blackstarkink

Standing in the ambulance bay, Frank considered the fact that he never started smoking. Mom and Dad had been graphic about the “this will kill you” message regarding all vices, and then he’d gotten super spooked when, as a med student, he couldn’t save a patient whose emphysema complicated a severe pneumonia. That was when he decided he didn’t want to be the patient whose body just…had nothing left to give.

However, in moments like this one, when he needed (1) a breath of air and (2) something to shut out the fluorescent lights, yelling, beeping, whirring, random bouts of laughter, and occasional crying in the ER…he kind of wished he had something to do with his hands. As it was, he was simply standing outside in the middle of winter. Cold nipped through the long-sleeve shirt he wore under his scrub top. Said shirt, from last winter, kept doing this annoying thing where it rode just a little bit up his belly. He hadn’t considered how much difference a year could make—yeah, yeah, stupid; he has the token and everything; he should know—but this sign was an inch of soft skin and the underside of something that hadn’t had sides when he bought this shirt.

All that said, this was happening underneath his scrubs, which were loose. No one saw it, but he sure felt it.

He leaned against the wall, from which the cold bit into his back. It was a dry day and deceptively sunny, but god—nothing bit like Pittsburgh winters. With a sigh, he ran a hand over his chest, left and right, then slid it over his ribs and squeezed. That he had something to squeeze wasn’t new per se; it just felt…loud, today.

He started his morning in triage to help out. There, a patient—a pearl-clutching boomer woman who’d given Samira a hard-fucking-time because you-know-exactly-why—informed him that doctors shouldn’t be fat.

He sent her home with Tylenol. It was honestly the right thing to do, but it felt nice to give her drugstore meds and send her on her bitter way.

Still, it lingered. It bit into him along with all the other “doctors shouldn’t” lines that criss-crossed his brain like barbed wire. Doctors shouldn’t be addicts. Doctors shouldn’t have late-diagnosed ADHD. Doctors shouldn’t suspect they have anxiety but feel too self-conscious to seek a diagnosis. Doctors shouldn’t be fat.

He pressed his fingers into his belly. He was definitely fat, so…he was probably, definitely, all those other things, too. Which meant, what? He didn’t have the words for it, or maybe he did, but he also had too much pride to be able to think them; instead, he rested his head against the wall behind him while also imagining knocking his forehead against the metaphorical, emotional wall in front of him.

“What are you doing out here?”

He jolted, and there was Dana, cigarette in hand and coat thrown over her shoulders. At him, she gave him that look, the one with a half-smile and furrowed brows. “Where’s your coat? Gonna give yourself a cold.”

“I, uh—” was going to be out here for a minute until I dissociated, “—have a lot more insulation now, Dana.”

She blinked.

He blinked.

What?

If he hadn’t been comfortable before, the warmth bleeding from the back of his neck to his shoulders sure was helping out now. Swiftly, he dropped his hand from where it cupped his belly. He clasped both hands in front of him, realized that lifted his belly such that it plumped over his arms, then folded his arms over his chest, only to realize that emphasized how his belly was now, sort of, a bit of a shelf.

He dropped his hands to his sides.

Dana laughed to herself and took a drag, eyes closed.

“Those’ll kill you,” Frank said, aware it was unhelpful, but he also couldn’t help himself. Typical.

Dana hummed. “Gonna tell Robby on me?”

“He’ll laugh in my face.”

“Exactly.” Dana turned her head toward him, eying him up and down. He felt a flicker of shame try to catch fire in his chest again; did she think the same thing as that patient in triage? Did everyone? Doctors were supposed to be— “Why don’t you pop back to the break room before the cold gets to you? It’s Vivi’s birthday; Perlah made cupcakes.”

Frank blinked, feeling like he really did get smacked in the face this time. “I shouldn’t—”