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Seven PM at The Arconia, Mabel Charles and Oliver were hanging out at the eldests apartment. They did that a lot, and since they finally went a few months without another murder on their hands, they actually had a chance for the trio to spend some time together.
Was one of the main reasons that the OliMabel trio getting together because of how horrendous the wifi had been lately? Perhaps a little bit, but it was also really nice for the three to be hanging out. The past few months had been a constant shit-storm with one bad thing happening after the other, and now? There was finally a chance for some bonding time.
What were they doing, actually? God only knows because they couldn’t tell you themselves. Mabel and Oliver were sat at Charles kitchen table while the man himself tried to perfect his omelets even more. Even though that wasn’t possible, obviously. Endless fun possibilities.
… They were just bored, alright? They had nothing to do. Until now, which was cheering Charles on while he flipped the eggs in the pan. Oliver going onto some long rant about how he should try mixing dip with it to get the full experience. Which was what lead them onto their current ramble, one that had Mabel rolling her eyes and letting her head drop to the table as if the ridiculousness had killed her.
“- It’s fine, I guess. But now he wants to put dip in everything! You can’t put dips in eggs, I don’t care if It’s chicken.” Whatever they were talking about, Mabel had zoned out way before they reached this point. Charles just glanced exasperatedly at his gray-haired friend, who was currently stabbing a fork into the most un-appealing concoction of God knows what.
Each time Charles had fucked up an egg, not wanting it to be wasted, he gave it to Mabel and Oliver. Who had plates in front of them, Mabel’s one looked perfectly normal. Oliver’s on the other hand…
“What the fuck did you do Putnam, that is not the same omelette that Charles gave you five minutes ago.” A pause “And why is it green?” After the mumbled words of ‘That would be the Dip my dear!’ she tried to suppress herself from physically gagging.
“And Please , I don’t mix it with everything ” He scoffed, rolling his eyes in a dramatic fashion as he brought his fork to his mouth, enjoying more of the dips he’d strategically prepared.
More banter, Mabel remarking how if he even breathed in her direction after seeing him make that abomination, she’d throw up.
Charles only chuckled, shaking the pan as he tried to flip the food. The background chatter was relaxing, it was a nice distraction from all the shit that went on here. Knowing that the people close to him were safe and they were all close enough to just hang out and have a good time.
Mabel was currently laughing at some horrifically bad joke one of them made when she froze, she really hadn’t been paying attention to much since they’d walked into the apartment. So with the white lighting illuminating the room, she could really see the others.
“Oliver…?” She froze, as her friend flashed her a smile. Quickly, placing her own fork down onto the plate as she glanced over towards the other. “The… Left side of your face is drooping- Hey, Charles?”
Taking a pause from the food preparation to take in what Mabel had just said, Charles placed the pan onto the burn-proof countertops, looking over his shoulder to where Mabel mabel was staring concernedly at Oliver, who looked off.
“Pr’bb’ly n’thin..” He spoke, his words skewed as if he’d been drinking, but they were never heavy drinkers, nor had any of them had anything other to drink than Gut Milk today. It was the way he said it, Oliver’s words sounding so convinced that everything was fine and that his wording sounded right when it so clearly didn’t.
“ Are you okay?” Mabel asked, cautious, her voice sounded more unsure than his did, and he was the one that clearly had something happening right now.
“You’re slurring- Why are you slurring?” Abandoning the omelets and actually turning the stove off , Charles walked over closer, inspecting their friend.
“ S’ f’ne..!” As Oliver spoke further, his face contorted in an unsettling manner. As Charles and Mabel really looked at him, it was so- unnerving, and worrying. His left eye seemed to droop and the corner of his mouth twitched involuntarily. If anything he looked confused at the concern the two were shooting at him, did he really have no clue that something was going on?
“Can you raise your arms up in the air for me?”
Looking puzzled with the request, and acting in a sort of auto-pilot way, he paused for a moment, as if he were thinking over the instructions he’d been given like some sort of math-problem. Oliver seemed to struggle with something that should be relentlessly easy.
Well, halfly.
He’d managed to lift his right arm up just fine, as if everything was normal, and the left just… Stayed there, Oliver glancing over to the right, his eyes now frozen on his non-lifting arm.
