taken a quick shower to get rid of the cold sweat and changed into a more decent outfit than the black sweatpants and stained merch shirt he had been wearing all day, Chris was considering flat out not going. What could possibly happen? Would he get fired for being sick?
However, as much as he turned over that option, he still found himself behind the wheel, driving back to the building he had left just yesterday. Just because Welton General paid well and was the only hospital in the city, which he actually quite liked and had no prospects of moving from. Something something unfair market competition, Chris thought sourly, thinking of Lex, his brother, and how indignant he had been about Welton's makeup. Not one for small towns, no matter if it was a university town with a beautiful backdrop.
He hung out of the car, spitting on the parking lot's floor as soon as he opened the door and taking slow, deep breaths to stop his stomach from fully crawling up his throat. His head was throbbing, but not enough he could hang out in the parking lot for longer than five minutes, acutely aware he was already fifteen minutes later than the thirty he had promised Dawson.
"Dr. Lavin," speaking of the devil, Lois was waiting for him as soon as the elevator door opened on the first floor, hands clasped and a tight smile on, "thank you so much for coming."
He let out a grunt, because what did she want to hear? No problem? Of course there was a problem, he was sick and he'd rather be anywhere but there.
"I already talked with Dr. Banks," she gestured for him to follow, as if Chris didn't know the way to the office areas. Paperwork was easy enough, normally he was spectacularly good at it. Not to say he was a bad doctor, he knew he wasn't, but he was also aware he didn't have the necessary patience to deal with patients freaking out or, worse, their partners freaking out. God, he hated dealing with parents, he'd rather off himself than talk to crying mother.
Lois guided him inside the office, "we have Dr. Banks and Dr. Peters on rotation today," she cringed, since that number was scarily low. Hell, only Jonah and Claire? Not a single senior doctor? This hospital was running on hopes and dreams.
"On- Those are just the ones doing the rounds, right?" Chris collapsed on the chair behind the desk, already pulling the trashcan with his foot when the simple jostling of sitting down made him taste eggs all over again, "there are other's in the OR?"
"Dr. Marshall and Stewarts, just for the emergencies, we've rescheduled all that was in for the night," Lois nodded, much to his relief. Still bad, but not so bad they might as well shut the hospital down for the night. As if that was an option, "I'm still trying to reach Henderson and Chen, they're the only ones who haven't responded yet, so maybe..." Lois trailed off and Chris cringed, a new wave of nausea hitting him that had nothing to do with the stomach bug. Four, well five counting with him, doctors in the whole hospital was really, really fucking bad.
"Garcia is coming in the morning!" She perked up, as if sensing the panic starting to grow in him, "and we're getting a lot of patients redirected to Portland- It's going to work out."
"Of course," his mouth was sticky. Chris gulped down, "lemme get to work then."
"Thank you again," Lois sounded incredibly apologetic, "I'm gonna warn the nurses that you're sic-"
"No!" The sheer mortification of it nearly caused him to jump, "no need. I'll be fine."
Liar, a little voice whispered in his ear, stomach already churning again, that slow but constant manner that told him he was done for. Maybe not now, but soon.
"Uhm- Of course," Dawson sounded surprised by his outburst, "I'll let you work, you know where to find me."
Finally his boss left and Chris promptly planted his elbows to the table, burying his face in his hands and groaning. Fuck his life.
Paperwork was harder when he felt like absolute crap, but at least it was something to take his mind off of his stomach. He fished out his earbuds from his work case, putting only one so he could still hear the outside noise and listened to music as he decoded several different doctor's notes into insurance claims and what not.
Normally he found this part of his job rather therapeutic. Claire, Dr. Peters, didn't understand it. She always got antsy and started moving around the office when they shared it. Banks seemed to be in his wavelength, just as long as they didn't exchange a single word. For some reason Jonah Banks seemed to enjoy being the biggest pain in the ass alive. Marshall was the same as Claire, only worse. Chris could count in one hand the amount of office hours they had ever shared, because she'd do anything in her power to avoid it. Henderson complained the whole time and Chris had considered homicide more than once. He'd rather work with Banks, with whom he had had several conflicts, than withstand Henderson's monotone blabbing.
