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He’s aware of what’s going to happen an hour before it actually does.
Dennis has had exactly one seizure before in his life.
It was a few years ago now, when he was newly homeless. Luckily, he had managed to get a cot in one of the usually packed shelters that was close enough to his university, but unluckily he had started seizing shortly after arriving there. The shelter’s staff assumed that he was on drugs and, instead of getting him some help, had kicked him out shortly after his limbs had stopped jerking.
He didn’t go to the hospital afterwards — no matter how much his head had hurt and his muscles had ached — so he never discovered the reason for the seizure. Dennis spent the weeks following the incident full of anxiety — terrified of a repeat performance — but, after about a month with no more episodes, he finally let himself relax and chalked it up to an unfortunate freak accident.
Now, though, he’s mad at himself for not investigating it further, as he’s pretty sure he’s going to have his second ever seizure.
He doesn’t really remember how he had felt in the lead-up to the first one besides tired and hungry, but he’s almost always tired and hungry so that doesn't narrow anything down. Besides that, though, he can’t pin down his exact symptoms from memory, but what he’s experiencing now is pretty much straight from his medical textbooks. It’s like an aura, almost — a rising swell in his stomach, a fizziness in his head and the taste of pennies in his mouth. He noticed it when he first woke up — a sense that something wasn’t right, that something would go wrong today — but he wasn’t sure what it was until that feeling grew to be what it is right now.
Oh god, I’m going to seize at work, he cries internally, his current nausea increasing as his stomach drops at the thought. Now that he knows what's going to happen, he's frantic, sweat beading on the nape of his neck as he quickly glances around at the others at the central desk of the ED.
I can’t be here!
He cannot seize in the middle of the ED, in front of all his coworkers. His last seizure didn’t seem too life-threatening — only lasting a minute or so if what the homeless shelter staff told him is correct — but the mortification of having a medical emergency in front of everyone will kill him. He just knows it.
I need to find somewhere to hide.
His first thought is the abandoned floor he used to call home before Trinity found him, but he’s not sure he can make it there before the seizure gets him. He’d hate to start seizing in the elevator and have his unconscious body travel up and down the whole hospital building, but taking the stairs is also ruled out as he’d really like to avoid any head trauma from falling down the stairs to his list of injuries.
Hurriedly looking around, Dennis glances down a hallway near the South rooms of the ED that he remembers leading to a small storage closet that only houses a meagre collection of cleaning supplies.
Perfect!
He can go in there, have this seizure (that he hopes doesn’t go on too long; he’d hate to leave his coworkers in the lurch), then sneak out. As far as secret-seizure plans go, it sounds pretty solid to the medical student.
Plan now cemented in his mind, he starts to make his way over there, trying to look as normal as possible. Making his legs move is harder than usual; he feels like he’s wearing lead shoes while wading through a pool. He knows he must be walking a bit funny, but he’s trying his absolute hardest not to draw any attention to himself.
No such luck.
“Whitaker, a minute please,” Robby says, somehow silently appearing behind him, his hairy arm coming up and around Dennis’ neck in a casual headlock. Usually, Dennis doesn’t mind how much his attending seems to touch him — to grab and manoeuvre him around the ED by his shoulders or hips or the small of his back — but he can’t handle it right now.
He has bigger things to deal with than his overly tactile teacher.
“Sorry, I can’t right now,” he says quickly, worming out of Robby’s loose grip and continuing down the hall. He had hoped that the attending would get the message and leave him alone, but, hearing footsteps following him down the hall, he knows it was a futile hope. Of course he’d come after me; this is just perfect. Even though he knows he can't outpace the longer-legged man, Dennis speeds up a bit as he rounds the corner.
“Dennis, wait,” Robby says, catching up to the lanky man, grabbing his shoulder and quickly spinning him around (an action that has vomit rising higher up Dennis’ throat) to make eye contact.
“Are you okay? You’re really pale.” The older man sounds concerned, his big brown eyes creased in worry as he looks down at the clammy, shaking younger man.