It was like he blinked and suddenly Mabel was in front of him, leaning closer. “Hey, Hey. What’s going on , are you okay?” Something about this all felt vaguely familiar, still he tried to respond.
“S’mthins’ wr’ng?” He slurred out, Charles instantly sliding Mabel’s phone to her as she unlocked it.
“ Mabel, Call 911…? We need an ambulance, now. ” God, what the fuck was going on. It was like he’d zoned out for one second as Oliver started to slip slightly, leaning on the right side of the table, “Shit-” Charles frowned, putting a firm hand on Oliver’s shoulder to stop him from falling. “Hey, Hey!”
“Mabel, hurry.” As the phone beeped, the classing automatic response played, and then within seconds, there was a voice on the other end of the line.
It was unintelligible from where Charles was standing, but knowing how morbid and straight to the point the questions were, he was a little glad he can’t hear them.
“Fuck, Shit. I need- I need an ambulance to The Acronia apartment complex? Uhm, we’re in Apartment 14C.” The panic in the air shifted as she explained to the operator, because it was just then when Oliver dropped. Faster than Charles was able to react, or to pull him up.
The crash on the ground was terrifying, it was so terrifyingly similar to when he’d collapsed that night at the sitzprobe.
“Shit, Shit! Hes- My friend’s collapsed-?!”
As Charles tried to shake the other awake, he was practically screaming to him. “Look at me, Hey- Look at me! Mabel, tell them to hurry!” He was panicking, he was stressing badly, it appeared to be affecting her too.
“Charles- What do I- What do I say?! What do I tell them?!” Christ, he hadn’t seen her this stressed and freaked out since the night Bunny had died, that or the heart attack. God, he had to stay calm. Two people about to go into a panic attack wouldn’t help anyone.
They couldn’t have that right now.
“Shit, I think he’d having a stroke.” And just like with Bunny’s parrot, the words were repeated back into the phone, ver voice shaking as she said them. The unreadable voice began to speak again, and all of the words she spoke to the dispatcher just sounded blurred to Charles.
Time didn’t feel real, as he glanced at Oliver on the ground, he just heard static. It was like that feeling just before he went into The White Room. But it was so much worse this time. He wasn’t performing for anyone, he was just gone. Zoned out but so much in focus of what was happening. Oliver’s eyes were open and he wanted nothing more for the other to just LOOK at him.
“Cmon, you’re alright-” He lied, he wasn’t even sure if the other could understand him right now. Why was he so unresponsive yet so awake? Oliver wasn’t unconscious, yet he wasn’t doing anything.
He couldn’t tell if that loud panicked breathing sound was his or Mabels, but he felt someone guiding him a few steps back, when he saw the vibrant neon-ness of paramedics uniforms, the unfamiliar hero’s surrounding their best friend.
The sound of the Sirens, and the unmissable flashing lights of the ambulance, mixed with the reputation of death in this building had managed to collect the attention of over half the residents, many people heading down to the lobby, swarming with concerned tennants. Most mentally preparing for another death to be announced, that and a shit ton of police questioning.
But as the elevator reached ground floor with paramedics rushing out, the stretcher with Oliver fucking Putnam of all tennants on it, they were not prepared. Nobody said anything, to Mabel or Charles directly at least. They were sure they could hear hushed whispering in the background, some muttering words along the lines of, ‘poisoning?’ or ‘Was he murdered?’
Other not so nice words being spoken, asking if he was dead and that of the sort, stuff they did not want to think about or even entertain the idea.
Mabel seemed to suddenly be hit with the fact this was happening, and froze in the lobby. The rushing paramedics not stopping and still moving their friend to the ambulance.
Charles glancing back and simply saying “ Mabel?” was enough to jolt her out of it. She just blinked, not giving a shit about the way everyone could very clearly see her eyes watering heavily. It was almost like she was lagging in real time, like the faulty connection everyone was dealing with.
Quickly pacing up, she walked along side with Charles, who was more or less rambling to calm himself. “Hey, Hey, calm down. He’s fine- He’s…” The consolation got side tracked back to Oliver, which made sense, but God she really needed Oliver himself to sit up and tell her that he was fine so she didn’t feel like she was about to collapse.
