#coughing up a lung
Day 8: Coughing up a Lung
Summary: Erik’s not feeling too well, but it takes some worrying from Mia (of all people) for him to seek help.
Word count: 870
Erik clears his throat and strikes his hand against his chest twice.
Mia glares at him as he coughs and rolls her eyes dramatically. “Really?”
“What?” Erik snaps.
“You’ve been coughing nonstop for, like, days.”
"It’s not been days,” Erik snaps back.
“Uh-huh.” The hum of an indignant sister.
They have a glaring fight, one Erik choses to interpret as himself winning, then he pushes past her and farther on the trail.
“Seriously! I don’t know why you don’t just, like, ask someone for help! You know, like a healer!” Mia grouches behind his left shoulder.
Erik shakes his head. "I know Serena, and I’m not gonna bother her.”
"Why not? Is there something wrong with her?” Mia asks. She runs up to his side. A grin splinters across Mia’s lips. “Ooh, or do you maybe have a thing for her?”
Erik dry heaves. “No.”
“Ew. Okay…”
“Not that she isn’t a nice person or anything,” Erik says. “She definitely is! She just…”
Reminded him of Eleven, the last thing he wanted to be thinking about now.
“Goddess, you have so many weird problems,” Mia sneers. “I’m happy I don’t have problems like you!”
“Whatever,” Erik says somewhat emphatically.
…
Erik is sleeping in the middle of the night, swaddled in the comfort of darkness, when he feels a tightening in his chest and blearily opens his eyes. He jolts up in bed and heaves for breath, and it comes, albeit raggedly.
He starts to cough, and he hears Mia shuffling in the blankets next to him, darting to a sitting position.
“Is everything okay?” Mia asks over his coughing.
His eyes adjust to the dark and he sees her silhouette. Worse than that, he hears the worry lacing her words.
Erik’s able to rein himself in after what feels like too long, and even once the coughs have subsided he’s still short of breath, hunched over slightly and clutching at himself to sate it.
“Yeah, I'm— fine,” Erik assures through a slight cough.
“Stop lying!” Mia’s shout is loud, jarring.
Erik briefly freezes, his heart panicking. He collects his hands in his lap, worrying his lower lip.
He knows what he should do. Ask for help. Visit Serena, or Rab, or even Hendrik. Take his pick. This isn’t what Eleven would have wanted of him, and it certainly isn’t worth putting his sister through extra worry.
“Stop lying,” Mia repeats. “I know you’re struggling, so why are you hiding it? I’m tired of worrying about you!”
Erik ought to be worried for his life now, if Mia’ssaying that.
“First thing tomorrow morning, we’ll go to Heliodor. Visit Serena.”
“Promise?” Mia whispers.
“Promise.”
Mia sighs. “Alright. You better stay alive till then.”
“Of course I will,” Erik reassures. “You can’t get rid of me that easy.”
…
“…And how long have you had the pain?”
Erik’s sitting on the edge of a bed. He rests one shoe on top of the other, swiping the sole across his big toe, the material of his shoe thin enough for him to feel it. Sunlight filters into the small room, casting the wooden floor in a gentle orange. It smells of lavender. Serena’s leaning close to him, listening to his heartbeat.
“Since… since that,” Erik says.
"Sorry?” Serena asks. She straightens up, tilting her head.
Erik clears his throat. “At the Tower of Lost Time…”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“You should have come to us sooner!” Serena exclaims. “And healing spells haven’t been helping it?”
“I haven’t tried any healing spells. I’ve been eating medicinal herbs, though.”
“Well… hm. And you said it was trouble breathing?”
Erik nods.
“It might be a collapsed lung.”
“Really?” Erik’s eyes almost pop out of his head. How does she know that? And why didn’t a healing spell help it?
“Healing spells are good at regeneration, it’s true, but it’s not going to re-inflate a lung,” Serena explains.
The words make Erik shutter. He grimaces. "How do we fix it?”
“Bed rest,” Serena says. “I feel that perhaps you should be resting anyway. I do think some sleep would be good for you, after all that has happened lately. I know it has been good for me, at least.”
