Chapter Text
Whizzer took a shuddering breath.
Lately, it was the only kind of breath he had been taking. At first, he’d thought it was just a cough. Allergies, maybe. And then he’d thought, it could be a cold. And then as the days passed and he felt increasingly worse, Whizzer had reasoned that it must be the flu.
And now?
Well now he’d run out of things to blame the whole catastrophe on, he felt worse than he could ever remember feeling, and he was staring at the imposing glass front of a building he desperately did not want to enter. Whizzer hadn’t visited a hospital in a very long time, and he was incredibly eager to maintain that streak. However, he was also incredibly eager to continue to live and he had absolutely no idea what could be wrong with him. All he knew was that it wasn’t a cough, or allergies, or a cold, or the flu. And something in his chest told him that it could very well be something much worse. Though his life had been less than desirable thus far, it had been on somewhat of an upward trend as of late and he had been hopeful. Earlier that morning, as he had struggled to catch his breath on his bathroom floor, it had occurred to Whizzer that he wasn’t ready to give up that sliver of hope just yet.
All of which had brought him here. Whizzer’s fingers shook, but still he reached for the door and pushed it open and then he found himself inside the hospital, air that was too cold and smelled too foreign washing over him as if drawing him into the folds of a place that felt way too big for him to be there in it alone. Nonetheless, he was there and he was alone. That was how it had been for the past two years. Ever since Marvin. Since Marvin, there had been casual hookups and nothing more. Even those had been fewer and farther between. And yet, Whizzer had it together a little more now, and while he had to admit that there had been times when he had wished for it all just to end, he ultimately wasn’t ready for that. He still had dreams, somewhere underneath the layers of bravado and self-confidence that he had painted on over time. He still hoped, somewhere within him, for love and a family and some stability in his life. Contrary to popular belief, Whizzer Brown didn’t plan on existing on casual sex forever.
So he stood in the center of a bustling emergency room lobby, people swirling around him and activity everywhere, alone. Because he couldn’t breathe and it was scary and Whizzer wasn’t ready to die. Not yet. And with that thought and another shuddering breath, he approached the desk and hoped that it would be enough to want to be here.
Some time later found Whizzer in a tiny cubicle of the emergency room with an oxygen mask on his face, a papery hospital gown against his skin and only a thin curtain shielding him from the rest of the loud, busy ER. The hospital had gotten, if anything, only more frightening and unwelcoming and if everyone didn’t seem so concerned Whizzer would probably have gotten up and left. As it were, everyone who had come into contact with had seemed incredibly concerned about his well-being and so Whizzer just sat. A doctor would be with him soon, they had said. Soon, he was pretty sure, had come and gone, but he supposed that it didn’t matter. He didn’t have anywhere to be and he wasn’t sure he could get himself there in this state if he did, anyway. So he just sat and waited, breathing through the oxygen mask and not allowing himself to hope.
That is, until finally the curtain drew back with a swish and clank of the metal clips that held the curtain in place. Suddenly in view stood a dark-skinned woman with intelligent eyes and a no-nonsense air about her that was less than threatening but still made it clear instantly that this woman was no pushover.
“Good afternoon, I see your name is-” she began, but he cut her off.
“Whizzer,” he said, his voice muffled behind the mask. Quickly, he took it off. “It’s Whizzer.”
She looked up, ran her eyes over him once, glanced back at the chart, and then nodded.
“Whizzer,” she repeated. She hesitated, looking as if she were about to ask him something, and then shook her head slightly, almost as if it were more for her own benefit than Whizzer’s.
“You can call me Charlotte,” she told him, and just like that the strange glimpse beyond the facade was gone and replaced with her staunch professionalism once again. “I hear we’re having trouble breathing.”
“Among other things,” Whizzer grumbled. Suddenly, he felt incredibly nervous. He bit the inside of his cheek and tried to take a breath. That, he discovered, was easier said than done but Charlotte paid it no mind as she checked monitors that Whizzer didn’t understand and referred back to what he could only assume was his chart. Whizzer wondered idly what she was thinking, but it made him anxious to try and figure it out so he took to staring at his phone screen instead, despite not being even mildly interested in the content there.
“Whizzer.”
He looked up at the sound of his name and found Charlotte sitting at his side, looking up at him from her stool with her dark, intense eyes.
“Yes?” he asked in return.
“Are you sexually active?” she asked bluntly. Whizzer stared at her for a moment. The question seemed so out of left field that it took him a moment to process it. Charlotte was waiting expectantly for his answer, so Whizzer nodded his head.
“Yes,” he replied. “Why? What does that have to do with this?”
Charlotte didn’t answer. She looked down at her chart and then back at Whizzer, then sighed.
“Whizzer, we’re going to run some tests. I should have some more answers for you soon, but for now we’re going to get you into a room,” she said.
“A room?” Whizzer repeated. He could feel his heart speeding up beneath his chest. He had been scared enough to come here, but to stay here? To be stuck in this place with the oppressive nature of the air looming over him, pressing in on him, while he waited for...whatever he was waiting for. To get better? To die? The thought of waiting here for that, by himself, made Whizzer shiver.
“Yes,” Charlotte said, her tone a little gentler, as if she could sense his fear. “We’re going to keep you here for a bit. You’re very ill, Whizzer.”
“I noticed,” he said dryly, and Charlotte cracked a tiny smile as she rested her hand on his shoulder.
“We’re going to see what’s going on with you, alright?” she said. He nodded silently and he was going to leave it at that but as he watched her approach the door, he found himself seized by a sudden, unyielding urge to speak up.
“Am I going to die?” he blurted out. Charlotte paused at the door and slowly turned back in Whizzer’s direction. She offered him a small smile.
“Not if I can help it,” she replied. Whizzer, though not entirely reassured, felt something inside him lift slightly. He nodded his head and then Charlotte was gone and Whizzer found himself alone again, wondering to himself how much more of his time he would spend that way. And, more to the point, how much time he had left to spend any way at all.