They’ve finally arrived in front of the storage closet Dennis was aiming on collapsing in, and the med student knows he doesn’t have long left to explain before he hits the floor. Really, he’d prefer to not have to explain anything — the original plan had been to just hide away and deal with it himself — but he knows there's no way Robby would leave him now, especially if Dennis does look as bad as he feels.
“I’m pretty sure I’m gonna have a seizure,” he manages to grit out, jaw clenching tight as he fights off a fresh wave of nausea.
“What—” Robby starts, hands dropping down to hold and steady the younger man’s waist. It looks like he wants to say more, maybe ask how he knows or maybe shout for help, but Dennis interrupts.
“I’ve had only one before, years ago. I’m not epileptic and don’t take any meds. Please don’t make this a big deal,” the med student explains, tacking a plea on the end. He really, really doesn’t want this to be a thing.
Robby, once again, goes against Dennis’ wishes as he immediately yells for help.
“I need some help over here!” He shouts down towards the central desk.
“No, Robby, please—” Dennis begs, tears welling in his eyes due to a combination of both the impending seizure and all the attention now on him. Already, Dana and Jesse are running over, both exclaiming his name when they notice he’s the one needing medical assistance.
“Dennis, sit down,” Robby orders, hands on his hips tugging him closer to the floor, “let’s not have you bust open your head. Just relax, I’ve got you.”
And, as much as Dennis wants to protest, it seems it’s too late to. As soon as Robby has him sit on the floor, he’s a puppet with its strings cut, immediately toppling over to the side.
“I’m sorry,” he cries out, tears now spilling down his face and over his nose, dripping onto the linoleum floor, “I’m sorry.”
Robby shushes his cries, petting his hair now.
“You're okay, Dennis. You're gonna be okay.”
And then, with his body locking up tightly and his eyes rolling back into his head, Dennis finally starts seizing.
“Shit, help get him on his side!”
A steady beeping is the first thing Dennis becomes aware of. He knows this sound, has heard it a million times before.
A vitals monitor?
I’m at the hospital?
Confused, he reaches out more with his other senses. It certainly smells like he's in a hospital, the classic (and comforting, to him) smell of antiseptic strong in the air. In terms of touch, he can feel that he's lying on a bed, covered with a kind of scratchy blanket.
I fell asleep at the hospital? Oh my god, did I fall asleep during my shift?!
Panicking now, Dennis tries to open his eyes but finds it very difficult to do so — they feel so weighed down. When he finally does get his eyelids to obey him and open, he’s immediately assaulted by white, fluorescent lighting. He quickly clenches his eyes back shut, a whine escaping him as he does.
“Oh shit, one second,” a voice says. There's some rustling, the sound of someone moving around him. “Sorry, Dennis, the lights are turned down now.”
Robby. That sounds like Dr. Robby speaking. Did he catch me napping? The med student thinks, already anxious at the thought.
Cracking his eyes open again, more hesitantly this time, Dennis can see he was right. Robby is sat by his bed, looking more tired than usual but still handsome (in a rugged way). He looks like he could use a nap; I should give him this warm bed.
“I'm sorry,” he says, or tries to say, really. What comes out sounds wrong to his ears, though, all garbled and gruff due to how dry his mouth is. After swallowing the thick saliva in his mouth down — grimacing at the taste — and wetting his chapped lips, he tries again.
“I'm sorry, Dr. Robby, I—” he repeats, trying to sit up but finding it a Herculean task, only managing to lift his neck up slightly.
“Don’t,” the older man interrupts, getting up from his chair and standing by the bed, firmly pushing Dennis back against the blankets with calloused hands on his shoulders. “Don’t you dare apologise for having a seizure. While I am mad that you didn’t tell anyone sooner, I’m not mad that you had one.”
A seizure! He exclaims to himself, shocked that he, however momentarily, forgot that he had one. But, with Robby’s reminder, he remembers his disastrous attempt at running away from both a seizure and his clingy attending.
A seizure.