“You’re right,” Erik says. “I just don’t feel like staying in one place much, you know?”
“Why?”
Serena looks genuinely curious and Erik doesn’t want to have to explain it, but knowing Serena and how slow she is, she probably doesn’t understand.
“I’m… trying to escape something, but I can’t… physically run from it.”
“Ohhhh… I’m sorry, about Eleven leaving,” Serena says.
She reaches out for his hand and he lets her touch his. She frowns and Erik sighs, shaking his head.
“Yeah, no, thanks. It’s… it’ll get better. I’m sure you’re going through it too. Everyone probably is.”
“Yes, but that’s why we have each other,” Serena says. “We should talk to Jade about you staying here a little longer. Then we can pull up a room for you and you can stay with us for a little while! Doesn’t that just sound splendid?”
Erik nods as he massages his chest again, his breaths growing tight. “Yeah! Thanks, Serena. You’re a lifesaver.”
“Anything for a friend,” Serena says, smiling.
Whumptober 2021, for the prompt coughing up a lung(no.8)
No.8 Coughing Up A Lung
pneumothorax | exotic illness | “Definitely just a cold”
Despite his best efforts, Fao was ill. It was unsurprising, really. Winter was well and truly upon them, freezing cold days and grey skies. They’d been understaffed at work, so he had been flat out with overtime and limited days off. Exhausted and freezing cold was not a good combination when the winter viruses were going around.
It had started with the classic sore throat, headache, sniffle. Just a cold. He couldn’t call in sick, so as usual, he pushed on through. Everyone told him to stop being so stubborn, to take a day or two off and just rest before he made himself worse, but he didn’t listen. There was too much that needed doing at work - they were stretched as it was. Another surgeon down and they’d be cancelling more surgeries. Not to mention what it would do to emergency availability.
When the coughing started, he was well and truly suffering. His chest was always bad, his own doing primarily, and he knew this cold would likely sit on his chest. Still, he didn’t have time to take off, couldn’t let his colleagues down. He swallowed meds and survived on throat sweets and ignored the endlessly present tickle in his throat. He did his best to ignore the wheeze in his chest, too. It was enough to make even a med student on the ward frown at him. The cigarette he’d had on his lunch break probably didn’t help matters.
He wasn’t stupid enough to think he was fine, he was just stressed enough not to care. He never had time to be ill. If he wasn’t careful, he’d end up getting Finn sick, which would end badly, but he kept his distance and tried his best to protect his brother. He was hardly home, anyway.
His cough got worse and worse, as it often did with these kind of things, and he sounded virtually hoarse. It was late one evening after work, stretched out on the sofa, he couldn’t stop coughing. It was giving him chest pain by this point, an ache across his ribs that he couldn’t shift.
With Finn hiding at Jess’, and Fred and Sheila unable to talk sense into their oldest son, Harrison was sent over to sort things out. He had a key, of course, and simply let himself in and went straight to Fao, who was still very much curled up in bed.
All it took was a single bout of coughing for him to order Fao into hospital, in a tone that left no room for arguments. Fao didn’t really have the energy to protest it anyway.
It was obvious he was pretty ill when he didn’t have to wait too long in the ED. After a quick exam and some bloods he was sent sharpish for a chest x-ray, which revealed a significant case of pneumonia. That wasn’t the worst of it, though. As was fairly standard for him with a bad chest like this, he had a pneumothorax. It wasn’t the first time, it probably wouldn’t be the last, either. It explained why his breathing and chest pain had got considerably worse.
Another scar found its place on the patchwork on his chest when they put in a chest tube, and admitted him for observations and IV antibiotics. It was a pretty significant infection that needed monitoring. He really wasn’t impressed, and spent the majority of his time waiting for a bed complaining that he really wasn’t that sick and he’d do fine with a hot bath and some oral antibiotics. He was ignored, obviously, but he hated being on the wards. He always felt so out of place, so vulnerable. And Finn didn’t even visit him, which he hated. He really missed his brother.
