Adriaan- Netherlands
Anri- Belgium
Luca- Luxembourg
…
Hello again! It seems I've been rather slow with this… I seriously gotta pick up the pace if I want this finished before Halloween!
Also warning for more mentions of illnesses.
...
"So, are you getting along with Naranbaatar then?" Sadik asked politely, glancing in the general direction of his son's voice. Kuzey nodded before remembering his father couldn't see.
"Yes. He's rather stern, but nice." The boy thought for a moment. "He's pretty cool, actually. He was teaching me archery and says we can go watch wrestling together sometime."
"Yeah, he's a fun guy, even if he can get a bit grumpy sometimes," Sadik chuckled, mind filled with childhood memories, few and far between due to the enormous geographical distance between the two cousins.
"I'd much rather stay with you;" Kuzey added, "if I could."
"I know," Sadik winked, "I am the cooler cousin."
"You're also my Baba."
Sadik sighed, tilting his head slightly to the side, cheek resting against the cool pillow. He looked so small and fragile to Kuzey, who was used to the tall, muscular, and very loud man that was his father. Sadik's spark seemed to have gone. He no longer sang, or bustled about in his kitchen proudly cooking. His personality had changed drastically; he was no longer confident or competitive, just timid and constantly tired.
Kuzey hated to admit it, but he was slowly losing his Baba.
"For one so young to lose both his parents already is an ultimate tragedy. I'm sorry I cannot be here for you."
"It's not your fault Baba," Kuzey rolled his eyes, trying to ignore that they stung with tears.
"I know. I guess… we still have time though." Sadik reached out a hand, which Kuzey took. "It's not much, but it's something."
…
Tsvetan gasped and spluttered, huddled in the corner of the waiting room. He was curled up on the chair, trembling feverishly and trying not to be sick.
He needed water. Everything burned and his head seared. He wanted out. The room was too cramped. Too full of people. They talked and moved and constantly made noise, and the lights above got brighter by the second. Their body heat radiated from all angles and pressed down on him. His skin burned.
Something inside him was changing. It was becoming harder to hold onto the man he once was.
Tsvetan spied a water cooler in the corner and shakily got up, sweat dripping from every inch of him. Progress across the room was slow, but he eventually made it. He took a cup and filled it with cool, refreshing water, downing it in one gulp.
No effect.
He drank another cupful, but that didn't work either. Even the third cup had no effect. He growled and tossed the cup in the bin, wondering if kicking the cooler would get him thrown out. He decided against it, and turned around, only to find a little boy of about ten staring up at him curiously.
Another flash of anger, and he let out a snarl which sent the child running back to his mother. This time, no guilt followed and he ignored the glares of the other patients as he sauntered back to his seat. What did he care for their opinions?
He snuggled deeper into his hoodie, trying to avoid the light despite the burning heat. Make it stop. He needed cool and dark!
Another wave of pain, and he was stripped of his humanity.
…
"You are making sure my brother is perfectly looked after?"
Stelios sighed as he looked up at the large, intimidating form of Mr Adriaan Morgens. His arms were folded and he glared down at the young doctor. Next to him, sat next to a hospital bed, his sister rolled her eyes as she stroked the youngest Morgens sibling's hair.
Mr Luca Morgens was in a bad way. Although he'd been brought back to a relatively normal weight, his mental health was still far from secure. The boy lay silently in his bed, dozing- apparently- peacefully, wrapped up in baggy silk pyjamas. His bony wrists poked out from their sleeves, hands resting on his chest as it rose and fell slowly.
The patients on the psychiatric ward were usually more difficult to treat. It was all well and good diagnosing someone with a physical disease, then deciding what surgery or medicine would hopefully cure it, but problems inside the mind? That was more of a challenge and it certainly couldn't be approached from a purely clinical perspective. And Luca was a stubborn boy. His physical, psychological and social needs had all been assessed, and written up in his notes, but he was refusing to go along with the care plan.
He didn't recognise that he had a problem. He just wanted to be beautiful. So what? Everyone wanted to look good. Why was his case different? Why was he being singled out? Why was he being locked up in here with the mad people? He wasn't mad. Right?
But Luca's quest for perfection had left him a bag of bones. His soft blond hair was thin and falling out, and his hands and feet discoloured. Luca's pale skin was dry, no matter how much moisturiser he used, and his stomach bloated after years of abuse from laxitives, much to his horror.
He still didn't want to eat. Even the tiny amount of food he was being given, he refused to eat. And he always had an excuse ready. If he didn't hate hospital food, then he had allergies, or he had an upset stomach. They were getting some food into him, but it wasn't enough. They'd had to limit his water, since he drank so much to make it seem like he'd gained weight. He refused to open up during his therapies, and mostly sat and sulked in bed. Progress was incredibly slow, and it could take months for him to be discharged, and after that he'd definitely be an outpatient for several years to come.
And until Luca was better, Stelios would have to deal with his terrifying older brother.
"He is in the best place possible," he stressed, trying not to whimper under the other's glare.
"I'll be the judge of that."
"Ah come on now, Adriaan," his sister, Miss Anri Morgens, began, still stroking Luca's hair, "you're scaring the poor man."
"Good!" Adriaan folded his arms, "maybe that'll make him try to fix our brother."
Stelios could see Adriaan was trembling. There was fear behind his glare, especially when he looked at his brother. He didn't know what to do, and that scared him. Luca had suffered in silence all these years and he'd not known, and now the boy was in hospital, he didn't know how to help him. He felt guilty. He felt powerless. Stelios knew all of this.
He just wished the man would stop taking it out on him; he was just a junior doctor, after all.
Although Anri could get teary and snappy over the situation, she wasn't one to bully the medical staff. She just fretted over her brothers and asked as many questions as she could.
"We're doing everything we can for him," Stelios explained, "but I'm afraid it's all up to Luca now. The moment he responds to the treatment, the moment it all starts going uphill."
The only reason anyone found out about Luca's condition was because he'd been rushed into A&E with heart failure. Stelios had been on call at that time, and was the one to diagnose him, a considerable feat seeing as Adriaan had been shouting in one ear and Anri was wailing in the other.
"I just want my baby brother back," Adriaan whispered.
Stelios understood the feeling all too well. He patted the man's back, reassured him once more, then his pager went off and he hurried away to answer it.
As he rushed through the psychiatric ward, he caught one of the patients- Mr Hassan- waving at him and waved back. He wanted to stop and chat, but he was needed elsewhere.
…
Life in the hospital continued in its hectic, dramatic style. Dr Kirkland had to scold two young American brothers in general surgery for being too noisy. The younger brother patiently waited for his operation that afternoon to correct his curved spine, occupied by his older brother's jokes and stories. Feliks the nurse fretted over one of the patients in the burns unit, a young man with a blistered face whose cousin was being treated for carbon monoxide poisoning elsewhere. A young girl- bruised and dangerously thin- stumbled into A&E with bloodied arms and legs and a little boy fought blood poisoning in the paediatric ward whilst his friend nursed a broken arm in the bed next to him.
And amongst all that, a monster sat huddled in the corner of the waiting room, motionless and ready to strike.
But Stelios- unaware of the impending danger- simply rushed from ward to ward, wherever he was needed, just doing his job and clinging to the last shreds of the belief that he was saving lives.
