Preview - Catch My Disease
Ash,(and whoever else may read), Enjoy! Or Not. Whatever. Please let me know what you think though! :)
Elliot Reid’s apartment was quiet. The clock mounted on the wall read 8.02pm, and Elliot was preparing to go to sleep. Eight o’clock might have seemed an early time for most to be heading to sleep but Elliot wasn’t long off of an extremely demanding twenty-hour shift, and she was exhausted.
The blonde-haired doctor glanced around her living room, just to check that she had done everything she needed to before she called it a night. The dishes were washed. The coffee table was neatly tidied. The electrical appliances were switched off. Satisfied that everything was as it should be, Elliot nodded and switched off the living room lamp, plunging the room into darkness.
After blindly manoeuvring herself into her bedroom, careful to avoid anything she could fall over or stub any toes on, Elliot lay down on her bed and covered herself with her cream-coloured duvet. She had barely been in her bed a minute when there was a knock at her front door.
Sighing, Elliot tossed a corner of her duvet to one side and sat up, her feet finding their way into her fluffy stuffed frog slippers almost instantly. She scuffled out into the living room and towards her door, cursing whoever was still knocking for cutting into her precious sleep time.
Elliot was standing at her door. “Who is it?” She asked nervously.
“Elliot, it’s JD,” a voice replied. “Open up.”
After unhooking the chain and turning the door key, Elliot opened the door to reveal her best friend John Dorian (more affectionately known as JD) standing there. His nose was red as Rudolph’s and he was standing in his pyjamas with a blanket wrapped around him. He had a large, very full-looking bag sitting at his feet.
“JD,” Elliot said, trying to stifle a laugh at her friend’s appearance. “What’s wrong?”
“I’ve got the flu,” he answered sadly and nasally. “Turk and Carla told me to find somewhere else to stay so I don’t pass it on to either them or Izzy. Can I please stay with you?”
Elliot sighed. “I’m really sorry JD. The guest bed isn’t ready.” She really did want to help her friend, but she’d feel bad having him sleep on her couch, especially when he was feeling so crappy. At the same, she’d feel awful having him staying in a hotel, and there wasn’t really anywhere else for JD to go. “There’s always the couch…” Elliot tentatively said, hoping he wouldn’t be offended.
Much to Elliot’s delight, JD smiled broadly. “That would be great, Elliot. Thank you.” JD wrapped his arm around his friend and hugged her tightly.
Elliot laughed just a little and said, “No problem. But if I get your flu, I’m kicking your ass.”
“Deal,” JD said, holding his hand out for Elliot to shake.
Two days later…
JD had been staying with Elliot for two days, and he felt like a bus had hit him. His flu was getting progressively worse and he was now almost relieved that Carla had essentially kicked him out. He would have hated for eighteen-month-old Izzy to be feeling as ill as he was.
Elliot’s couch wasn’t the most comfortable to be sleeping on, but it was fine for him. It was better than staying in a hotel, and he was glad for Elliot’s company.
JD heard scuffled footsteps making their way across the living room. Propping himself up on his right elbow, he peered over the top of the couch to see Elliot. Her head was bowed and her eyes seemed to be closed.
“Morning, Elliot,” he said, as he had the previous morning.
She didn’t look up at him. “Piss off,” she barked.
This left JD confused. Elliot was normally very cheery in the mornings, so her short temper seemed out of character.
“Elliot,” JD uttered hesitantly, “are you okay?”
“No,” the blonde-haired woman answered. JD could hear that her voice was nasal. “I’ve got your stupid flu,” she muttered angrily, as she flopped down on the couch beside her friend.
“I’m sorry, Elliot.”
“So you should be,” Elliot spat. “I’ve been up all night vomiting and I haven’t had any sleep and my head feels like it’s about to explode and I have to go to work today.”
JD shook his head. “No. No, you are not going to work today.”
“Yes, I am,” Elliot protested. “I have to go to work.”
JD reached for the phone that sat on the coffee table. “I am phoning in sick for you.”
“You. Are. Not,” Elliot said, trying to grab the phone out of JD’s hands.
JD proceeded to move the phone every time she tried to take it from him. If she reached left, he would move the phone right, and if she would reach right he would move to the left. They fought like that for a few minutes before Elliot suddenly stood up and hurried to the bathroom.
“Elliot, are you okay?”
JD was answered by the gut-wrenching sound of Elliot vomiting. He winced and mumbled ‘Lovely’ to himself quietly. “Okay,” he said more stridently. “I am definitely calling you in sick now.”
After calling the Chief of Medicine of their hospital and telling him that neither he nor Elliot would be at work today, JD murmured to himself. “Better prepare myself for that ass kicking.”
Elliot had definitely caught JD’s flu, and she was definitely not happy about it. She would have kicked his ass if she had the energy. She was lethargic, she had a high fever, felt headachy, nauseous, all of her body ached. She so ill she wouldn’t complain if someone shot her so she didn’t have to feel this bad. She hadn’t eaten anything either. For most of the day (it was now six in the evening) she had been drifting in and out of sleep on the couch, trying to catch up on what she had lost last night.
