RP Log with geniuscowboy | The L Word
[Follows THIS and THIS]
Chris exited the OR into the scrubs room, peeling the surgical mask away from his face and then pulled his cap off. It was soaking, and he hadn't even realised he had been sweating that much under the lights of the OR. Another bleed in Jeff's kidney and they had to go back in to fix it, but there was a collapse in the renal column, and in the end, Proctor just made the decision to have the kidney removed, or Jeff wouldn't have made it. Despite what went down in the ER earlier, and the shit with Serena's ex prior to that, Chris managed to keep his trauma surgeon's head on and led the surgery with as much poise and ease as he did any other day. He wasn't so sure he would manage it now the pressure was off, though. The patient was saved, and the surgery was over. With the kidney gone, Jeff's BP came back up and his prognosis would be good now, after a bit of a recovery period.
He turned the taps on in the large stainless steel sinks and then rested his hands on the edge of the sink, just listening to the water gushing into in. It drowned out the whirr of thoughts that were trying to come back, and when he heard the doors of the OR open again, he pulled himself up, clearing his throat with a small glance at Serena as he grabbed the surgical soap. "Good job," he murmured, turning the taps down when he started to wash his hands and arms. The water prickled his skin, dragging him back to reality again. He just wanted the day to be fucking over. The jury was still out as to whether he would go back to Rick after work, or even go and see Dave. Probably neither, the way he was feeling.
"Thanks," Serena replied as she went to the other end of the sink to give Chris space. She had no idea why she should even give him space when it was the last thing she wanted. She knew she'd fucked up in hesitating to shut Jeff down after his bombshell proclamation, and now she was paying for it. She wasn't even sure if she could tell Chris that. They didn't need to be overheard. She let out a heavy breath through her nose and scrubbed at her skin almost hard enough to take off the top layer of skin. "Is Dave okay?" she finally asked him, risking a glance at Chris. "I assume that's who the call was from."
Chris' eyes closed briefly as he continued with the clinical scrub, wishing it didn't take so long. He needed fresh air. Badly. For the first time in a long time, the OR was feeling oppressive and suffocating. Water and air was more than a vital need right now. "I don't know, I didn't really talk to him," he replied and shut the taps off. His scrubs were sticking to his back from the sweat and he was glad he at least was one of those guys who wore cologne and deoderant, or he would probably be absolutely reeking by now. "He was in the ER, just not for him... for Rick. I need to go out and get air. I can't breathe in here." He exited the room, hoping his words didn't actually sound like he was trying to cut her off. He wasn't. It wasn't going to do anyone any good if he got around in sulking mood.
Serena couldn't chase after him until she finished scrubbing out, and for a long while all she was left with were own thoughts. She just hoped Chris really hadn't meant that she wasn't supposed to follow him. She wiped her hands clean and almost bolted from the OR to catch up with Chris out on the balcony. She pushed her hair out of her eyes and leaned against the railing next to him. Her hand touched against his, the closest she could get to holding his hand while they were at work. "Rick's here?"
Chris nodded, his eyes narrowing just a little when all the thoughts got tough again in the bright Miami sunlight. "Dave got him here late last night..." He let out a slow breath and wet his lips. "Strange huh? Only not. Not when you finally get all the facts. Facts everyone else was privvy to but yourself, leaving you feel like a gigantic dickhead." He rested his arm on the balcony railing and then put his head down in the crook of his elbow. It probably looked weird, but he didn't care. Proctor would just have to relinquish the weird person's hat for one day so Chris could wallow in it for a little while.
"The cancer," Serena breathed out. She felt her shoulders slump as she looked down at Chris. "I wanted to tell you that I knew. I wanted to be the one to jog your memory. Dave told me about how he'd told you the night you got drunk. It was agony for him knowing you didn't remember and that he'd have to tell you again. So many times I just wanted to say something. I'm sorry, Chris. I'm so, so sorry. Is Rick okay? Did something happen with the operation?"
"But Dave should have been the one to tell me, right?" Chris just laughed again, only there was no humour behind it. The irony of it all seemed like it should be amusing, but it just wasn't. Everytime Chris thought about first Eva telling him about Rick's cancer, and then Rick telling him about Dave's cancer, it came like a firm kick to the nuts. He stayed in the stooped position, his face buried in his arms. A couple of tears escaped, but they got soaked up by the sleeve of his scrubs. "Post-op infection. Dickheaditis. Sure he'll be fine..."
