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This is…nice, Diluc almost hates to admit. Though he knows that isn’t fair. Sitting in the living room of Eula’s apartment with Jean, Eula, and Kaeya, it…it almost reminds him of before. Of their childhood, before everything went wrong and before his father died and before…well…
It’s nice and Diluc hates the fact that it stopped because of him.
When the urge to go to the bathroom comes, he stands and waves off Kaeya’s questioning look.
“I’m heading to the bathroom,” he tells them. “I’ll be back shortly.”
Kaeya only nodded and continued with his conversation with Jean. Diluc headed for the stairs and that was when things…got weird.
He had felt a slight pain in his abdomen upon standing but it was only three steps up that his entire body seemed to rebel and suddenly he felt lightheaded and weak. Still, he continued up the stairs anyway. It wasn’t that bad and he was sure he could ignore it.
But the longer he was up, the worse it grew. He knew this feeling, had experienced it too many times in his childhood. He felt faint, like he was going to pass out. The feeling made him nervous but he headed for the bathroom anyway, closing the door behind himself and thinking that surely everything would be fine.
But that feeling only got worse. First came the heat, that feeling of suddenly sweating and suddenly being too hot. Then came the restlessness, the inability to stand still. The discomfort in his body grew and he knew it was only a matter of time before he passed out and collapsed.
So, flushing quickly, he slowly laid himself down on the cool tile floor, breathing heavily as he tried desperately to quell the feeling. His abdomen still hurt, that feeling of having to piss still in his body. But standing most certainly wasn’t going to happen, not when the dizzy and lightheaded feeling hadn’t passed yet.
Still, he didn’t want to be lying on the floor. So he pushed himself up because surely he was fine, surely he could make it. He opened the bathroom door, stepped out, and—trying not to panic or make too much noise that someone thought he had collapsed—lowered himself to lying on the floor as swiftly as he could.
Something’s wrong he realized fearfully as sharp streaks of pain shot through his body from his abdomen and his bladder. Something is really really wrong.
Breathing heavily, trying not to be too scared, he pushed himself up again and stumbled with one hand around his abdomen to the nearby bedroom. He made it swiftly to the bed, lying down as more pain washed through him, his entire body tensing in response. When it faded, he could feel his limbs trembling minutely, a terrifying feeling.
Any attempts to sit up came with the realization that it wasn’t just standing that brought on the threat of passing out, but sitting up too. Which made lying down his only option. He hoped that lying down would make it better. That if he just lay down for a few minutes, he’d be fine.
But every few seconds, that pain came again and every time it faded, his body shook worse. He’s not sure how long he lay there before finally deciding to text Adelinde, who was away for the evening for personal time. He hated texting her when she took time off, but she was like a mother to him and truthfully? He was starting to get scared.
Diluc:
I don’t feel good.
I feel like I’m going to pass out.
Every time I stand up I feel faint and I can’t sit up either.
It didn’t take her long to reply.
Adelinde:
Maybe you should lie down
Diluc:
I am. I’m in a lot of pain, it really hurts.
Adelinde:
You should tell Kaeya.
You shouldn’t be alone, just in case.
And Diluc certainly agreed with that, so he shot a quick text to his brother, hating the fact that it was growing harder to text with the way the pain made his fingers quake.
Diluc:
Hey, can you come up here for a second?
He waited, somewhat patient and mostly scared. That dizzy, lightheaded feeling still not faded. The pain so bad his entire body tensed and he had to press a hand to himself as hard as he could, in any effort to relieve it. Each wave made him shake more and more, his hands almost too weak to even lift his phone and send a text to Jean, when it was clear Kaeya wasn’t seeing his.
Diluc:
Hey, can you send Kaeya up? I need him.
It took Jean a few minutes to reply before she simply reacted to the text with a thumbs up. That was good enough for Diluc as another wave of pain had his weak hands setting his phone down. A few minutes later, Kaeya entered the room, worried.
“What’s wrong?”
“I don’t feel good,” Diluc confessed, hating the way the pain made his voice shake as much as his hands. “Something’s wrong. Every time I sit up or stand I feel like I’m going to pass out.”
And of course Kaeya was worried. His own father—not Crepus—had died just a few months prior so of course Diluc being suddenly unwell was going to make him paranoid. Coupled with Diluc’s medical conditions, well…
They did what they could, tried different things that could have helped soothe it, Kaeya even going so far as to helping Diluc empty his bladder, as that was related to his medical condition, maybe that was what was causing problems?
No such luck. The pain and trembling and faint feeling remained.
Adelinde:
Maybe you should go to the ER
Diluc hated that. He hated going to the ER, had gone too many times in his life for frequent problems relating to his condition. But he was scared , so he agreed and told Kaeya in a voice that shook,
“I think I need to go to the ER.”
And Kaeya agreed. Jean had come up a few minutes earlier, to check in, and Kaeya updated her. The problem now was just going to be getting Diluc back down the stairs and to the car.
