Extremely Exhausted Starters

Her breathing had become significantly more shallow, meaning she had been far more winded than usual. Remmy hadn’t noticed that Mila had been paying that close attention. Well, this was going to be fun to explain. “Oh, you know classic battle between mankind and stairs.” She couldn’t even shrug because of her subluxed clavicle. The ribs that were also either partially dislocated or possibly cracked made her sound even more out of breath. Slipping on the one wet step and bouncing down a few steps would do that to you. To think this still wasn’t the worst thing she had dislocated, either fully or partially. “I plan on getting checked out once I take this medication back to the ED.” Her coworkers were going to have a field day with this one.

❛  you are not hard to love. in fact, you are loved by so many people.  ❜

logically he knew that Dante was right. he had more people that openly loved him than he had fifteen years ago. and maybe that was the issue. imposter syndrome that had crept up from the shadows and was attempting to curl around his ribs to make itself at home. whispering about how he'd fooled all of these people into thinking that he was something that he wasn't. into thinking that he was worthy of their love.

it had been a long time since he'd felt like this last. and he wasn't about to make a scene about it now either. though if Dante was noticing, maybe he wasn't doing a very good job of hiding it as he believed he was. or perhaps it was just that his usual lies wouldn't work on the elder.

a laugh that doesn't quite carry the humor that he'd want it to leaves him. "trust me I'm painfully aware of that. I thought people in the ED were needy. no rest for the wicked, I guess."

the audacity was astounding. and whether or not she was right was so completely outside the not conversation that it wasn't even in the same stratosphere. he'd been more than happy to just walk away. the eye contact had been enough to turn the night from decent to a dumpster fire. choosing to leave before the anger that simmered barely beneath the surface could leak out. and yet she just couldn't fucking help herself.

"don't remember asking for one. I wouldn't believe the shit that would come out of your mouth anyway. the narcissism alone is fucking insane. you don't matter. you're insignificant. I wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire. you hurt one of the most important people in my life. as far as I'm concerned you aren't worth the stars that died to create you. so no I don't want a fucking explanation. I want you to leave the state and never come back. quit showing up places you know she goes. quit calling. quit texting. do us all a favor and quit breathing."

"well you wont hear any argument from me about that." good or bad, Sterling liked to think that there was a lesson in there somewhere. though like with everything in life there were exceptions. and he saw most of those in the ED on a weekly basis. but on the other side of all that, maybe they were still meeting the right people at the end of the day.

Had Elias been overthinking the introduction most of that week? Probably. Hell, it wasn't some formal affair requiring a black tie and a rehearsed speech, nothing that warranted the amount of stress he'd laid on himself over it. Just a family dinner, one of the rare stretches when his schedule and Dylan's actually lined up long enough to let something that charmingly mundane slip through.

Still, the impulse to get it right wasn't exactly a surprise, not if he gave it a moment's thought. Between his own perfectionist streak and some distant echo of his own mother's voice had been making itself known all afternoon, that gentle but immovable insistence on good impressions and better manners. Though the voice itself was getting harder to place with any real clarity these days. He could remember the words. He was just starting to lose the sound of her saying them.

Elias hadn't realized he'd been standing so stiffly until the gentle assurance brought his focus back to the room, and he glanced down to find himself squared up like he was waiting on some inspection nobody had warned him about, hands at his sides, spine doing its best to stay rigid. The laugh came before he could stop it, short and startled at his own expense, and the heat crawled up the back of his neck right on schedule.

Fantastic.

Knowing just how ridiculous he must've looked didn't do a damn single thing to unstick him from it, though. Old habits didn't care whether they made sense, only whether they'd worked well enough once to earn a permanent spot.

"Given that I can count on one hand the number of times being asked that has ever ended with the good outweighing the bad, I'll go for the good first. Might take the sting out of the rest if I'm lucky enough."

