Even with the hangover and fatigue, we were both up well before lunch time. My head pounded and throbbed, my stomach a little watery from the toll of the night before, Fox's whining forcing a groan between my lips. Carlisle had made both of us breakfast, sitting to eat with me at the table - before rushing back to the kitchen and violently losing anything he'd swallowed into the sink. It took everything I had not to wretch in response. Instead, I pressed my forehead against the tabletop until it was over, listening to him run the tap and pant to get his breath back.
"It's been a while since you've been sick like that," I murmured. Fox nudged at my ankles, her tail winding around my shin, and I dropped one hand down to scratch between her ears.
"My stomach's upset," he mumbled back. "I thought toast would be fine, though."
"Do you think it's from the kids yesterday?" I knew I had to look at him, despite the tensing in my stomach, just to check that he didn't look too horribly unstable. I picked my head up from the table to watch him rinse his mouth out, coughing and narrowly avoiding a repeat episode.
"I don't know; I just don't feel right this morning." Still out of breath, he turned off the tap, keeping his hands firmly on the bench top to stop himself wobbling. When that wasn't enough, he turned to slide to the floor, pressing his spine into the cupboard door as he dropped his head onto his knees.
"Dizzy?" I asked wearily. There was no way this was going to end well if I couldn't get a hold of myself. There was a tense pause before he managed to respond.
"Mmm."
"Do you need help to get to bed?" We needed Alistair - I shouldn't have had so much to drink; if he threw up near me, I was going to puke in retaliation. Alistair, however, had also been out the night before, with the friends that my husband had apparently blown off to go to my niece's birthday party. That was going to come back and bite him in the ass later. It also meant that his best friend was most likely as out-of-action as I was.
He fractionally shook his head.
I took another scalding sip of coffee, cautiously keeping my eyes on him. "You sure?"
"I need a minute, Gar," he mumbled.
Skeptical, I watched the clock on the wall until a full minute had passed before bothering him again. "Are you sure you don't need me to help you?"
He stretched his legs out in front of him, resting his head back against the cabinet. "Yeah, just let me sit here for a bit; my heart is racing."
"Because you were sick?"
Another small nod.
Giving up, I left him alone for a little while, letting the cat crawl into my lap. "Have you fed Fox this morning?" I asked eventually, as an excuse to get him talking to me, to prove that he was still able to. Feeding the cat was generally his job in the morning and he'd always been consistent with it, but Fox could be a convincing liar, and there was the odd occasion where he hadn't been well enough to follow through with it.
He groaned at me. "Don't you dare open that can of cat food near me right now, Garrett, I swear to god."
I chuckled into my coffee mug, swallowing away most of my teasing. "She's been fed though?"
"'course she has; she's taking you for a ride." His words slurred slightly, the colour dropping from his cheekbones, but he had enough sense left to lie on the tiles before the faint hit, sinking sideways until he was horizontal.
"Alright, now you really need to get it bed." I pushed my chair back with my legs as I stood, setting the cat back on the floor before I straightened. He was out once I got to him, starting to shiver on the linoleum. I pressed my hand against his forehead. "Carlisle, hey." The shock of the temperature seemed to help, jarring him momentarily back into reality.
"Dizzy," he repeated in response. The attack passed after a couple of minutes, his breathing regulating enough that he shakily let me help him up. I all but dragged him down the hallway, getting him into bed before he started to look uneasy, mumbling that he thought he was going to be sick again. I set a bucket beside the bed before I abandoned him. We'd both end up a mess if I stayed to watch him vomit, and he seemed semi-self-sufficient for the time being - enough not to let himself choke, anyway.
I watched TV for most of the day, dozing on the couch with the cat until the late afternoon. A trip to the fridge proved we had no edible food, the vegetables wilting away and uneaten leftovers needing to be thrown out. I would need to go out again if we were going to have a meal tonight - my gut wasn't about to handle missing another one. Surrendering, I went to wake Carlisle.
My suggestions for dinner were met with pleas for water, gatorade when I told him I would go to the store. He looked more miserable than he had this morning, clammy and shaky while he cocooned himself in blankets, fighting sleep. It seemed hard for him to stay awake long enough to talk to me.