Serena moved so she was turned towards Chris and rest her hand lightly on his back. Right then she didn't give a shit who saw her and this might just be the moment she wound up paying for it. It had been a long day, but Chris' had been longer. "I love you," she said only loud enough for Chris to hear. "Just so that Jeff isn't the one to tell you. Pretty sure everyone but you is suffering from dickheaditis. Even me. I told him after you walked out that I was in love with someone else. And I am. I'm a fucking Beyonce song! I'm crazy in love with you, and I can't help it. Last night just nailed that for me, and when I was trying to tell Jeff about my boyfriend... It just clicked in my head. I know I've made some mistakes, but this is one mistake I don't want to make." She rubbed her hand against his back and swallowed thickly. "Post-op? Jesus... At least he's here to get the proper treatment, right?"
It was tempting for Chris to just stay there and hide, try and crawl into the crook of his own elbow and not come back out... if that was even anatomically possible. Any other day, and he could have dealt with this better, but right now, it felt impossible to take in what she had said. He rose up again, his hands coming to curl around the railing and finally turned to look at her, not having any clue what he was supposed to say, Beyonce song or not. "What do you want me to say?" he murmured quietly and then he gave a small, helpless shrug. "I can't do that today. First your ex, and then Rick, and then Dave... I don't feel like a Beyonce song. I feel like a fucking bad Alice Cooper song. Maybe that bed of nails one, because I feel a bit like I have been crawling around on one. All I need is for Proctor to walk out here and tell me my job is screwed. My brother could die. He could... die," he repeated and then put both hands over his face when the realisation felt like it smacked him in the face with the force of a steel pole.
"I don't want you to say anything," Serena replied as she wrapped her arms around her middle and just watched him helplessly. Why were they always at the hospital when she needed to just hug Chris the most? "Just ignore it for now. The Beyonce song can wait. We need to get you out of the Alice Cooper one first, but maybe it's not meant to happen yet. I'm sorry about Rick, I really am. I know I said I wanted to smack him, but hitting a cancer dude's just wrong. Proctor's not going to come out here and tell you your job is screwed. My ex was just a fucked up coincidence. Those are two controllable things."
Chris was listening. He could hear her and he knew she was trying to help him. But there was no fighting the shock that just came for the moment and the tears finally came, wetting the palms of his hands when they fell silently. He just nodded and then turned his back to the glass walls so he was facing out over the balcony again. At least if anyone walked past, they wouldn't see he was crying at first glance. "I'll just smack your ex instead. It might make me feel a bit better," he said roughly, the words choked. It was only a joke though. He always joked in tough situations to try and lighten the mood a little.
Serena bit her lip before she reached out for him, and tried to make the hug as platonic looking as possible. She couldn't not comfort him when Chris was losing it. "Maybe we could make him wear the duck hat, as well. It's the least he could do."
"No chance. I think Proctor whacks off in it every night," Chris returned with a slight laugh that still wasn't quite managing to eventuate into anything. His chest hurt so much, feeling like someone was crushing his heart. He was still angry, but that was getting overtaken by other things now. Serena telling him she loved him was just placed on top of that pile. The tears were still dripping down his cheeks and he wiped them away with his hand. "Why did you hesitate?" He looked at her, waiting for the answer, even if his eyes were red and damp, and he probably looked like he belonged in a horror movie wielding an axe and breathing like Darth Vader.
It took everything in Serena not to wipe at Chris' tears for him, or to kiss them away. She just wanted to take him home and snuggle it all better. Forget the world for a little while and just be them. Her nose crinkled as a smile tugged at her lips in response to the mental image of Proctor and the duck hat, but it faded again at his question. "Because I didn't want to blurt out that you were the one I loved. My lying skills aren't so great in the face of a shock like my ex telling me he still loves me. It's not because I feel anything for him, I don't. Other than just a fondness for someone that did mean something to me at one point. But he's the past, Chris. He just needs to get back into it."