It wasn't often Rowen ventured out of her natural habitat outside of work hours, that being the slightly dingy bar close enough to home that walking back was a genuine possibility even after one too many - a safety net and escape route rolled into one conveniently memorised strip of sidewalk. But she'd been persuaded tonight, or maybe just enticed, and if the part where she wasn't the one picking up the tab at the end had anything to do with it, well. That was for her to know.

"Alright- hit me with it , what happened?".

"Tell that to the kid and her family."

Rowen knew she shouldn't have hung around. Shouldn't have let the hours between shifts, the ones usually reserved for feeling human again after a night like that, get eaten alive by a steady, gnawing need to know. Closure wasn't something paramedics got, not often, not once wheels and pavement gave way to clean corridors and the smell of antiseptic. But she couldn't shake it. Not today. She'd made the mistake, the mistake, of promising the kid she'd be okay. The words had slipped out somewhere in the middle of a dozen readings and half a checklist, barely even hers by the time she'd said them, and once they were out there was no letting it go until she knew for certain they hadn't been a lie.

The rig had been stripped down, restocked, scrubbed spotless. She'd endured two cups of coffee that tasted like they'd been brewed sometime last week and folded herself into a chair clearly designed by someone who'd never heard of comfort in their life. She'd waited. She'd asked. She'd gotten an answer.

And none of it had settled anything that had been circling her mind like a caged animal.

"Life just flipped upside down for them." Her voice cracked at the edges, not loud, just frayed. "And for what? Because some jackass in a lifted truck couldn't wait on a red light for a couple more seconds?" She dragged a hand back through her hair, fingers catching, not caring. "Where's the fairness in that. In any of it. Any of this-"

Her leg bounced, restless, heel tapping an uneven rhythm against tile. She stared at a point on the wall like it owed her something, jaw tight, and when she blinked, it wasn't fast enough to hide what was sitting right behind her eyes.

"She's seven." Quieter now. "Seven, and she asked me if he'd still be able to dance before she asked for her mom. Because she already knew. Some part of her already knew and she asked me first." A short, ragged breath, somehow both angry and deeply saddened. "That's not supposed to be a thing a seven-year-old has to worry about."

She pressed the heel of her hand against one eye, brief, like she could push the feeling back down where it usually stayed. It didn't work, not completely, but she let herself have the one breath before she straightened again, because that was the job. You felt it. You didn't get to keep feeling it, not for long.

"Sorry- er.. thanks for keeping me posted..."

Rowen crouched lower to get level with him, one knee planted on the pavement, the other bracing her weight evenly. "Well, with any luck? We'll keep that from happening, sir. But I'm not one for panicking either way, so you're in good hands." She said it easy, like she was commenting on the weather or something equally interesting yet approachable, and reached for the blood pressure cuff from her bag without so much as a blip in conversation.

"My name's Rowen, I'm a paramedic, just here to help - okay?."

She wrapped it snug around his arm, thumb checking the placement twice out of habit more than any actual doubt. "Fair warning though, if you do go out on me, I'm still going to talk the whole time. Terrible habit of mine." She pumped the bulb, watching the dial, lips pressed together in concentration for a second before her face eased back into something lighter. Humor was always a safe bet for keeping things calm when there wasn't a need for stern urgency. Sometimes it was what someone needed in the moment, not another stony expression but something undoubtedly human, a connection that wasn't stripped completely sterile just because they were ill or hurting.

"You just focus on breathing nice and slow for me. In through the nose if you can." She glanced down at his hand, noted where it was resting, and kept her voice low and steady, the kind of manner of speaking she'd practiced on a hundred different faces and places, worn smooth and approachable even on what was , in most cases , someone's worst day that week.

The cuff hissed as it released. She peeled it off, already reaching for her penlight, movements quick but unhurried, like she had all the time in the world to work through the mental checklist.

"Alrighty, numbers are numbers, we'll deal with those in a second." She clicked the penlight on against her palm first, testing it, an old tic that had nothing to do with the light actually working. "Gonna check your eyes now. Just look straight at my nose for me - not the best view, I know."