"You took your evening medication early, huh?" I guessed. I pressed my shoulder against the doorframe as I watched him, my voice rendering him conscious briefly. I'd started giving him control over what he was due for the day each morning, somewhat as a trial run to calm my own nerves before I relinquished everything to him. Most of the time, he was sensible with it. Most of the time.
"Y-yeah."
"It's not even 5pm, Carlisle." I already knew it was a redundant argument while he was like this - I couldn't do anything to reverse the sedation. We'd run into this issue before, where he'd give up for the day and take the dose far too early in order to knock himself out for the evening. It wasn't a healthy habit but I couldn't stop him from doing it without infringing on his independence again.
"Not feeling well," he mumbled.
I sighed and gave up, coming closer to kiss his temple. "Don't get up while I'm gone; I'll only be a couple of hours, at most." God knows he'd only fall while he was that tired.
"'kay."
.
.
It wasn't Carlisle. I was sure of that. He had barely moved since I'd left, and certainly hadn't been out of bed. He also had absolutely no reason to have gone through all of our kitchen cupboards, many of the doors slightly ajar and the draws rifled through. I gave the cabinet I'd locked, the one with the sharps and the pills, a cautionary tug. Thank god it didn't budge.
My nerves prickled as I did a sweep of our small apartment, creeping to check for any signs of an intruder. Maybe I'd just been messy earlier this morning - nothing else seemed to be touched, nothing stolen. By the time I reached our bedroom, peeking under the bed just in case and glancing in our closet - still no one - I felt stupid. It must have been me.
I sat back on my side of the bed to calm my nerves. It disturbed him enough to drape his arm over my legs, shifting closer once he found he couldn't move me. "I thought you said you'd be a few hours," he mumbled to me.
"I was; I've been home for ten minutes," I said slowly. My hand trailed down the back of his neck as I tried to regulate my pulse.
"...that medication must be going to my head; I swear I heard you in the kitchen." He didn't seem to think anything of it, shifting to rest his head against my thigh.
My blood ran cold. "When, Carlisle?"
"An hour ago? Maybe longer? I heard you leave, but I thought you'd come back not long after. I fell asleep." He was too sleepy to catch the urgency in my voice. My silence bothered him though. "What's the matter?"
"Nothing," I conceded. I shifted my hips down the bed to align with his, to let me coil my arms around his waist, hoping he couldn't hear my heart beat as he pressed his cheek against my ribs.
"Did you decide on dinner?"
"Are you interested?" I already knew the answer to that. It earned me a quiet groan. I pressed a kiss against the top of his head as I chuckled. "You're feeling that good, huh?"
"I'm just tired," he mumbled into my shirt.
I settled for rubbing between his shoulder blades, slipping my hand under his shirt when it seemed to soothe him a little. "You took your tablets too early. Don't worry about it now; go back to sleep." It was easier to ride out my paranoia while he wasn't watching it. I forced steady breaths while I stared at the ceiling.
"Feeling okay?" he asked eventually. The question took me off guard after he'd been quiet for so long, while I assumed he was asleep.
"Me?"
"Yeah."
"Everything's fine, Carlisle."
.
.
It had been a weird night. Carlisle had woken me up twice to tell me that someone was trying to break in, that someone was jiggling the lock on the front door and he could hear footsteps in the house. The first time, I'd been equally as nervous after the previous day's incident. The second time, it got on my nerves a little. Even after we'd thoroughly checked the apartment, it had been difficult for him to settle. It didn't hamper my ability to sleep at all - I was out like a light as soon as he stopped talking to me about it.
Still, he accidently woke me a third time when he'd gotten up to check the door on his own. That ended in an argument as he got back in bed, and I locked my arm around his waist to stop him getting up again, forcing him to promise that he wouldn't.
We were both tired and snappy come morning. He had made us both coffee, only managing a few sips of his own before asking if we could go out for breakfast.
"You really want to?" I frowned at him. He was already exhausted, pale, and I doubted he'd slept at all in between episodes of frightening himself. He'd already been at the table when I'd woken up, quiet as I sat across from him. Still, he nodded determinedly, and I couldn't deny that a bagel sounded really good. "Aren't you tired?"
