#075 | Make It Better
Skye Taylor & Ben Hargreeves. Something is wrong with Ben.
Word Count: 758
Skye thought he knew what fear feels like. He’s been stalked, harassed, tortured, shot. Being one of the foremost smugglers on the west coast does that. But none of that has anything on absolute terror gripping his heart as he sits in the hospital waiting room with Ben beside him, doubled over, still in that thick hoodie even though he’s soaked in his own sweat from a combination of the fever and the pain. The worst part is how unphased Ben and most of the other kids had been, saying it’s normal. This isn’t normal. Not even kind of.
“Just breathe through it,” he says for the hundredth time, like this time it’ll work and be enough for Ben’s crippling agony to end. “Everything will be okay.”
Ben nods, but his air still comes in harsh, wheezing gasps. They’re high priority in the ER, but with how busy everything is, it’ll still be a few before someone’s ready to see them. And of course, they don’t want to give Ben any painkillers until they know what’s wrong, which means Skye can’t slip him something either. It sucks to see his son hurting, and not be able to do anything to help. Fuck, he hates this feeling of helplessness, this complete inability to fix things.
Just as Skye is about to go demand attention from the woman at the front desk, a nurse calls out Ben’s name and he carefully helps Ben stand up an hobble over to the doors. Every step seems to be more excruciating, more of a chore.
“A little bit further, Ben, then you can lay down.”
Those few extra steps feel like miles, but then Skye helps Ben onto the bed and rubs his back in a hopefully soothing way. Soon, painkillers to ease the way. Something to make this better because Skye has to, because this is torture.
He reiterates Ben’s symptoms to the nurse, and answers her additional questions. No, Ben hasn’t lost his appetite. Yes, he threw up this morning. Skye sits there as she takes Ben’s temperature and coaxes him to lay on his back for an examination. Of course, the moment she tries to lift his hoodie, he flinches and starts shaking his head, scared in the way he gets whenever Skye or Miguel ask him to take off the jacket before he gives himself heatstroke.
“Hon, I won’t hurt you, I promise. I just need to check something, okay?”
Ben looks at Skye, eyes so full of fear and panic and desperation. Silently, he pleads for a way out. It’s so rare that Ben asks for anything, even things he needs, but this is something Skye can’t give him, and that feels like a punch in the stomach.
“It’s okay. Nothing bad will happen,” he says, and Ben reaches for his hand. Skye would be a monster not to take it.
So the nurse moves his hoodie out of the way to expose his lower stomach, and presses her hand down firmly on one side, making Ben draw in a sharp breath. But then she lifts it. And Ben screams. A gut-wrenching, bloody murder scream that echoes around in Skye’s head before dissolving into breathless sobs.
“It hurts…”
“What did you do?” Skye demands, standing up as if to protect Ben from the nurse. “You said you wouldn’t hurt him-”
“Sir, you need to calm down. That’s called the rebound test, we use it when we suspect appendicitis.”
“And?”
She glances between Ben and Skye. “Given his symptoms and his fever, we believe he does. So-”
“What happens next? How do you fix it?”
“We’re going to take him to surgery, and remove his appendix before it bursts. After that, he’ll be in the hospital for a couple days, and then we’ll send him home. In less than a month, he should be okay.”
This isn’t something that’s going to be over and done with by the end of the day. Ben is going to be in pain for a while, even if they give him something for it after the surgery. Surgery. Shit, Skye needs to call Miguel, and they should probably tell the other kids, and Ben is still crying hard and hurting and all Skye wants to do is to make it better.
Next thing he knows, he’s signing a couple of forms and then promising Ben everything’s going to be okay as they wheel him off to surgery. And he’s left, sitting in a waiting room, helpless while someone else cuts his child open.