Unknowingly to Elliot, JD had had a similar day. However, when he wasn’t dead to the world on Elliot’s smaller sofa, he was sitting at Elliot’s dining table, searching on the Internet for ways to make a flu go away quicker. He had no success. As a doctor, he knew that the best way to treat the flu was to rest and drink lots of fluid, but he couldn’t help himself from hoping there was some sort of miracle cure out there.
JD looked up from his laptop when he heard Elliot stirring. “How’re you feeling?” he asked when he noticed her eyes opening.
“Crap,” was Elliot’s simple answer. “You?”
JD laughed slightly, but stopped when he realised it made his head hurt. “Crap.”
Elliot propped herself up on her elbows. She noticed that JD’s concentration was fixed firmly on the computer screen. “What are you doing?” she questioned curiously.
“I’m looking for flu cures,” he answered. “And before you saying anything,” he interjected after noticing the Elliot’s mouth was open, ready to speak, “I know the cure is supposed to be rest, drink lots of fluids. I was just hoping there would be something that would make it go away.”
“Weirdo,” Elliot scoffed as she lay fully back onto the sofa. “Looks like we’re both going to be off work for a few days,” she lamented.
“Yeah,” JD sighed.
“What are we going to do?”
JD considered Elliot’s question carefully for a few moments before answering. “Well,” he began, “we could try and make the most of the days we have off.”
Elliot was confused. “Make the most of the days we have off?” she repeated questioningly.
JD stood from the dining table and moved slowly towards the couch that Elliot was lying on. “Yeah, we could try and have fun,” he said positively.
“Define ‘fun’ when your sinuses feel twenty times the size they should be.” Elliot quipped dryly.
“I don’t know,” JD said. “We could watch movies, play cards board games, anything that doesn’t involve leaving this apartment and infecting the world with our disease.”
“Okay, fine,” Elliot asserted. “But I should warn you, all my DVDs are crap, my old board games are falling to pieces and I don’t have any playing cards.”
“I know who does though,” JD smirked, dialling a familiar number into the phone.
----
There was a documentary about butterflies playing on the television, and JD and Elliot were both looking at it. They weren’t watching it, for their eyes just seemed to gaze at the blurrily colours that danced around the screen and the words of the presenter just seemed to be fuzzy noise. Then came a knock at Elliot’s apartment door.
Elliot broke out of her daydream and sat up. “It’s open, Carla.” The words came out of her mouth croakily, and she hoped her friend had heard them anyway. Her throat felt like it had been burned with acid and Elliot really didn’t want to try shouting again. Luckily, she didn’t have to.
The apartment door creaked open. Carla Espinosa walked in cautiously and quietly, just in case her friends were asleep. She was clad in her work scrubs, but Elliot noticed that something was different.
“Isn’t the surgical mask a little much?”
Carla rolled her eyes. “I don’t want to catch your flu,” she said assertively. “I have to look after Izzy and if I end up in the state that you two are in, I won’t be able to do that.”
“What’s in the bags?” JD asked, as Carla was placing two plastic carriers on the table.
“The DVDs, playing cards and Cluedo that you asked for,” the dark-haired woman replied. “Why do you need these anyway?”
Elliot spoke. “Well, since we’re both going to be off work for a few days, we’ve decided to treat it like a sleepover,” she shrugged. “No comments please, Carla,” Elliot added, noticing her friend’s sarcastic facial expression.
“Right,” Carla said. She silently laughed that Elliot knew exactly what she was thinking, but anyone standing in Carla’s shoes right now would have been thinking exactly the same thing, given JD and Elliot’s history of crossing the friends/lovers barrier on more than one occasion. “Okay. I am also under strict orders to take your temperatures.”
“Strict orders from whom?” JD asked.
Carla grinned. “From me,” she said, holding up two thermometers. “Open wide,” she said sardonically, shoving thermometers into JD and Elliot’s mouths.
While the two sat in silence, Carla emptied one of the plastic bags, which contained flu medicine, hot drink mixes, and a large Tupperware tub. JD eyed the container curiously. “What the hell is that?” he asked, once he had taken the thermometer from his mouth.
“What do you think it is?” Carla bit back sarcastically. “It’s soup.”
“It looks like what I vomited up earlier,” Elliot said a lot more loudly than she had expected to.
Carla lowered her eyebrows. “Thank you for that image,” she said, walking towards the peaky pair.
Elliot smiled contritely. “Sorry.”
“Okay,” Carla murmured, closely inspecting the two thermometers. “Both of you have an elevated temperature, so keep taking acetaminophen and drink lots of fluids. Got it?”
JD and Elliot nodded affirmatively.
“I need to go,” Carla cheerfully said. “Feel better,” she added, heading out of the door. She closed it quietly behind her.
In the minutes that followed Carla’s departure, Elliot and JD stayed in quietness. Carla’s silent sarcasm regarding the sleepover comment had weird awkward atmosphere in its wake. Over the past six years, they had worked hard to build and maintain a normal (well, normal-ish) friendship. JD staying with Elliot was a testament to how much they’d moved on, but they still weren’t exactly comfortable talking about their numerous train-wreck-esque attempts at a relationship.