"It's not so bad," he mumbled.
Repressing a groan, I set my mug back down on the table top. "Does this have more to do with wanting to be out of the house than it does with breakfast?"
"Maybe." He let a few tense seconds pass before caving. "It's just- it was a long night, and I just want to be outside for a while, and-"
"It's fine, Carlisle." I stood up, quickly leaning down to press a kiss to his lips once I'd crossed around the furniture to reach him. "Put on a jacket, and we'll drive; it's freezing outside."
He caught a fistful of my t-shirt to pull me back to him, murmuring a 'thank you' before and bringing his mouth back to mine.
.
.
I wasn't sure it was him at first. I knew I was rude, blatantly staring at the man against the opposite wall, but my gut told me it was him. He'd cut his hair, but his cold eyes were the same. I didn't want to scare Carlisle. Not when he was managing to eat a little. I'd managed my meal, sipping my second drink while he struggled through half a toasted sandwich - even if he wouldn't admit it to me, I knew he wasn't feeling good. Still, he was halfway through telling me about his latest project at work, hesitating once he realised I was focused on something else.
"Garrett?" He started to turn, to glance behind him.
"Keep looking at me," I told him sharply, snatching his wrist across the table. "Don't look away."
"What-?" Confused, he glanced back anyway. He either hadn't seen him, or I was paranoid and the man wasn't Caius.
"Nothing," I mumbled. "Don't worry about it."
"You okay?"
"Yeah, sorry."
"What's happening?" He already looked worried, without knowing the danger I thought he had been in.
I slid my hand down to latch on to his fingers. "I thought I saw someone I knew; it's alright." Still, I kept watching the look-a-like, just to appease my paranoia. Nothing bad could happen as long as he was in my sight. Over the next fifteen minutes, I went back and forth with myself, silently debating whether it really was him, and how I'd get my husband out of the shop without panicking him. The man wasn't paying any attention to us, focused on his phone as he sipped at a disposable cup, but it didn't fully appease me.
Carlisle moved before I'd figured it out, pulling free of me as he stood up. "I have to go to the bathroom; I'll be back in a minute." He was gone before I could stutter out that he shouldn't. I just kept my eyes on the other man. We needed to get out of here - I got up to pay for our food, still watching from the corner of my eye.
I'd glanced away for a few seconds, just to swipe my card through the machine and put in my pin number, but he was gone when I looked back. My initial relief to see his table empty, his things gone, was short lived as I saw the dark colour of his jacket disappear through the restroom door. Shit.
I bolted before the server could hand me my receipt. The air was knocked out of my lungs the second I opened the door, my body slamming back into the wall as my husband violently collided with my chest. My initial shock faded as he kept repeating Caius's name to me, frantically trying to push me back into the restaurant, his breaths so hard and fast I doubted he was getting any oxygen. I glanced over his shoulder as he shoved me backwards through the door, seeing the absolute disbelief on Caius's face as he watched us leave.
He hadn't followed us here. His obvious surprise to see Carlisle cleared any doubt in my mind about our meeting being intentional. But that didn't change the state of shock it'd put my partner in. He was set on bolting for the exit - having broken away from me and rushing for the street whether I was coming or not. I was glad that I'd paid already; he really wasn't about to wait for me. I didn't think he was even aware of it.
Despite the waiter's confusion, I rushed to follow him, stumbling out onto the pavement as my jacket caught on the restaurant door. "Carlisle!" My call went unheard. In his blind panic, he'd flown in the opposite direction from the car. I pushed myself to catch up to him, snatching the back of his jacket to stop him before he jumped into traffic to get across the road.
He screamed. Screamed, as the force of it jerked him back. Throwing an elbow deep into my ribcage, he twisted so hard that he fell to the curb, dropping out of my grasp as my wrist bent back. He'd winded both of us, his mad scramble to get away from me sending him back toward the road.
I grabbed his bicep with one hand, my fingers digging into his flesh, the other fisting the front of his shirt as I desperately dragged him back onto the safety of the sidewalk. He still wasn't looking at me. Looking at anything. Instead, he continued to squirm and thrash, unable to breathe enough to make any sound, violently lashing at me the more I held him to get free. I fought to get enough air into my lungs to speak.