With Jean on one side and Kaeya on the other, they carefully helped Diluc stand and helped him to his feet. It was slow going, every step make Diluc feel worse and worse. They didn’t get far before he shakily proclaimed,
“I’m going to pass out. I need to lay down.”
They were gentle as they helped him to the ground and as Diluc lay there, helpless and weak and breathing heavily as his body rebelled against him, they discussed their options.
“He’s not going to make it down the stairs like this,” Jean said.
“I can carry him,” Kaeya offered.
Diluc was so tired, so exhausted from the sheer effort it took to be in pain. For your body to constantly feel like passing out. He felt a little better, though not much, once Jean helped him onto Kaeya’s back in a sort of piggy-back motion and only felt a little bad for wrapping his arms tightly around his brother’s neck.
They got to the car and Kaeya helped him into the passenger seat before getting into the driver’s side himself, Jean getting into the back.
“I’ll meet you there,” Eula offered. “They’ll only allow one person into the waiting room with him, Jean will need someone to take her home.”
So Eula went to get the other car while Kaeya drove to the hospital. Diluc was relcind in the passanger seat, exhausted and hardly responding. His body felt weak and unwell. The hsaking, at least, had stopped and the faint feeling was fading, replaced with something leaden and heavy.
Jean reached up and patted his shoulder and oh , the touch almost burned in how much Diluc didn’t want it, already feeling overwhelmed and over stimulating and wanting nothing more than to go to sleep and make everything stop .
A security officer stopped them at the door, while Diluc lay listless in the car. He informed them that only one person could accompany him in. Some sort of new policy due to the rather contagious illness going around.
Kaeya offered and the security officer assisted in getting a wheelchair while Kaeya and Jean helped Diluc out of the car. Once he was settled into the wheelchair, they got him inside while Jean and Eula reluctantly returned home.
Heading up to admittance, Diluc still felt exhausted though at least he could sit up. The pain had long faded and so too had that sensation of fainting. Kaeya was answering questions but when he got Diluc’s birthday wrong , Diluc overcame his disinterest in speaking to answer.
They did hit a snag, having to call Adelinde to ask about Diluc’s medical insurance since the ER needed information he didn’t have. Eventually they got admitted and headed back to the ER.
Sitting in the ER, Kaeya had to ask,
“How many glasses of water have you had today?” Maybe it was just dehydration.
“Eight,” Diluc replied. And it was the truth. Somehow, miraculously, he could remember every single glass of water he had had and if Kaeya had asked, he would have been able to report exactly what time he had had all eight glasses.
After about three hours of sitting, they were called back to a room where tests were done and Diluc was asked to pee in a cup. At this point, he felt perfectly fine beyond the exhaustion. He was up and chattering while Kaeya sat silent and, as Diluc assumed at the time, annoyed in the corner.
He wasn’t annoyed. He was scared. Diluc just didn’t know that until months later.
The nurse came back in, eventually. It wasn’t anything exciting. The hospital wasn’t their usual hospital, one closer to Eula’s apartment. It meant this hospital didn’t know Diluc and they didn’t have his records. It meant they’d never seen his type of condition before and thus, couldn’t tell what was wrong.
So they gave him the option. They could treat him with a prescription for the infection he suspected he had due to past experience or he could just go home. At that point in the morning, two AM, all Diluc wanted was to go home.
So he declined the medication. He didn’t really feel like that was the problem anyway. He’d had dozens of those infections over the years, it had never presented in such a way. He doubted it was the case now.
Of course, they refused to let him go home, proclaiming that he was too dehydrated so they needed to give him IV saline first. He and Kaeya just rolled their eyes at that, after the nurse left. Of course he was dehydrated, they hadn’t given him any water.
They finally left at four AM, returning to Eula’s where she quickly hugged Diluc, her worry bleeding into the embrace. Due to the hour, everyone was quick headed off to bed, exhausted.
The next day, Kaeya and Jean were away for work, leaving Diluc alone with Eula. Not that this was a problem. Or at least until Eula insisted Diluc couldn’t shower as he wished to until Kaeya returned, just in case he collapsed.
After all, they had never received any sort of conclusion as to what caused Diluc’s ‘episode’ the night before.
They could guesstimate, of course. Away from home, Diluc had had to get a different type of his medical supplies, due to running out of his own. Perhaps that was it?
Or Diluc hadn’t been irrigating often enough. Maybe that was it. But no. Diluc had gone longer than a few days without it. That surely couldn’t have caused such a reaction.
A few nights before the episode, he had been unable to sleep—wide awake for twenty-one hours straight, officially getting up for about an hour before exhaustion and the lack of clear thinking finally sent him back to bed for three and a half hours.
But all those were were guesses and two years later, Diluc still carried his phone with him every time he went to the bathroom, just in case. The idea of being in that situation without any way to contact anyone or ask for help was…
Something he hoped to never endure.