"Give him some Tylenol and get him out of that room, he's just looking for prescription drugs. I guess they just don't understand what a patient history is."
The nurse dressed in navy blue scrubs with a laptop in hand started typing away, leaning on the door to the doctor's office in the emergency wing. She focused on the screen as she entered in the doctor's orders. Her curiosity got the better of her,
"How bad was the history?"
The doctor laughed and pointed at the computer screen on his desk, leaning back in his chair.
"Ten hospitals in the last two weeks, all with different symptoms resulting in oxycodone! It's like none of the doctors check these things any more. They just write prescriptions and send them on their way."
He threw his hands up with a sarcastic,
"Who cares if it's true or not, as long as you have that room cleared in three hours. I can't stand that hospitals reward doctors for rushing diagnosis."
His hands landed back on his lap with a clap. The nurse started laughing, which drew the attention of all the other nurses within earshot. One dressed in pink scrubs with a bejeweled collar asked what was so funny. The nurse in navy couldn't help but pull others aside and tell them,
"Dr. Stilinski caught another drug abuser, and started his rant about the hospitals turn over rule. He's so adorable when he goes on his rants!"
The mostly female circle started laughing, with a few men chiming in. Dr. Stiles Stilinski closed the door to the office and started filling out the electronic paper work to get the patient outgoing in the system. He started thinking about why he decided to do emergency medicine. He could have been a pathologist, or an OBGYN doctor. He would love to have office hours; night shifts were always a pain even with the extra money you get. He had to deal with drug addicts, dealers, hypochondriacs… but the occasional real emergency like an accident, stabbing, shooting, even bar fight… that's what he enjoyed. Stiles was what they called an adrenalin junky, he loved the feeling of life or death decision making, and he was quite good at it. And just as he saved his file and refreshed his patient queue to see which room he had to go to next, his hospital issued phone rang which meant there was an actual emergency. Stiles smiled as he answered with a cheery,
"Dr. Stilinski."
"We have a stabbing from downtown, five minutes away. Patient has multiple stab wounds in the stomach and chest; he passed out in the middle of the street soaked in his own blood. Whoever attacked him didn't go easy on him. To be honest I'm surprised he still has a heartbeat."
"Well let's keep it that way. See you in five!"
Stiles loved when misfortune fell on peoples lives resulting in the worst possible outcome, death. Stiles happily opened the door and quickly made his way down to the operating side of the emergency room. He passed through two glass doors into a sterile room where the nurses were gossiping and quickly preparing for the stabbing not being even a bit phased.
"How are we doing? Do we have stitches out?"
The nurses continued the friendly gossip only pausing to quickly answer Stiles. They were all experienced and had everything Stiles could ask for prepared. Stiles knew that, but always asked just in case the gossip was ever too much to focus. Stiles had his gloves in hand and hiked himself onto the operation table, waiting impatiently for the ambulance. Finally he heard the double doors down the hall slam open, the sound of marching feet quickly filled the rather quiet wing; other than the ensemble of beeps the machines make or whispered gossip that fills the halls. Stiles quickly put on the gloves and the stretcher shoot threw the opened glass doors. Stiles shot questions at the paramedic who quickly answered them, transferring the patient onto the operation table and clearing the area for nurses to take over. Stiles asked,
"Who do we have?"
"We searched his wallet and found his ID. His names Derek Hale. Someone found him in the middle of the road and called it in."
As the paramedic unloaded all the information he knew at Dr. Stilinski, Stiles was already disinfecting his wounds. After cleaning up the areas he started to take a look and found there were no signs of internal bleeding.
"You said this was a stabbing but there's no internal damage. How could you miss that?"
The paramedic looked confused at the doctor and reassessed Derek.
"No way! He was bleeding like crazy! The stretcher is soaked!"
The paramedic pointed to where the EMTs and stretcher were. It was indeed soaked, way too much blood for simple cuts.
"Ok, I don't know what's happening but there is no internal bleeding. Let's stitch him up and get him to intensive care unit."
Stiles looked at Dereks remaining cuts, and stitched up the ones that needed it. He couldn't wrap his head around how much blood Derek was losing before he got here considering his current state. Stiles looked up at the monitor and it displayed 74/60, which was resting. How could someone who was allegedly stabbed have a resting heart rate? None of this made any sense to Stiles.
"Someone take Derek to intensive care, but run a tox screen. See if there is anything strange in his body that we should know about."
