002, a hospital waiting room at 3 in the morning. @ssincielo / accepting.
if he's being honest, he's embarrassed. it's embarrassing. he'd looked at himself in the bathroom mirror after, sweating and wincing with every breath he took, and then promptly passed out. just from trying to help lourdes bring her groceries up all in one trip, no breaks, hoping to make his leg work on the walk up like he knows it used to. naturally, his body hitting the floor as hard as it did made his entire abdomen flare, only two months post op. and when he was dripping from his forehead just from getting back on his feet, and still hot from the pain hours later, there was a unilateral decision made to take him to the er. just in case.
chad's triggers are generally few and far between and incredibly niche, but nothing gets him moody like the hospital does. if he looks down for too long, the weathered tile becomes the dark blue carpet like the one in woodsboro. the one where he and mindy tried to make pictures out of all the stains while they waited to see tara.
( and if he can't even sit in a chair in the lobby and try to distract himself by watching the late night infomercials that are playing on the TV there, what's he gonna do when they bring him into a room? when he lays on the bed or if they ask him to take his shirt off and he looks down and sees all those marks, entrance wounds, new scars next to old ones? )
mindy and tara are already on their way, sam's trying to figure out how to get out of closing so she can come, too, and chad is desperately trying to find a way to feel thankful for lourdes instead of just pissed off at his body, at the circumstances, at being faced with the fact that no matter how much physical therapy he does, he's never going to be the same.
"can we just go?" this is him begging, actually. if she wants him to get on his knees for it, he will. "c'mon. i'll take, like, ten tylenol and just sleep it off."