Chris was tired again, and he was hoping to hell they didn't get more incoming and that the Jeff dude stopped crashing on them. He wanted to go home to sleep, only he knew that he probably would just end up going to check that Rick was okay... or that he was still there, rather. He wasn't exactly holding his breath for that. All he hoped was that Rick listened this time. Getting out with a post op infection like that could, and probably would, kill him. He hugged his arms around himself, tucking his hands in underneath them to lean on the railing again. "I wasn't really buying that you were so surprised to hear it, though. He seems pretty hung on you. I wasn't particularly surprised, more just dumbfounded that he actually went there with an audience." He put his head down on his arms again. "I feel like crap."
"People go loopy when they nearly die. It's a proved fact," Serena joked softly. She pulled back from him to give him some space again and glanced down at the people passing under them. She'd told Chris she loved him at the worst possible moment. This day really couldn't get any worse. "It was beyond stupid what he did, and I still have ideas of shoving an IV up his ass. Or just hitting him with it. I can't believe he's hung up on me. It's been over a year! A fucking year! Shit changes. We weren't any great loves. We weren't epic, we weren't amazing. We just were. He needs to experience amazing. He needs something real. I'm not his real. Can I see you tonight? Just to sleep. No sex, no dates. Just be with you."
It was probably the ex factor that made it impossible for Chris to absorb what Serena had said to him. It felt like a knee-jerk reaction, something he didn't want to visit until the ex was damn well as far out of the picture as possible, not still there after his life had been hanging in the balance. People might go loopy when they nearly die, but in Chris' experience, it was also when people became the most honest they had ever been. "A year's not a very long time. Some could still say you were rebounding," he pointed out from where he was still buried in his arm. Anyone passing would probably assume he was sick, or dead, or maybe just somewhere around the middle of the both... which is where he felt. "Think m'gonna go see Rick..." he said, uncertainty hedging his words. "I think you need to come with me for that." It was a thought that verbalised simultaneous to jumping into his brain. If there was any chance Rick was staying in town, Chris had to come clean about Serena because he just did not have the energy for anymore secrets... his, or anyone else's.
"I've had HRG for the rebound. Maybe you were technically in before him, but pretty sure he got any and all rebounding well and truly out of my system. I did the stupid texty clingy thing and it was all over and done with. A year's long enough when I've changed cities, joined Alpha Team and had my clicker fixed." Serena tilted her head as she looked over Chris, not sure if she should maybe hook him up to an IV drip of some sort to try and get some life back into him. He'd been down a hole, worked three days straight, had man flu, and this was the worst she'd seen him. "I'll come. And try not to stare."
"Enlighten me. What would give you the urge to stare at a cancer patient?" Chris had to asked tiredly, not following at all. Everything felt like a struggle, and all he could keep coming back to was that his brother could die, and his best mate nearly did. Rick had cancer, and any day, Dave might get it back too. Only he didn't know anything about Dave's, and he didn't know if he would be able to talk to him about it without losing it. That heavy drinking was suddenly crystal clear in his mind. It hadn't made sense to him why he had gone on such a bender. "I swear, if your ex tells you he is staying in Miami to be with you, I'm going in there to rip out everything I just did in surgery to save him. He is like the pissy little cherry on top of a huge and continuous shit sundae."
"You're hot when you're jealous," Serena couldn't help but tell him. "And I might just stare because this is the elusive brother I keep hearing about but never seeing. He's the one that's caused you so much trouble, he's the one that left you with that bill, and he's your brother. Another Deleo I get to see in the flash. That's why I'm going to stare. Not because of the cancer thing. He's just a piece of your puzzle I get to meet."
Chris was wondering if he should actually try to eat something, but even just the thought of putting even the slightest morsel near his mouth had him feeling nauseous all over again. In fact, he puffed his cheeks out a little and let the breath out heavily to try and stave off that feeling again. It was enough that he puked in front of Rick. He hadn't done that in what felt like forever. "Don't worry. He'll probably just stare right back. Though, he prefers brunettes. Hopefully that stops him trying to hit on you. I don't really need to be smashing my brother in the face today, on top of everything else. He's not a piece of my puzzle. He's the piece that went missing long ago and got sucked up into the big proverbial hoover. Don't even take that as anything. I don't have the strength for any deep and meaningful metaphors right now."