"Carlisle- it's me- it's me," I pleaded, forced to drop him again. His head hit the pavement and he lurched from me, blindly slamming into the side of a parked car so hard he calmed a little. "It's me, baby, you've got to stop," I gasped.
"Get the fuck away from me!" he shrieked as I stepped closer. He dragged himself to his feet, edging around the back of the vehicle toward the street for a third time as cars rushed past us.
"You're going to get hit by a car- we've been together for two years; I'm not going to hurt you," I reasoned desperately, holding my hands up in front of me. "Please. It's just me; I'm not him." He was going to get me arrested if he didn't stop. People were already glaring at me like I was a monster. "Come on, Carlisle. Please." There was an agonising silence as they stared and we locked eyes.
Finally, it seemed to sink in. His shoulders slumped and his gasps turned into soft sobs. He let me close my arms around him and guide him away from the cars, starting to come apart. His arms tangled around my neck and he buried his face in my shoulder, going easily when I pulled him toward the shops.
"You're okay," I soothed, panting to get my breath back as I hugged him to me. The longer he shook and hyperventilated, the more I realised that he wasn't about to calm down. Defeated, I peeled him off me, holding his wrist as I ushered him back toward our vehicle. "Breathe, Carlisle, you're going to make yourself sick."
The attack had eased somewhat by the time I had him bundled up in the car again. He abruptly locked the door as soon as he was inside, trembling and gasping and frantically looking around outside the vehicle for any sign of Caius. The insane behaviour didn't relent until we were a few blocks away.
"What the hell was that?" I asked eventually. The shock was wearing off, and the aches from where he'd lashed out were starting to set in.
He was still struggling to breathe when he finally did answer. "I-I don't know." He shoved his fingers under his thighs, pressing his temple against the window as he swallowed thickly.
"I'm serious. You almost caused an accident by running into traffic like that, are you crazy? And you could have gotten yourself killed," I scolded, my shock quickly turning to anger.
"I-I thought you were him, and you were grabbing me, a-and-"
"You attacked me, Carlisle!"
"I'm sorry." More tears, dripping onto his jeans as he kept his head down, and I was too numb to be able to comfort him.
My ribs were aching and my wrist throbbed, the scratches up my arms stinging as my eyes burned. I kept looking at the road to avoid him. I didn't know how to process whatever had just happened, and didn't entirely trust that he'd gotten through the episode.
"Garrett." His voice shook as though he still was scared of me.
I ignored him, hoping he might get it together. I needed him to. I couldn't deal with this.
He didn't. "Gar, please-"
"Don't," I snapped.
"I need to get out of the car," he persisted anyway, choking back a sob. "I can't breathe- I'm bleeding-" Immediately, he'd sent himself back into the depths of another panic attack.
"Stop it." I hated myself for it but couldn't take it back.
.
.
We were both covered in bruises. Carlisle had grazed both arms from falling on the road. Ripped his hands and knees open. Scratched his face. We hadn't spoken since I'd snapped.
"I'm sorry," he whispered again, glancing at me as we stood two feet apart in the elevator. He was nervous of me now, uncomfortably against the wall as he pressed his spine to the corner, apparently unable to stop the silent tears. The scrapes on his palms were welling with blood, starting to drip, his attempts to rub it away on his jeans making him wince.
"It's alright," I said stiffly. I walked ahead of him when he lingered as we reached our floor, unlocking the front door and stepping into our apartment without waiting for him.
"Garrett…" He shut it behind him once he finally followed me, having lurked in the corridor so long that it was obvious, only coming in to lock the door once he was too nervous to stand there alone. "I'm sorry."
"I really don't know what to do right now, Carlisle," I admitted. "You're bleeding through your shirt, though." I'd raised my hand, to catch his sleeve to see the damage, but he lurched backward with wide eyes. I couldn't swallow away the hurt.
"I-I…"
"You need to clean up, or you'll keep bleeding." I needed him to get away from me, just so I could think. We needed a hospital trip realistically - he'd hit his head really fucking hard, having slammed his shoulder into the curb as well, and was progressively having more trouble walking. I couldn't look after him. Wasn't equipped to.