His second ever. No wonder I feel so bad. Besides his dry mouth that has a terrible taste and his reluctant eyelids, all of his limbs feel weak. Like, seriously weak. Trying to lift his arm, he only gets it a couple of centimetres off the bed before it falls back down, shaking with exertion.
“What? How… how long?”
Robby, satisfied that, at least for the moment, Dennis won’t be jumping out of his bed, pulls back from the younger man and drags a hand down his face.
“Almost too long,” he says after a minute, sounding weary. “We pushed Keppra once it seemed like you wouldn’t come out of it by yourself, but even then it took another minute and a half for your convulsions to stop. You woke up a bit right after but fell unconscious again soon after, you’ve been asleep for about five hours.”
Five hours?! That’s the most continuous sleep he’s gotten in a long time. Honestly, he’s surprised he didn’t sleep for longer.
“You said you’ve had one before,” his attending asks.
After receiving a nod in response, Robby continues.
“How long was that one? And why isn’t it on your medical history, which is also weirdly empty. Knowing you, I’m sure you got injured loads as a kid, but besides the general info like your blood type and some immunisation records, there’s nothing else. Care to elaborate.”
Dennis gulps. The older man’s previously tired tone has turned terse, causing the bedridden man to cringe.
“The first one was three years ago and only lasted a minute. I didn’t get it checked out ‘cus it wasn’t a big deal; I felt okay afterwards,” Dennis starts to defend, trying to sink as much as he can into the thin hospital mattress. “And, there wasn’t a hospital where I lived as a kid, just a small clinic, but my mom knew enough to patch us up. I never needed anything more than a few bandages,” he finishes, looking the opposite way from his teacher, hoping his lies aren't as transparent as he feels.
He doesn’t think he can tell the other man the truth — that he couldn’t afford being seen after the first seizure and that his parents didn’t care enough about him to have him seen by a doctor after the many injuries and ailments of his childhood — without breaking down, and he can’t afford to break down right now. If he does, he’s not sure all of the talented doctors in the hospital combined could put him back together.
After another minute of silence, Dennis allows himself to glance back at the other man.
Robby looks like he wants to ask more about his childhood and his lack of a medical history — he has the dangerous glint in his eyes that Dennis has associated with the older man wanting to dig in more — but then seems to reel himself in and instead focuses on the previous seizure.
“You're a doctor, Dennis, and a pretty good one, too. I know you know that a first-time seizure needs medical attention, and — while we will be talking more about why you failed to get any — we can save that for after we get the results back from all the tests we've ordered. I hope you don't have anything planned for the next few days, because we're holding you hostage here until we've checked everything.”
“Wait, is that really necessary? I—” Dennis starts to protest, trying again to sit up, but is interrupted for the second time.
“You really scared me, Dennis,” Robby admits quietly as he stares down at the younger man. “You scared all of us. I’ve never seen Santos so worried, it was kind of weird, really. I can admit it’s hypocritical of me to ask with my track record, but please, just let us help you.”
And really, how can Dennis continue fighting when Robby sounds as wrecked as he does? Sighing loudly, the med student lies back down against the pillows and gives a small nod in assent.
“Okay, fine. Knock yourself out.”
Robby chuckles a bit at Dennis’s dramatics and then gently tucks a stray curl back behind the young man’s ear. Dennis shivers at the action, eyes closing as he takes a deep, steadying breath.
“I really am sorry, Robby. I shouldn’t have tried to hide — I knew it wasn’t gonna work anyway, not with you in the building.”
The doctor gifts him with a small smile, brushing his unruly hair back once more before pulling away from the bed and grabbing his hoodie.
“You're right about that, kid. Don’t worry though, I'm not here to punish you,” he says as he slides the garment on.
Dennis sighs in relief, knowing he'll never live this down but no longer worried he'll be fired because of this.
“I let Jack know what happened though and he's coming in for his shift early, so I'm leaving the dressing down to him.”
The heart monitor speeds up and Dennis goes paler at the mention of the night shift attending — the other older man who Dennis can't seem to shake.
“Have fun!” Robby sing songs, walking out the door.
I am so dead.