Serena patted him on the shoulder before she hugged him briefly around the middle. "Aw, there's my little Proctor junior! That was a very good crazy metaphor. I could almost hear the Britishness in your tone. It's uncanny, really. I can't tell you two apart anymore. If he hits on me, I'll hit him for you. I'm not into sharing between brothers. I'm your toy, not his."
Chris finally lifted his head and shot her a bemused look, albeit a tired one. He wasn't even going to humour her with a response about the Proctor comparison. He pressed his lips together and drew in a long, deep breath through his nose, letting it out slowly. "I need to get a shower. I'll fight the urge to do it in a duck hat. Then I need to... I have no idea. Something that will hopefully come to me between here and the end of the shower, but I'm not gonna bank on it. I might not have Proctor come tell me my job is on the line, but I have this niggling feeling he is going to want to do my review today. I'm screwed, I swear."
"You want me to get you a Red Bull for after? Or just some coffee?" She pulled out her hair tie and combed her fingers through her blonde locks before putting them back up again. After she'd made an attempt to tidy herself up she lifted her arm to sniff her arm pit. "Maybe a shower isn't such a bad idea. Just let me know when you're ready for the family visit. I'll just try and get the paperwork done of Jeff. Sooner he's out of our hands the better. I just hope Proctor's kind to you today."
Chris was leaning against the railing, feeling like holding his weight up was taking too much effort. He watched her fix her hair and then gave a small shake of his head. "I don't want anything. It's just going to make me sick. I'm cool for the moment. I feel like I need a Xanax, that's what I need." He shook his head and rubbed his eyes briefly before he caught her hand with his and pulled her into a brief, tight hug. "Thanks, babe. Just... for everything."
Serena gave his hand a squeeze and offered him a smile. "What else are girlfriends for? But you're very welcome. And before you even think about arguing with me I'll at least leave you a bottle of water. I won't stop taking care of your gorgeous ass."
Chris just gave her a tired smirk, his hand lingering in hers as he pulled out of the hug and then let it drop down by his side. "I better get that shower, or no one will want to stand near me. You can tell Aimee the eggshells can be swept away now. I just have to figure out what the hell I'm going to say to Dave when I see him." He pointed over his shoulder with his thumb, indicating he was heading back inside. "No snogging your ex when I'm not looking now," he added jokingly.
Chris exited the OR into the scrubs room, peeling the surgical mask away from his face and then pulled his cap off. It was soaking, and he hadn't even realised he had been sweating that much under the lights of the OR. Another bleed in Jeff's kidney and they had to go back in to fix it, but there was a collapse in the renal column, and in the end, Proctor just made the decision to have the kidney removed, or Jeff wouldn't have made it. Despite what went down in the ER earlier, and the shit with Serena's ex prior to that, Chris managed to keep his trauma surgeon's head on and led the surgery with as much poise and ease as he did any other day. He wasn't so sure he would manage it now the pressure was off, though. The patient was saved, and the surgery was over. With the kidney gone, Jeff's BP came back up and his prognosis would be good now, after a bit of a recovery period.
He turned the taps on in the large stainless steel sinks and then rested his hands on the edge of the sink, just listening to the water gushing into in. It drowned out the whirr of thoughts that were trying to come back, and when he heard the doors of the OR open again, he pulled himself up, clearing his throat with a small glance at Serena as he grabbed the surgical soap. "Good job," he murmured, turning the taps down when he started to wash his hands and arms. The water prickled his skin, dragging him back to reality again. He just wanted the day to be fucking over. The jury was still out as to whether he would go back to Rick after work, or even go and see Dave. Probably neither, the way he was feeling.
"Thanks," Serena replied as she went to the other end of the sink to give Chris space. She had no idea why she should even give him space when it was the last thing she wanted. She knew she'd fucked up in hesitating to shut Jeff down after his bombshell proclamation, and now she was paying for it. She wasn't even sure if she could tell Chris that. They didn't need to be overheard. She let out a heavy breath through her nose and scrubbed at her skin almost hard enough to take off the top layer of skin. "Is Dave okay?" she finally asked him, risking a glance at Chris. "I assume that's who the call was from."