He nodded, getting as far as the hallway before he paused. The words wouldn't come out, the silence very quickly becoming awkward, until he surrendered and went into the bathroom.
I sat at the table. Pressing my forehead against the wood, I struggled to get a hold of the emotion lodged in my chest before I called Alistair. He was due to be here in an hour anyway, so that I could leave for work, but told me he'd leave immediately. It all went to hell the moment I heard his voice. He can't have been understanding what I was telling him through strangled tears, but agreed to come over nonetheless.
In the time it took for him to arrive, I'd checked on Carlisle and confirmed to myself that I couldn't handle looking after him today. It hadn't been too alarming when he wouldn't respond to me. I'd assume that he'd relax a little once Alistair was there, if I was part of the problem. He hadn't changed clothes, still soaked from the rain outside, pink patches of diluted blood on his sweatshirt, no doubt transferring the stain onto the bed sheets. He had crawled into bed regardless, shivering, breathing unsteadily. We'd need to change the bedding. Or rather, Alistair would need to.
"I love you; I'll be back in a couple of hours," I promised, crouching down to level us. Even if it made me a terrible partner, I needed to go to work to get out of the house, to get away from all of this for a little while. Either that, or I'd end up hurting him. Glassy and vacant, he mumbled a quiet 'yes', his hand drifting to grasp at mine as I touched his cheek. "Al is going to stay with you." I pulled the blankets up closer around his chest, the kiss I pressed to his temple not garnering a response, my frown involuntary. "You gonna be okay?"
"No," he answered after a difficult pause.
"I don't know how…I don't know how to help you, Carlisle," I admitted. I threaded my fingers through his hair, sighing at the definite bruising coming out across his temple and cheekbone, gravel from the road still in the grazes. "You knocked your head pretty hard, huh?"
"...want to go to sleep…" he mumbled.
"Can you, while you're like this?"
He took a deep breath, shuddering. "Can I take one of the pills, so I can sleep?"
Despite the vague statement, I understood what he was getting at. "I don't think that's…Is that really what you want? You want a sleeping tablet so you can knock yourself out before lunchtime?"
"Y-yeah. I don't feel right and..." When he caught wind of how reluctant I was to let him have it, his mumbles turned to pleas, desperate.
"Carlisle…Fine, baby, but please be careful with yourself." He'd feel awful, but at least he'd be able to calm down a little. He couldn't be in pain if he was asleep, right?
He barely managed a small nod, humming his consent.
"Promise me, Carlisle," I insisted. "It's going to make you dizzy; you've got to be careful."
Another nod.
I was sure that was the best I was going to get out of him. It felt wrong, handing over the tablet so he could escape consciousness for a few hours. Alistair was going to kill me. Still, I could hardly deny him that with the morning we'd had. As I pulled on my uniform, I weighed up staying home, what it would cost if I just stayed.
We'd fight, maybe - probably not anymore, with how sleepy he'd be. My desperate need for time alone, for us to be apart, could technically be met if I just stayed in the lounge - he'd be none the wiser if he stayed in his current condition. And then I'd still be able to keep an eye on him. Except I still didn't know what to do with him, how to make any of this better, how to cope with anything that had happened this morning.
Alistair let himself into the apartment in the middle of my meltdown. I'd hyperventilated until I felt sick, barely managing to hold it together so that I didn't melt into a soppy mess the second he saw me. "You alright?" he asked me skeptically.
I nodded, sucking in a breath to try and clear the tension from my chest. "Y-yeah. This morning has just been hard."
"You alright to go to work?"
"I need to get out of the house for a bit, I think."
"You can go out without it being to work; why don't you go to your brother's?"
"He won't be home. We need the money, anyway."
He hesitated, scraping one hand through his hair as we looked at each other, before he locked me into a hug that I didn't entirely consent too. "Look after yourself, Garrett."
.
.
The peace and quiet I found in the white noise of the vacuum cleaner had lasted a few hours, until I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket. Most of my anxiety had died down while I'd been busy, while my coworkers joked around like everything was normal. The missed calls lodged a pit in my stomach, hurting a little as I killed the machine and pushed my way outside.
"Don't be mad," Alistair interrupted as I answered.
"What happened, Al?" I groaned.