Chris' stomach rolled and he kicked the trashcan closer, leaning over it to spit the saliva accumulating in his mouth. He was probably gonna puke soon, but he had taken some Gatorade before leaving home and he did not want to risk becoming dehydrated. Not only it would be humiliating enough in normal circumstances, but when the hospital was running on fumes? So when the blue saccharine liquid tried climbing up, Chris gulped it back down, shuddering as he could literally feel the goo sliding down his throat.
"Lavin," Banks slammed the door, "we need you in the ER."
If Chris was a slightly better person, he'd have taken Bank's serious voice as the don't argue signal it was and obeyed. Except he wasn't.
"I'm not on ER tonight," he kept his eyes firmly on the computer screen, twirling the pen between his fingers, "Dawson called me for desk duty, not to wrangle snotty children."
"No," Banks scoffed, walking further in, "Dawson called you to help and you bitched your way into desk duty, when we actually need an extra set of hands in the ER. Now get off your ass, we're crammed and Claire and I cannot take it all by ourselves."
"Then call Marshall or Stewarts, Dawson said-"
"Wendy is already in the ER intubating someone and Stewarts just entered surgery. Get off your ass," Banks' tone was always so fucking arrogant. King of the world. Chris had always found it a bit amusing that Jonah seemed to think that just because he had that stick permanently shoved up his ass and a mean mug, he could get things his way.
"You can scream and kick all you want," rolled his eyes, which was a bad idea because a jolt of pain stabbed his skull. Low blood sugar, his brain supplied and his stomach complained. No fucking way he was gonna eat something, no matter how much his body demanded it. He could still taste the lunch eggs, "but I'm on desk duty. I'm sick."
"Oh, fuck off!" Banks snapped, "we're gonna loose a patient, there's simply not enough of us. You can't sit here filling insurance claims when we've got eleven fucking cots busy downstairs," he stepped closer, Chris wondered if Jonah thought he could scare him. Maybe that shit worked on nurses or with Claire, but not with him.
"Like I said," Chris cleared his throat when his voice came out too deep, coated in annoyance and sticky saliva, "I'm sick. I can't be in the ER."
"We have a stroke downstairs and if we lose her because you were too busy doing crosswords to come help, I'll make sure to move a lawsuit for malpractice against you myself."
A stroke patient changed things.
He had been under the impression tonight was busy in the sense there were two doctors for far too many drunks, kids with pneumonia coughing everywhere, food poisoned fuckers shitting everywhere. A stroke-
He got up and ignored the victorious expression on Banks' stupid face.
The idiot now would probably think his stupid lawsuit threat had worked, as if Chris wasn't well aware he was in the function given him and who was actually committing malpractice was Banks, wasting time arguing with him instead of doing his job. Again, that shit probably worked with doctors who were a little more green.
Talking about green, his stomach wasn't one bit happy about the change of scenery.
The ER was chaos, Chris was shoved into the direction of the head nurse and then somehow he ended up being bossed by Claire, whose face was all pink, blonde hair sticking to her temples as she huffed, moving around.
The stroke patient was a woman in her late eighties, who was barely responsive. Chris wasn't sure why the fuck Marshall wasn't all over her, considering Wendy was to neurologist of their group, and it was only once he was going through her imaging that he understood. It was ischemic and, surprisingly, venous instead of arterial.
The tight squeeze in his chest — pure, unmitigated guilt for not being there sooner — vanished. She was already on an IV and under observation, nothing to be done and her surviving rates were great. He breathed out....
Then got thrown into the deep end, by Claire lifting her eyes and saying "help!?" in a pitiful voice as she manhandled a drunk man into his cot, smelling like piss and seizing due to alcohol.
By the time he was able to stop moving around, two and a half hours had passed. He had long forgotten about his stomach bug or about his office hours, in flow state as he moved from patient to patient, taking in what was pouring through the doors.
Henderson arrived at 9 PM and Chen at midnight. Chris' headache increased from annoying to unbearable around 10 PM and he was having to move to the bathroom every fifteen minutes or so to cough over the toilet by the time they reached midnight. His knees felt weak and his whole body was aching.