Chris' eyes closed briefly as he continued with the clinical scrub, wishing it didn't take so long. He needed fresh air. Badly. For the first time in a long time, the OR was feeling oppressive and suffocating. Water and air was more than a vital need right now. "I don't know, I didn't really talk to him," he replied and shut the taps off. His scrubs were sticking to his back from the sweat and he was glad he at least was one of those guys who wore cologne and deoderant, or he would probably be absolutely reeking by now. "He was in the ER, just not for him... for Rick. I need to go out and get air. I can't breathe in here." He exited the room, hoping his words didn't actually sound like he was trying to cut her off. He wasn't. It wasn't going to do anyone any good if he got around in sulking mood.
Serena couldn't chase after him until she finished scrubbing out, and for a long while all she was left with were own thoughts. She just hoped Chris really hadn't meant that she wasn't supposed to follow him. She wiped her hands clean and almost bolted from the OR to catch up with Chris out on the balcony. She pushed her hair out of her eyes and leaned against the railing next to him. Her hand touched against his, the closest she could get to holding his hand while they were at work. "Rick's here?"
Chris nodded, his eyes narrowing just a little when all the thoughts got tough again in the bright Miami sunlight. "Dave got him here late last night..." He let out a slow breath and wet his lips. "Strange huh? Only not. Not when you finally get all the facts. Facts everyone else was privvy to but yourself, leaving you feel like a gigantic dickhead." He rested his arm on the balcony railing and then put his head down in the crook of his elbow. It probably looked weird, but he didn't care. Proctor would just have to relinquish the weird person's hat for one day so Chris could wallow in it for a little while.
"The cancer," Serena breathed out. She felt her shoulders slump as she looked down at Chris. "I wanted to tell you that I knew. I wanted to be the one to jog your memory. Dave told me about how he'd told you the night you got drunk. It was agony for him knowing you didn't remember and that he'd have to tell you again. So many times I just wanted to say something. I'm sorry, Chris. I'm so, so sorry. Is Rick okay? Did something happen with the operation?"
"But Dave should have been the one to tell me, right?" Chris just laughed again, only there was no humour behind it. The irony of it all seemed like it should be amusing, but it just wasn't. Everytime Chris thought about first Eva telling him about Rick's cancer, and then Rick telling him about Dave's cancer, it came like a firm kick to the nuts. He stayed in the stooped position, his face buried in his arms. A couple of tears escaped, but they got soaked up by the sleeve of his scrubs. "Post-op infection. Dickheaditis. Sure he'll be fine..."
Serena moved so she was turned towards Chris and rest her hand lightly on his back. Right then she didn't give a shit who saw her and this might just be the moment she wound up paying for it. It had been a long day, but Chris' had been longer. "I love you," she said only loud enough for Chris to hear. "Just so that Jeff isn't the one to tell you. Pretty sure everyone but you is suffering from dickheaditis. Even me. I told him after you walked out that I was in love with someone else. And I am. I'm a fucking Beyonce song! I'm crazy in love with you, and I can't help it. Last night just nailed that for me, and when I was trying to tell Jeff about my boyfriend... It just clicked in my head. I know I've made some mistakes, but this is one mistake I don't want to make." She rubbed her hand against his back and swallowed thickly. "Post-op? Jesus... At least he's here to get the proper treatment, right?"
It was tempting for Chris to just stay there and hide, try and crawl into the crook of his own elbow and not come back out... if that was even anatomically possible. Any other day, and he could have dealt with this better, but right now, it felt impossible to take in what she had said. He rose up again, his hands coming to curl around the railing and finally turned to look at her, not having any clue what he was supposed to say, Beyonce song or not. "What do you want me to say?" he murmured quietly and then he gave a small, helpless shrug. "I can't do that today. First your ex, and then Rick, and then Dave... I don't feel like a Beyonce song. I feel like a fucking bad Alice Cooper song. Maybe that bed of nails one, because I feel a bit like I have been crawling around on one. All I need is for Proctor to walk out here and tell me my job is screwed. My brother could die. He could... die," he repeated and then put both hands over his face when the realisation felt like it smacked him in the face with the force of a steel pole.
"I don't want you to say anything," Serena replied as she wrapped her arms around her middle and just watched him helplessly. Why were they always at the hospital when she needed to just hug Chris the most? "Just ignore it for now. The Beyonce song can wait. We need to get you out of the Alice Cooper one first, but maybe it's not meant to happen yet. I'm sorry about Rick, I really am. I know I said I wanted to smack him, but hitting a cancer dude's just wrong. Proctor's not going to come out here and tell you your job is screwed. My ex was just a fucked up coincidence. Those are two controllable things."