"Are you feeling better?" he pressed. He wasn't doing a very convincing job at pretending he was calm, and I immediately suspected that my husband had had another meltdown.
"Alistair." His name came out as a whine, my pulse starting to race.
There was an uncomfortable pause, long enough for the sound of wherever they were to filter down the phone line - he definitely wasn't calling from home. "He passed out, I think." Alistair started to ramble about not being able to wake him up enough to get him off the floor, about my husband being dizzy and unable to move until he'd called an ambulance.
That wasn't so bad; I relaxed just a little. "He's essentially had a sedative a few hours ago, Alistair; he's going to be pretty sleepy for a while - he's just going to have to sleep it off. I don't think the doctors are going to be able to do anything about it," I reminded him, trying to be patient. As if today hadn't been stressful enough without an unnecessary trip to the emergency room - Carlisle would freak out about it later.
Again, he hesitated for so long that I thought he might have lost service, except the background chatter continued. "I think you should come here; we're waiting for x-rays, but they're worried he's broken his back."
I had to swallow back the immediate wave of panic, the wave of cold that washed over me. "Is he awake enough to talk to me?" It was difficult not to immediately bombard him with questions as I jogged back into the building to find my manager.
"Uh, he's- just come?"
.
.
The tortuous half hour it took me to get from work to the hospital seemed to last a lifetime. My husband had been all but strapped to the bed, the blocks on either side of head keeping his neck still, the heart monitor that was getting all too familiar wired to his chest and various drips running through the port in his arm. "Did you call Garrett? Did he say he would come?" he mumbled to his friend, his breathing hitching every few seconds.
Alistair had his forehead pressed against the edge of the mattress, looking down at his feet as he sat in the chair next to the gurney, one hand locked around Carlisle's wrist. "Yes; he'll be here soon. Don't make yourself sick again - you're breathing too fast."
"I need-" He cut himself off with an involuntary whimper, Al picking his head up to look at him as Carlisle covered his mouth with his free hand, neither of us able to figure out what had spurred it on.
"Is it the pain?" he pressed anxiously. "Are you nauseous?"
"Please call Garrett again?"
"I'm here, Carlisle," I tried to soothe, choking down the lump in my throat. It looked worse than it had this morning. He was still wearing the same clothes, but the bruises and scrapes I'd been too selfish to notice at the time were very obvious now, tears having washed streaks in the dried blood on his cheek. Although I originally had started to reach for his hand, I found myself trying to brush his hair away from his face, kissing his temple when my appearance made each breath shakier. "What'd you do? What happened?" It took absolutely everything I had to keep from freaking out, my hands on him more for my own comfort than his.
Dazed, he was barely comprehending my questions. "Think I passed out. I don't really remember, but I wanted to go to the bathroom, and then we were in an ambulance, and now I'm here - and I still need to pee," he explained to me, my frown at Alistair earning me a shrug.
"I don't know either," he admitted. "I didn't hear it - I went to check on him, but he'd gotten up at some point and collapsed in the hallway."
"At least it wasn't on the tiles this time," he offered back. Alistair scowled harshly at him, but I doubted he could see anything other than the tiles above him with the way he was forced to lie.
I made myself calm down a little before I spoke to him again so I didn't freak him out. My words still came out far too frenzied. "Can you move? Do you- can you still feel everything? They think you've broken your back?"
"Yeah, it just hurts to shift my legs," he mumbled.
"Nothing's numb?"
"Just sore," he corrected again. Tired, he was on the brink of falling asleep, weakly squeezing my hand back when I locked my fingers through his. "Really sleepy, though."
"Rest, then." I forced myself to sit down, to quiet hovering, nervously squeezing his fingers.
.
.
Over the next hour, Alistair and I became more and more impatient, worse still as the sedative wore off and Carlisle started to become more aware, obviously uncomfortable. He was starting to try and move, each little shift making him wince. My urging to keep still wasn't helping.
"I have to pee kinda bad," he mumbled eventually.