Neither of them particularly wanted to be wanted to be the one to break the tension, but if JD hadn’t spoken, they could have mutely been there all night. “You wanna see what DVDs Carla brought?”
Elliot grinned at him, and JD was positive he could see she relief in her eyes. She nodded, and slid further along the couch so she was closer to her friend.
JD pulled the carrier bag nearer to him. “Okay,” he mumbled, unwrapping the DVDs from the bag. “Wow, she’s put a lot in here.”
They separated the DVDs into two piles. JD looked through one stack, and Elliot took the other.
JD scanned the case cover. “Pay It Forward.”
“We’ve got La Lengua de las Mariposas, here,” Elliot added.
“It wouldn’t be Carla if she didn’t throw in something Spanish,” JD quipped. “Oh, Donnie Darko.”,” Elliot said.
“Sixth Sense
JD: “Hide And Seek.”
Elliot: “The Grudge.”
JD: “The Wiggles in concert.” Elliot asked, wondering if her flu was now screwing with her hearing.
JD held up the brightly coloured case so Elliot could see it. JD let out a tiny laugh, so did Elliot and it wasn’t long before they were both laughing as hysterically as a flu would let them.
---
It was 3.30am. During one of the movies (or it could have been The Wiggles for all JD could remember) they had both fallen asleep, on sofas in the living room. The problem with that was, however, that if one of them got up to go to the bathroom, or to get a drink or in the nastiest instance empty their stomachs through the front exit, they would wake the other up. They were awake more than they were asleep. By this point, they had both given up on the hope of getting much sleep and they were lying awake on their couches, waiting for the next round of flu evilness to attack.
The room was silent, except for the shallow noise of breathing and the ticking of the clock. The minutes seemed to pass so slowly, and it was annoying JD to no end.
“Hey, Elliot,” JD said quietly, almost in a whisper, just in the off chance that Elliot might be sleeping. He wouldn’t want to wake her up.
“What?”
“Do you think…. Do you think there’s some sort of like… Flu God… or Flu Monster… and he - or she - controls who feels ill?”
“You mean… like a puppet master?” Elliot questioned.
“Yeah.”
Elliot mulled over the idea. “Maybe,” she said slowly. “If there is, he’s got us good.” She paused. “Maybe he hates us.”
“Maybe he hates all doctors.”
Elliot perched herself on her elbow and looked towards JD. “Because we take a stand against his spiteful illness.”
JD and Elliot both chuckled.
“Maybe there’s a monster for every illness,” JD suggested.
“But how do they decide who gets the illness and when?”
“Maybe they don’t decide,” JD said. “Maybe it’s like a random thing. Like they type in random numbers into their computer systems and see what sticks.”
“Kinda like those telemarketing dudes who dial random numbers and see who’s stupid enough to pick up the phone?”
“I do that all the time.”
“Me too,” Elliot sighed. A few minutes later she said, “If there are lots of different disease… monsters, how do they decide who gets what illness?”
“Maybe they play a game.”
“A game,” Elliot repeated questioningly.
“Yeah. Like a competition. Whoever wins the game get to infect someone with their toxic illness… ness.”
“What games would they play?” Elliot asked, amidst a yawn.
“I don’t know,” JD said. “Maybe poker… Connect Four…”
“Jenga,” Elliot piped up.
“Monopoly.”
“Scrabble.”
“Cluedo.”
They continued like that - naming any sort of board or card games they could think of until it was four in the morning and they realised they were beginning to exhaust their list.
“Um…. Jenga?”
“We’ve already said that one.”
Elliot frowned. “Oh.”
“What were we even talking about?”
“I can’t remember,” Elliot said. “Can you?”
“No.” JD hesitated. “Wanna just go to sleep?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay then. Night, Elliot.”
“Night, JD.”
---
The sun was bright as it seeped through that small gaps in the blinds and shone right into Elliot’s tired eyes. She had no idea what time what it was, but she figured it must be late morning because she couldn’t remember the last time she woke up to this much sunlight. She glanced at the clock. 10.02am.
Her living room was empty. That was weird. Actually, it was weird she had woken up in the living room. She hadn’t done that in a while. Not since… well, not since she and Keith had broken up seven weeks ago. (This paragraph isn't completed, it was just annoying me so I moved on to the next one with the intention of finishing this later)
Elliot got up from the couch she was lying on. She was feeling thirsty, so she headed for the kitchen and poured herself a glass of cold water then went to sit at her dining table. There was a piece of paper with biro pen doodles sitting on it. The blonde doctor eyed them curiously. The doodles were of what looked like stick-figures with exceptionally large heads. They all looked evil, with beady eyes, semi-vertical eyebrows and crooked, slobbering mouths.
(This whole last scene is annoying me. Any ideas for it? Please let me know what you think! Thanks! :)
“The Blair Wi… Wiggles in concert?”