“We’re going to the Hospital, alright Oliver? We’re gonna go right now in the ambulance and Mabel’s gonna come too, okay?”
Once he was in the ambulance, Mabel just stood in the back of it in fear… Shock? She stayed out of the way of the paramedics doing their job, but she stood directly at the end of the bed. Charles had put his hand into hers, a form of comfort, even if it wasn’t much.
“Charles…?” She spoke, terror lacing her tone as she stared forward.
Olivers eyes were open, and he was looking directly at her. Mabel, stood staring back.
And less than ten seconds later, his eyes began to close as his head dropped.
“Oliver… Oliver?!”
After intense hours, now leading into the early morning, the all-too-familiar sound of rhytmatic beeping continued to flood the room. God that sound was really starting to get old. But that’s what happens when you get old yourself. You’ll hear these sounds a Hell of a lot more.
So the trio was understandably pretty sick of the noise by now, especially with how often the three found themselves visiting Hospitals lately.
The pattern of the beeping began to change as Oliver grimaced, eyes squinting as he slowly opened them to the unpleasingly blearing Hospital lights. The voices around him almost sounded blurred, taking a moment to go clear as the others spoke. “ - Can you hear me?”
As his vision cleared and he was more awake, he felt overwhelmed with how the room smelled. The classic smell of sterileness and bleach. The humming of the medical equipment thankfully beggining to quiet down, the sound of the heart-monitor turning into background noise.
As he finally could see, he let his eyes trail around the room. It was quier now, but still so loud. He could see Mabel giving him that awfully-upsetting concerned gaze, one that made him concerned for her. And then there was Charles, who was flashing him a soft smile, probably meaning something along the lines of, ‘Glad you’re not dead’.
There was someone else in the room too, one person he didn’t recognise. A white long coat alongside with a stethoscope. Ah, definitely a Doctor then. Unless this was some shitty costume party event and they were at Charles apartment still.
It was strange though, Oliver didn’t recognise this Doctor, which was weird because he’d been here so many times that he could practically call all the nurses on first-name basis.
“I’m glad you’re awake, how are you feeling?”
Oh, well he had a killer headache, that was for starters. And he felt like he’d been run-over on half of his face. But besides that, he was good. “I’m… Fine.” He spoke, his words taking a moment, they were clear now, even if they were spaced apart.
“Mr Putman, you experienced a stroke last night. You’re lucky that your friends reacted to quickly, or this could’ve been worse than it was. We’re going to be keeping you in to run some more tests, at request of Miss… Mora and Mr Haden-Savage.”
Ah, of course.
As the Doctor continued to explain, he finally left the room leaving the three to talk. There was silence for a moment, and it finally dawned on him that wow. Whatever happened last night actually happened.
“Well, that was an experience.” Oliver stated simply. “Did you two miss me?”
“God you’re a fucking idiot, you scared the shit out of us, of course we missed you.” Mabel sighed, way more visibly relaxed than moments ago, now that she could see the other infront of her awake and talking. He was being stupid, did they miss him? Of course they did, even if they hadn’t actually left. Besides when the Doctors kicked them out so they could work.
“Sorry about the whole nearly dying thing, too close since the last time?” He questioned, looking to get Charles and Mabels opinions.
“Definitely, please don’t give us any more near death experiences ever.” Charles sighed, practically rolling his eyes at the absurdity of the question.
“I’ll try, but you know you still love me.” That was the closest the two were gonna get to an, ‘I love you guys’, so Mabel just hummed, knowingly.
“Yeah, yeah. We love you too, or whatever, now c'mon.” Before Oliver even had time to react, in a heartbeat Oliver and Charles were leaning in. The three laughing at the stupidly sappy hugging.
As they shared that wholesome moment, not breaking the hug, Oliver couldn’t help but resist. He had a question, and God he needed to ask it.
“Anyway, do you think they have dips here?” He snorted at his own stupid remark,
“Okay, that’s enough from you, I don’t want to hear or see Dips again ever. ” and Mabel audibly groaned, the three breaking the hug a few seconds later.
She may be the youngest of the three, but God those two were gonna give her a heart attack.
But hey, with the three together, it was good to be back.