With that Stiles took off his gloves and threw them out as he made his way through the glass doors and back to his office to fill out paperwork. He flagged his order for the toxicology report so he would be notified when it was ready to read. He didn't understand how his body was healing so rapidly. Stiles couldn't focus on anything else until the report came in. When he was finally notified he pulled up the report on his computer and read through it. A part that caught Stiles eye read, 'Blood collected around wounds contained traces of aconitum variegatum, a poisonous flower that grows in the mountainous parts of the northern hemisphere.'
Stiles ran through the halls of the emergency wing and reached Dereks room, the nurse in charge was hooking him up to the monitors. Derek was conscious, and frowning. Stiles couldn't believe that a person was able to take all these supposed stabbings to the chest and adnominal, and poisoned, and be fully conscious in ten minutes! Stiles had to get to the bottom of this whole thing,
"Ok, spill. What are you on?"
Derek looked him up and down with his cold strong eyes and angry features,
"I'm not ON anything. Why am I here?"
"You were found in the middle of the street, passed out in your own blood. You sustained multiple stab wounds to the chest and abdominal area. That's why you're here. You were bleeding profusely, enough to knock anyone out for at least another few hours, yet here you are, conscious. Tell me how that happens Derek?"
Anyone could pick up that Stiles was getting frustrated with the lack of answers he was getting from this miracle recovery. Derek scowled at him with a perked eyebrow,
"You're the doctor, doctor…"
Dereks eyes moved from Stiles gaze and found his name tag attached to his white lab coat.
"Dr. Stilinski? I feel fine, so I'm going to leave."
Stiles face looked shocked at the notion of leaving in his condition. Despite the lack of internal damage, his wounds were still healing, and the poison has Stiles concerned. They cleaned up the area but other than that it's like his immune system was fighting it off. He had no sign of pain anywhere on his face.
"You're not going anywhere anytime soon, and that I can promise. Your wounds are still healing, and I need to monitor that progress."
Derek looked shocked and ripped off the backwards apron to revel scars on his chest and abdomen. The wound looked infected with a purple and red color. Stiles couldn't believe they were only scars at this stage. He's been in the hospital for maybe twenty minutes! Stiles rushed to the side of his bed to inspect the scars closely with a gloved hand,
"No way! How did you already heal from that? My stitches are lose? This was healed on its own?"
At this point the enter emergency wing flocked to Dereks room. To the people who were watching it was amazing to see someone healing this fast, it was superhuman. To Dr. Stilinski, it was impossible. Not only that, but the healing was only physical damage, the poison didn't seem to be affected. Derek seemed alarmed that the infection wasn't better by now, scarring at this point is fine but any trace of poison or infection should be gone by now. Unless…
"What was I poisoned with?"
Stiles looked up from inspecting his scarring, he was close to Dereks chest, trying to see every detail. Dr. Stilinskis hazel eyes and long lashes made Derek a little uneasy, but he quickly buried any emotion deep down.
"Aconitum Variegatum. Wild flower in the mountains, very poisonous."
Dereks face went white, all color leaving his face replaced by fear. Wolf's bane. He needed to get back to his loft before it got any worse; he had a herbal remedy he could use there.
"I need to go."
Derek started detaching himself from the machines, which alarmed Dr. Stilinski. Anyone with this much blood loss alone would cause loss of consciousness at anytime. Stiles talked quickly and sharply,
"No no no no no. You can't leave. You could make this much worse if you do anything strenuous, and even standing would be strenuous right now. You're staying."
"You have no say if I refuse your help. I don't want to be here."
"I could easily baker act you if I thought you were going to do anything to hurt yourself or others. Getting up would definitely qualify."
Dr. Stilinski crossed his arms around his chest, waiting for Derek to give an answer. The crowd watched Derek with anticipation across their faces. Derek looked pissed at the nerve and persistence of this doctor.
"I know my own limits and I can take care of an infection on my own."
Stiles knew Dereks levels were all normal, he just couldn't shake that something was wrong with this whole situation. He's never seen anything like this before, but as far as the hospitals concerned, keeping him here would be a waste of resources, and an exhausting amount of paperwork. He couldn't put a 'gut feeling' over all that.
"Fine."
Derek hiked himself up and took his torn shirt from the table next to the bed, his jeans and shoes were still on his person. As he walked by Dr. Stilinski, Stiles put his hand on his chest to stop him. The touch sent a wave of emotion through Derek, that he again buried deep down, but he couldn't ignore the jump in heart rate. He stopped dead in his tracks and looked up at the doctor, putting up a furious façade.
"If you get light headed or feel any pain in areas that aren't injured, get to this hospital immediately."
With that Derek was out of the room and on his way through the hall. Why did Derek feel so lightheaded around Stiles? He couldn't think about it right now, he had to purge his body of this wolf's bane.