And, as was always the case with the ER, as easy as the chaos had started, it ended.
Claire let out a breath, stumbling into the doctor's lounge, wiping her forehead with the inside of her wrist, "holy fuck," she collapsed on the couch, "I can't feel my feet."
He wanted to ask if she was on a twenty four hour shift, because Chris was pretty sure he had seen her in the hospital that morning when he left to go home, but he was scared of opening his mouth. His stomach had long passed "unsettled", hell, it had long passed "throwing up". He had forced himself to drink water and it had all come back up, tinged blue at first, now a weird lime green. Not good, Chris knew, vaguely. He couldn't remember why, though.
The revolving doors opened again, Banks walking in as he already removed his coat, because of course the snotty prick favored the pristine white lab coat instead of the regular dark scrubs anyone sensible would wear. Had to virtue signal he was a doctor, since that was all of his personality.
"Are you okay?" Jonah asked and Chris raised his eyebrows, confused and shocked, before realizing the question wasn't directed at him, but rather at Claire, boneless on the couch.
"Yeah, mmm'gimme just fine-five..." His coworker mumbled, sleepily. Yep, she was definitely pulling a twenty four hour shift. Chris didn't envy her, although now that he thought about it, he kinda was too. He had done yesterday's graveyard shift, then left the hospital at 6 AM and slept until 10 AM, when he had woken up all achy. Then the bathroom camping...
"-reporting you to the board-" Banks was suddenly right in front of his eyes, looking furious. He had a really angular face and when he looked this pissed, Christopher thought Jonah looked cat like. Light eyes squinting, might as well have slits for pupils.
He was tripping.
"What..?"
"While you were hiding in an office, we nearly lost two patients-"
"I wasn't-" he started, frustrated, but his tongue felt too heavy and big for his mouth, there were a bunch of colorful little dots around of Jonah's unruly curls. Glitter.
"-said you were sick? Yeah, sick where?" Jonah scoffed, "as soon as you were down there with us-"
Chris rolled his eyes, immediately regretted it when the room swam. He was freezing. On the couch Claire stirred, opening her exhausted eyes to glare at them.
"Can you two measure dicks outside?"
"Malpractice doesn't fucking cover it, you're lazy and entitled and-"
He took a step back, because Jonah apparently thought "personal space" was optional, only for his foot to seemingly meet thin air. His knee folded and suddenly he was on all fours on the floor, head swimming and blood drumming in his ears.
The nausea was stronger than it had been even in the morning, flooding him and causing him to retch violently. Nothing came up, but his stomach spasmed again. He clutched the rug, curling his fists so much that his knuckles turned white, as the room swam-
"What the hell?" A hand that was too soft to be normal grabbed his chin, forcing their eyes to meet. Green- No, hazel. Jonah's eyebrows drawn together, confused-
Chris retched again, freeing his chin from Bank's limp hold and coughing violently. Something boiling hot crawled up, his mouth tasted salty and then he belched a splash of something neon yellow all over the rug, and the front of Bank's pants.
He wasn't a crier, not normally, but his whole body was shaking violently and his head was pulsing and his thoughts were all over the place, so Chris felt his eyes prickle with tears. He bit down on his lip, hard enough to draw blood, fighting the wave of sickness induced panic. The taste of blood made him gag again, more bitter bile falling on the pile, burning his now wounded lip.
"He seems sick to me," Claire's voice filtered through the drumming in his ears and suddenly there was a hand, much smaller and sure, grabbing his shoulder and pushing him to sit on his heels instead of being on all fours. His stomach spasmed again, more watery vomit rocketed up, his self control long melted by exhaustion and it ran down his chin and wet his dark scrub shirt.
"He's not responsive," Claire patted his cheek and he wanted to say he was very responsive, except that what came up was a whimper. He'd have to quit his job, this was too humiliating to come back from, "fuck, Jonah page a nurse! Don't just stand there! We gotta get him on an IV, he's dehydrated like hell."
"What's going on?" A new voice. More black dots.
Stupid lilac sneakers.
Chris went down.