Post by GREG DECKER on Sept 27, 2022 21:21:31 GMT
If it was madness, then it was shared at least. The French had some sort of name for that – a craziness that caught more than one person up in its grip – folie à deux. He wouldn’t have said that Meredith Fell was a close associate, but in the doctor’s lounge, she’d shone a light on what he’d been sure was some sort of psychotic break. She’d stepped into that pool of darkness with him and had pretty much promised it wasn’t all in his head. Reassuring, even if the constant stream of weirdness that came afterwards hadn’t been.
Deck shrugged his shoulders beneath the starched shell of a fresh scrub shirt, his last, and the long sleeved t-shirt he’d worn beneath it were now probably being burned somewhere in the hospital by the janitor who’d hauled the stinky bag out of the locker room trash can. Apologies had been tossed at the janitor as he’d headed back out to a patient who wasn’t gonna lose his breakfast all over the guy trying to write a scrip to help with the nausea brought on by bad sushi from some road side place (anybody who bought raw fish out of a food truck that looked like it’d made the trip from Japan under water was asking for it in his book). Henry still hadn’t looked happy, but there was a gloved hand raised in acknowledgement.
Oh there was a beer in his future – Henry’s that was – his own appetite for the alcohol that had been a crutch for years had withered like the certainty that he’d lost his mind. There’d been no burning thirst in his throat as a girl had been brought in from Whitmore, two ragged wounds over her collarbone still sluggishly losing blood through the gauze the paramedics had taped into place on route, just a sinking dread that it had taken two days to shrug off.
Dark eyes lifted as there came the crunch of tires from outside. Deck worked a canine into his lower lip, the muscles in his legs seeming to coil beneath his jeans, ready to propel him right into the middle of an incoming trauma. Two minutes passed, three, the doors didn’t slide open, spilling chaos into an ER that had remained stubbornly quiet since the early morning rush had been cleared out. Another couple of minutes and the sixty-seven year old with a bum ticker and an attitude that had left one med student crying already, shuffled out of exam room five where he’d been napping, waiting for his son to pick him up after the battery of tests had revealed he had indigestion. It’d been a day for bad stomachs and bored docs. Not a good combination in this town.
Looking back down at the charts he was catching up on, Deck rocked back in his seat. If the son was lucky, he was losing his hearing young and wouldn’t have to do more than nod and grunt at his old man’s diatribe about the way the town was going to hell in a handbasket. Unsurprising when the streets of Mystic Falls were Wes Craven’s ultimate dream. And his nightmare.
The shivers still got him from time to time, hitting like the one did now. Deck felt his stomach twist and that hot rise of the coffee he’d been downing in buckets all night and into this morning on the double shift that wouldn’t end for another couple of hours spilled up his throat. He rubbed the back of his hand over his mouth, pushing the chart aside for the minute. Elbows planted against the edge of the admit desk, he dragged both hands up over his face and into the dark waves of hair that were probably in need of a shoring when he had the time for it. Keeping it military short wasn’t necessary anymore, although maybe it would’ve helped with trying to force himself into a new routine, one that centred around the fact that he now knew that he was trying to put down roots in a town where most folks seemed to either spring straight out of Grimm’s fairy tales or knew enough about them to go writing some fresh stories.
At least when it was busy he had a distraction from them. Not today though. Today he had too much time to sit and think and that always led down a rabbit hole deeper and twistier than a week’s worth of charting. Nope. Deck went to push his chair back and caught sight of another exam room door opening. He wasn’t the only one on shift, but he seemed the only one ready to tear themselves out of their own skin to stop that persistent twitchiness.
Standing up, Deck braced himself against the high counter with his elbows, watching Juliette approach. She was practically at the start of her hospital career, still caught in those years of training that seemed to take forever when you were desperate for the MD to be added the end of your signature. ”You get something to keep you busy in there?” he asked, lifting his chin towards the room she’d emerged from. ”If not, you might be a little strapped finding something to do. We’re cleaned out.” Deck figured he didn’t need to sweep a hand in the direction of the empty waiting area. He wasn’t gonna mention the Q word, that was as close to a curse as it got in any sort of emergency setting, like you were putting a call out to the universe to have the situation flipping.
Tagged: @juliette * Word Count: 932