Chris was listening. He could hear her and he knew she was trying to help him. But there was no fighting the shock that just came for the moment and the tears finally came, wetting the palms of his hands when they fell silently. He just nodded and then turned his back to the glass walls so he was facing out over the balcony again. At least if anyone walked past, they wouldn't see he was crying at first glance. "I'll just smack your ex instead. It might make me feel a bit better," he said roughly, the words choked. It was only a joke though. He always joked in tough situations to try and lighten the mood a little.
Serena bit her lip before she reached out for him, and tried to make the hug as platonic looking as possible. She couldn't not comfort him when Chris was losing it. "Maybe we could make him wear the duck hat, as well. It's the least he could do."
"No chance. I think Proctor whacks off in it every night," Chris returned with a slight laugh that still wasn't quite managing to eventuate into anything. His chest hurt so much, feeling like someone was crushing his heart. He was still angry, but that was getting overtaken by other things now. Serena telling him she loved him was just placed on top of that pile. The tears were still dripping down his cheeks and he wiped them away with his hand. "Why did you hesitate?" He looked at her, waiting for the answer, even if his eyes were red and damp, and he probably looked like he belonged in a horror movie wielding an axe and breathing like Darth Vader.
It took everything in Serena not to wipe at Chris' tears for him, or to kiss them away. She just wanted to take him home and snuggle it all better. Forget the world for a little while and just be them. Her nose crinkled as a smile tugged at her lips in response to the mental image of Proctor and the duck hat, but it faded again at his question. "Because I didn't want to blurt out that you were the one I loved. My lying skills aren't so great in the face of a shock like my ex telling me he still loves me. It's not because I feel anything for him, I don't. Other than just a fondness for someone that did mean something to me at one point. But he's the past, Chris. He just needs to get back into it."
Chris was tired again, and he was hoping to hell they didn't get more incoming and that the Jeff dude stopped crashing on them. He wanted to go home to sleep, only he knew that he probably would just end up going to check that Rick was okay... or that he was still there, rather. He wasn't exactly holding his breath for that. All he hoped was that Rick listened this time. Getting out with a post op infection like that could, and probably would, kill him. He hugged his arms around himself, tucking his hands in underneath them to lean on the railing again. "I wasn't really buying that you were so surprised to hear it, though. He seems pretty hung on you. I wasn't particularly surprised, more just dumbfounded that he actually went there with an audience." He put his head down on his arms again. "I feel like crap."
"People go loopy when they nearly die. It's a proved fact," Serena joked softly. She pulled back from him to give him some space again and glanced down at the people passing under them. She'd told Chris she loved him at the worst possible moment. This day really couldn't get any worse. "It was beyond stupid what he did, and I still have ideas of shoving an IV up his ass. Or just hitting him with it. I can't believe he's hung up on me. It's been over a year! A fucking year! Shit changes. We weren't any great loves. We weren't epic, we weren't amazing. We just were. He needs to experience amazing. He needs something real. I'm not his real. Can I see you tonight? Just to sleep. No sex, no dates. Just be with you."
It was probably the ex factor that made it impossible for Chris to absorb what Serena had said to him. It felt like a knee-jerk reaction, something he didn't want to visit until the ex was damn well as far out of the picture as possible, not still there after his life had been hanging in the balance. People might go loopy when they nearly die, but in Chris' experience, it was also when people became the most honest they had ever been. "A year's not a very long time. Some could still say you were rebounding," he pointed out from where he was still buried in his arm. Anyone passing would probably assume he was sick, or dead, or maybe just somewhere around the middle of the both... which is where he felt. "Think m'gonna go see Rick..." he said, uncertainty hedging his words. "I think you need to come with me for that." It was a thought that verbalised simultaneous to jumping into his brain. If there was any chance Rick was staying in town, Chris had to come clean about Serena because he just did not have the energy for anymore secrets... his, or anyone else's.
