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The Nostalgia Critic threw open the double doors of the emergency room and just barely missed being hit by the left one as it rebounded. “Where is he?” he demanded to a room full of sniffling children and one very pregnant mother-to-be.
“You know those are automatic doors, right?” one of the tear-stained children asked, looking up with wide brown eyes.
“I don’t care what kind of doors they are!” Critic screamed. “I fucking need to find the Snob!”
The child, perhaps seven or eight, put one finger in their mouth. “My mother says I shouldn’t use that word,” they said.
“What?” Critic stared at the urchin. “There’s nothing wrong with the word ‘Snob.’ Where’s your mother, kid?”
“Over there.” The child pointed at the pregnant woman, who was clearly not going to be pregnant for too terribly much longer.
Critic blanched, patted the kid on the head, and jogged across the room to the intake desk. “Excuse me,” he barked, “I need to find the Cinema Snob. His friend, well, acquaintance, or I guess actually just some time-traveling dude who knows him, said he was brought here this afternoon.”
The clerk at the desk squinted at him. “Are you a member of his immediate family?” she asked, glancing down at her computer screen and then back up.
“Yes! Well, no, technically I’m his boss.” Critic glanced around the room, as if he were only just now realizing he was surrounded by the ill and the injured. The color began to drain from his face.
Leaning back in her chair, the clerk stated, “I don’t have anyone listed by that name in our database, and even if I did, if you aren’t immediate family, I’m not supposed to disclose whether they’re here or not.”
“Goddamnit!” Critic slammed his hand on the desktop. “He’s my top employee, and I need to find him!” He turned around, scanning the room. “Hey! You!” he shouted at a guy in ragged clothes, a filthy toque, and a three-day growth of beard. “Did you see them bring in a short guy, wearing all black, probably had a suit coat on, glasses, shaved head?”
The bum looked at the ceiling and chewed on his lip. “I dunno, man,” he said vaguely, “some change might help me think, you know?”
Critic made an inarticulate noise of outrage and dug two quarters and a nickel out of his jacket pocket. “Here, you extortionist piece of crap!” he snarled.
“Please stop shouting in the waiting room,” the clerk requested.
The bum pocketed the change. “Sure thing,” he squeaked. “They brought him in about two hours ago. Maybe half an hour ago, they wheeled him to the elevator. I think they said room 1005, but I’m not positive about that.”
Critic blinked, as if he were surprised that had worked. “Thanks!” he blurted, and ran back for the emergency room doors.
---
Critic strode into the main hospital lobby and marched up to the receptionist’s counter. “Hi,” he said with a too-stiff smile, “I’m here to see Craig, um -” he glanced at the palm of his hand - “Gololly? I think he’s in room 1005.”
The receptionist raised an eyebrow at him, then tapped at his computer. “Mr. Golightly is in surgery right now,” he said, “but visiting hours are until 6:30 PM, and you’re welcome to use the waiting room on the tenth floor. May I see your ID, sir?”
Handing over his license and fuming, Critic waited until they’d scanned him into the system and printed a stick-on nametag for him, then slapped it on his tie and stomped towards the elevators. “I can’t believe you were this careless,” he grumbled under his breath as he stabbed the up-arrow button repeatedly. “Who am I going to put in your slot for next week? This is unconscionable recklessness!”
He was still mumbling angrily when he stepped off the elevator on the tenth floor. Fortunately for him, the waiting room was immediately to the left of the elevator lobby, and it looked like 1005 was just down the hallway past it. He dropped into a too-short, under-padded chair and fidgeted for ten minutes straight.
A nurse drifted past and frowned at him. “Patient or visitor?” she asked.
“Visitor, what does it look like?” Critic snapped, sitting forward and pointing at the nametag crookedly hanging off of his tie.
She shrugged. “It looked like maybe you were asking for a Valium or something. Who are you hear to see?”
“One of my employees,” Critic explained, trying to calm his jittering leg. “He’s in 1005, but they said downstairs he was in surgery.”
She glanced at a clipboard. “You’re in luck,” she noted. “They should be bringing him back up any minute now, and the sedation should wear off in half an hour or so.”
Critic flung himself back into his chair. “He’s lucky he’s alive and I’m not firing his careless ass,” he growled.
The nurse shrugged and left.
Five minutes later, Critic gave up on trying to sit still; he bounced from the chair and paced back and forth along the long axis of the room, mumbling profanities until he ran out and then making up more. He’d just gotten to “cockbungling toadlicker” when the elevator dinged and a gurney rolled past with a familiar face on it.
Critic ran up behind the orderlies. “How is he?” he barked. “Is he going to make it?”
A very tired-looking woman in scrubs peeled away from the orderlies and looked him up and down. “Are you Mr. Golightly’s brother?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.
“No, I’m his boss, but let’s pretend I said yes,” Critic jabbered. “Is he okay?”
The intern gave him a very tight smile and replied, “I can’t tell you anything too specific about his condition, but yes, he’ll live. We’re going to keep him here for a couple of days for observation, but he should be good to go home Thursday morning unless something unexpected develops. He should be coming around in a few minutes, if you’d like to go sit with him.” She jabbed a thumb towards the room.
Critic darted into room 1005 as the orderlies were leaving. It was a dual-occupancy room, but the bed on the right was currently empty. Snob lay on the other bed limply, his hands splayed to either side, but he was breathing deeply and steadily.
Tugging up the hard plastic chair from the center of the room, Critic glanced around, then laced his fingers through Snob’s, gripping his hand tightly. “You hang in there,” he whispered, tears glistening in the corners of his eyes.
Somewhere in there, he forgot to actually sit down.
When Snob’s eyes flickered open, he focused on the Critic, then the rest of the room, then back to Critic with a look of deep confusion. “What are you doing here?” he asked thickly, then looked down at their clasped hands. Both of them yanked their hands back with a yelp.
Hiding the hand in question behind his back, Critic sputtered, “You didn’t call in sick to work. I had to find out whether I needed to fire your stupid ass or not!”
Snob sighed and rolled his head back on the flimsy pillow. “So it turns out that if you drink a 35-year-old bottle of an obscure New England soft drink that the inside of the cap has nearly rusted through on, you should probably go ahead and toss your cookies afterwards,” he explained, sounding drained. “I didn’t, so they had to pump it out. Not an experience I would recommend, honestly.”
“Why did you do that?” Critic exploded, waving his hands above his head.
“I thought it would make an interesting video,” Snob replied, shrugging. “Probably still will, once I can get home and edit it.”
“I’m not putting it up on the site if you die!” Critic shrieked. “I hired you to review exploitation movies, not make your own snuff film!”
Snob looked shocked for a second, then chuckled. “Well, if I do die, I won’t get a chance to edit it,” he assured Critic, “so you shouldn’t need to worry about that.”
“That’s not the point!” roared Critic. “I can’t - I don’t - do you know how hard replacing you would be?” He stared at Snob, working his jaw as if he were thinking of something else to say, then dropped heavily into the plastic chair and burst into tears.
Snob’s jaw dropped; his cheeks flared red with embarrassment, then with something gentler. He reached out, hand open, until Critic reached up and took it again; Snob closed his hand gently around Critic’s and held it until Critic stopped sobbing.