"I think you have bigger problems right now, Carlisle," I sighed. "You have to keep still though; you can't get up. Unless you want me to help-"
"No- I'm fine, I'll wait." Even thinking about it made his face red, but he still rolled his eyes at me as I chuckled. We were quiet for a while, while I linked my fingers through his and he tried to fall into an opioid induced sleep despite the discomfort. His grip on my hand tightened suddenly. "The scan results should be back soon, right? It must have nearly been an hour by now? I can get up once it's clear?" he asked anxiously.
It had been an hour and a half, but telling him that wasn't about to help the situation. "Yeah, but if you have fractured your spine, you're not going to be going anywhere. I don't think you're going to want to leap out of bed, even once you are allowed to move."
"It can't be broken - I have to pee."
"Sound logic," Alistair offered without looking up from his phone.
The longer it took, the more he started to come undone, continuously shifting and fidgeting, his fingernails digging into the thin mattress under him. The morphine the nurse gave him each time he admitted to it hurting didn't seem to be managing the pain, the nausea it caused only worsening the situation. "You need to keep still, baby."
"I can't - I really have to go to the bathroom." Starting to get panicky, he tried to move against the brace, Alistair standing to stop him at the same time as I pressed his shoulder back against the mattress. "I need to sit up- I don't feel well."
"You can't move right now, Carlisle," I reminded him. "You could paralyze yourself if you don't hold still." The reminder didn't make a difference while he was dizzy and sick and not thinking clearly.
"Can you get the nurse?" he asked suddenly.
"You really can't wait any longer?" I sighed. I couldn't see this ending well.
"I'm gonna throw up- I can't move, and-"
Alistair was instantly in the hallway to flag someone down, leaving me with Carlisle as tears welled up and threatened to spill over. "It's okay," I murmured to him, slowly stroking my fingers through his hair. "It'll be alright."
It wasn't until Al was out of the room that it was immediately clear he'd been struggling to hold it together, something about being alone with me instantly crumbling him. "I heard something crack when I fell-" The tears came quickly then, a silent sob jerking through his body. "If my bones have started breaking, then it's progressing despite the treatment and I couldn't stop the bleeding this morning and-"
"We'll manage, whatever happens." I stood as the nurse came in, another wave of pain relief and antiemetic through his IV line. He still started to vomit about a minute later, the nurse summoning an orderly just in time to roll him onto his side before he choked. The usual queasiness never hit me, gone completely as my husband tearfully pleaded with him to let him get up, his clothing shifting to show the damage underneath, Carlisle begging him not to give him anything else through his IV in case it made him throw up again.
The pain seemed worse once he was flat again. The nurse, looking concerned now, tried again to get him to take something, while he frantically explained that his stomach hurt and he couldn't handle anything else. The man tried to assure him that it would be just a little longer until he could get up, and he blindly agreed just to get him out of the room.
I took his hand again, the only comfort I could offer him. It stung that I couldn't help, that all I could do was stand there and watch him struggle. Alistair had bailed completely, still out in the corridor despite everyone else having left the room.
"If I've broken my back-"
"If you've broken your back, then we'll look after you until it's healed. We'll manage, Carlisle, I promise."
He sucked in a sharp breath. "I still really have to pee."
.
.
He looked like he was going to puke again when the receptionist came in to tell us his insurance had declined. He'd gotten so pale that he was starting to match the eggshell of the walls, calmly and quietly giving his details again, and remaining rigid until she came back and confirmed it was invalid.
"I'll call the company tomorrow," I promised him. "We can do anything about it right now." It was pointless and taking everything I had not to freak out as well, a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.
Five minutes later, the doctor was explaining that although there was no break in his spine, he'd cracked his pelvis and strained the ligaments in his neck, that there was fluid in his lungs and he'd need antibiotics, minor internal bleeding in his abdomen and he'd need more medication to keep it from worsening, that the disorder was finally affecting his bone density, that he needed stitches in some of his wounds. He didn't move, didn't reply for so long that I wondered if he'd listened past the first sentence.
"Can I- I need to get up," he stammered out eventually.
The man frowned at him. "It's a stable fracture; you're able to walk with it, if you can tolerate the pain, otherwise you'll need to spend a few nights in hospital; we can organise crutches once you're ready to go home." He watched disapprovingly as Carlisle started to free himself from the sheet, no longer listening, already pulling the equipment off himself.