"I've had HRG for the rebound. Maybe you were technically in before him, but pretty sure he got any and all rebounding well and truly out of my system. I did the stupid texty clingy thing and it was all over and done with. A year's long enough when I've changed cities, joined Alpha Team and had my clicker fixed." Serena tilted her head as she looked over Chris, not sure if she should maybe hook him up to an IV drip of some sort to try and get some life back into him. He'd been down a hole, worked three days straight, had man flu, and this was the worst she'd seen him. "I'll come. And try not to stare."
"Enlighten me. What would give you the urge to stare at a cancer patient?" Chris had to asked tiredly, not following at all. Everything felt like a struggle, and all he could keep coming back to was that his brother could die, and his best mate nearly did. Rick had cancer, and any day, Dave might get it back too. Only he didn't know anything about Dave's, and he didn't know if he would be able to talk to him about it without losing it. That heavy drinking was suddenly crystal clear in his mind. It hadn't made sense to him why he had gone on such a bender. "I swear, if your ex tells you he is staying in Miami to be with you, I'm going in there to rip out everything I just did in surgery to save him. He is like the pissy little cherry on top of a huge and continuous shit sundae."
"You're hot when you're jealous," Serena couldn't help but tell him. "And I might just stare because this is the elusive brother I keep hearing about but never seeing. He's the one that's caused you so much trouble, he's the one that left you with that bill, and he's your brother. Another Deleo I get to see in the flash. That's why I'm going to stare. Not because of the cancer thing. He's just a piece of your puzzle I get to meet."
Chris was wondering if he should actually try to eat something, but even just the thought of putting even the slightest morsel near his mouth had him feeling nauseous all over again. In fact, he puffed his cheeks out a little and let the breath out heavily to try and stave off that feeling again. It was enough that he puked in front of Rick. He hadn't done that in what felt like forever. "Don't worry. He'll probably just stare right back. Though, he prefers brunettes. Hopefully that stops him trying to hit on you. I don't really need to be smashing my brother in the face today, on top of everything else. He's not a piece of my puzzle. He's the piece that went missing long ago and got sucked up into the big proverbial hoover. Don't even take that as anything. I don't have the strength for any deep and meaningful metaphors right now."
Serena patted him on the shoulder before she hugged him briefly around the middle. "Aw, there's my little Proctor junior! That was a very good crazy metaphor. I could almost hear the Britishness in your tone. It's uncanny, really. I can't tell you two apart anymore. If he hits on me, I'll hit him for you. I'm not into sharing between brothers. I'm your toy, not his."
Chris finally lifted his head and shot her a bemused look, albeit a tired one. He wasn't even going to humour her with a response about the Proctor comparison. He pressed his lips together and drew in a long, deep breath through his nose, letting it out slowly. "I need to get a shower. I'll fight the urge to do it in a duck hat. Then I need to... I have no idea. Something that will hopefully come to me between here and the end of the shower, but I'm not gonna bank on it. I might not have Proctor come tell me my job is on the line, but I have this niggling feeling he is going to want to do my review today. I'm screwed, I swear."
"You want me to get you a Red Bull for after? Or just some coffee?" She pulled out her hair tie and combed her fingers through her blonde locks before putting them back up again. After she'd made an attempt to tidy herself up she lifted her arm to sniff her arm pit. "Maybe a shower isn't such a bad idea. Just let me know when you're ready for the family visit. I'll just try and get the paperwork done of Jeff. Sooner he's out of our hands the better. I just hope Proctor's kind to you today."
Chris was leaning against the railing, feeling like holding his weight up was taking too much effort. He watched her fix her hair and then gave a small shake of his head. "I don't want anything. It's just going to make me sick. I'm cool for the moment. I feel like I need a Xanax, that's what I need." He shook his head and rubbed his eyes briefly before he caught her hand with his and pulled her into a brief, tight hug. "Thanks, babe. Just... for everything."
Serena gave his hand a squeeze and offered him a smile. "What else are girlfriends for? But you're very welcome. And before you even think about arguing with me I'll at least leave you a bottle of water. I won't stop taking care of your gorgeous ass."
Chris just gave her a tired smirk, his hand lingering in hers as he pulled out of the hug and then let it drop down by his side. "I better get that shower, or no one will want to stand near me. You can tell Aimee the eggshells can be swept away now. I just have to figure out what the hell I'm going to say to Dave when I see him." He pointed over his shoulder with his thumb, indicating he was heading back inside. "No snogging your ex when I'm not looking now," he added jokingly.