"Chill," Alistair scolded. "Jesus, Carlisle."
He was far less enthusiastic the moment he tried to sit up. His hands flew back to his neck and he held his breath, looking far less steady with his feet on the ground, needing to sit on the edge of the mattress. "Shit."
"Careful," I murmured. I stood in front of him to block any descent to the floor. Watching his face, I reached over to snatch a cardboard bowl from the holder on the wall, sure that 'just in case' was actually going to be very soon. "Take it slowly; I don't want you to end up on the floor again."
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I'd thought our trip to the bathroom had gone uneventfully until I'd gotten him back in bed. Quiet and shut down, he was barely breathing, tense and squeezing my hand so hard I wondered if I'd ever regain the feeling in my fingers. "Are you in pain?"
"Moving really, really sucks," he replied tightly.
Alistair pushed the call bell for the nurse without waiting for him to ask, quietly explaining the issue in the doorway where Carlisle couldn't protest to it. The man was understanding, promising to try something else and returning shortly after with the medication and a warm blanket.
My husband remained absolutely miserable until the nurse started pushing waves of pain relief through his IV. Whatever it was had been strong enough to all but erase the pain. Carlisle was far happier - relaxed even, despite Al and I still being on the edge of our seat. The more I tried to talk to him, the more I was sure that he wouldn't be remembering this experience, if his coherence was anything to go by. It was far better, even if he wasn't making all that much sense anymore. The walls were starting to close around me by the time I was sure that it wouldn't hurt for me to duck out for a couple of minutes, and I didn't give Alistair a choice in it as I abandoned him.
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I wasn't sure what I'd walked into when I came back. Al was bright red, frantically whispering while my husband tried to keep himself from laughing. "Stop it, shut up, dickhead," Alistair was telling him. "I'm going to smother you with your pillow if you don't knock it off. I'll spike air in your IV line-"
"Please, you'll only be jealous when he has to give me mouth to mouth," he grinned back. "He's your type, no? Why're you so squeamish?"
"I hate you."
"That's mean, you liar." He was laughing now, the jarring of the motion flashing pain across his face as his ribs ached. "Ow- fucking hell."
"Whatever, Carlisle. He won't be allowed to fraternize with the patients anyway," he grumbled.
"You're not the patient - as long as he doesn't flirt with me, he's fine."
"He was flirting with you," Al huffed, gracing him with another eye roll.
"He was not."
"You're high as a fucking kite and you don't know what you're talking about."
"Gaslighter!" His heart rate shot up on the screen, the three of us looking up at it as the monitor screamed.
"Careful, take it easy," I warned. I linked our fingers together, squeezing his hand lightly. He'd gotten paler, the colour not returning to his cheeks as he tried to catch his breath again. The nurse was back too, watching from the edge of the cubicle, drawn in by the incessant beeping. When it didn't rectify itself, he snuck behind me to adjust the parameters on the screen, frowning at Carlisle.
"Do you have chest pain?" he asked. His fingers pressed against his wrist to confirm the wavelength on the monitor, the blood pressure cuff inflating again around his bicep. "Are you lightheaded?"
"A little," he admitted.
"What brought that on?"
"I think I got a little over excited - it's been a long time since Alistair has shown an interest in dating again, but he was just saying how cute he thinks you are, and-" He cut himself off as his friend fled the cubicle, the nurse chuckling while my boyfriend bit back a smile. "Can I give you his number?"
The man's face flushed scarlett. Aside from Alistair apparently being into him, I couldn't tell why Carlisle was bold enough to assume he was gay - he was certainly more relaxed with the whack of opioids in his system. Still, the nurse gave him a shy nod and let him scribble it down on a piece of paper which he stuffed deep in his pocket.
"Happy with yourself?" I teased once we were alone in the cubicle together.
"I'd be much happier if Al stopped moping," he grinned back. His smile dropped suddenly. "I don't think I'm going to be able to help pack, and-"
"Carlisle, you weren't going to be able to lift anything anyway - you can sleep through the whole thing, and I'd be fine." Of all the things he could have chosen to worry about right then, I was glad it was only that; I doubted he'd be able to think clearly about anything that had happened today until the drugs were out of his system. Tomorrow was going to be awful.
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