InsaneJournal

Current mood:	sore
Entry tags:	alec/toby, chicago, interaction, introduction_powers, npcs

Pride Cometh Before A Fall
After being dropped off Alec had gone straight to bed where he had stayed for several hours before he'd finally woken up to a chest ripping and body shaking cough. This time it felt different, more intense, and he couldn't ignore the way in which his chest along with his stomach had started to burn.

It was with a blind fumbling and staggered run that Alec barely made it to the bathroom, immediately doubling over the nearby sink to grip at the porcelain until his knuckles were the same shade of white.

Alec tasted salt, felt his stomach give, and then grimaced as his entire body shook in the lead up what happened next.


It wasn't pretty and it certainly wasn't fun: Alec lost every single ounce of his stomach contents followed by this thick tar-like substance that seemed to cling to his lips and spread across the sink. His chest kept heaving and as it did more and more of this thick black substance kept coming up, reducing his physical form to nothing more than shudders.

Alec groaned as he gave one last heave and with it came a dark mound of what seemed like tissue. It hit the sink with an audible *thud* and it was this that really brought Alec to his knees, hitting the ground with an almost violent crack.

He wasn't quite sure what happened next after his shoulders shook a couple more times and he scrambled for the toilet, clasping the sides to lose several more dark mounds of tissue that clung to the sides of the bowl before he just kind of slumped there.

It didn't take very long for him to pass out right there and then.

Toby had been in his bedroom doing some reading when Alec stumbled past to go into the bathroom. It wasn't unusual. He'd heard Alec moving back and forth for a few days now, even if it was just to spit out whatever he was coughing up. He really wished Alec would just admit himself into the hospital because that would make it all better. Obviously.

At the sound of someone throwing up Toby straightened up and moved towards the door, feeling panic curling in his stomach. Especially since a couple of seconds later there was a thump and he skidded to his feet and moved towards the bathroom, pushing the door open.

"Alec?"

When he saw his housemate on the floor, he let out an involuntary - and kind of girly - yelp and rushed to his side, feeling for a pulse and glancing in the toilet, feeling his stomach lurch. The bathroom smelt of bile and he thought that he was going to throw up himself. He pulled up on the collar of his shirt so it was covering his nose and mouth, taking a slow breath to control his gag reflex before he was crouching down again, fumbling for his cell phone in his pocket.

"Dude, this isn't funny. Wake up."

And sure, he sounded panicked, but Alec was fucking unconscious on the bathroom floor and what the hell was he supposed to do?! He thumbed 911 on his iPhone and held it to his ear, crouched down to check that Alec was still breathing.

"Hello? I need an ambulance. My house-mate's unconscious. He's been sick and he's just- he's just thrown up all this horrible black stuff and now he's unconscious on the floor and I don't- Well, yeah, yeah he's breathing." Toby took a breath, feeling himself retch at the smell. He gave his address and said that the door was open. They were in the upstairs bathroom. "Yeah... we're- he's- yeah..."

He hung up and touched Alec's forehead, the other man was clammy, but then, maybe that was Toby's hand. He was kind of hyperventilating. He lifted his other hand to flush the toilet, then he thought maybe he should leave it. Maybe they needed to examine the black shit.

"Please be okay, Alec..." he murmured, afraid. "Please."

Alec remained unconscious on the ground even with Toby's desperate pleadings but thankfully the emergency response in Chicago was good and it wasn't long until somebody was knocking on the door downstairs.

"Is anyone in here? It's the paramedics."

One of the paramedics - a guy by the name of Paul - tried the door and as it opened he and his partner ventured further into the apartment. "Hello?" He nodded at the stairs and it didn't take very long for them to head up those stairs, recalling the information they had been given.

"Shit, it's- We're upstairs!" Toby called, having taken his outer shirt off and put it underneath Alec's head some point between panicking like a teenaged girl and hanging up after calling the ambulance. He had just about got used to the smell of bile and hoped that the paramedics had a better constitution than him. "Upstairs bathroom, last door at the end of the hall."

He looked over his shoulder, one hand on Alec's chest to feel the thudding of his heartbeat and taking reassurance from that, the other gently pressed to his friend's forehead.

Most paramedics did, they lived and breathed some of the more horrific sights that turned most everybody else's stomachs. Paul had seen a kid practically decapitated in a hit and run and his partner - Julie - had seen the lingering marks of a vicious vampire attack.

Paul rounded on the bathroom first of all, ushering Julie towards the obviously panicking Toby. He'd work on the unconscious man on the ground and Julie would get as much information as she could.

"Hey," Julie said calmly. "My name's Julie and you are?" She offered a reassuring smile. "I'm just gonna have to take some information, okay?"

As she spoke Paul crouched down beside Alec and started checking his vitals.

"I'm Toby. Alec's- uh, we live together." Toby looked over at Alec and reluctantly shuffled back so the other guy could get in and take a look at him. "He's had a really bad cough for a while now. Started coughing up blood but the hospital said he was some kind of mystery and just told him to rest. Then he threw up that." he waved a hand towards the toilet and then looked at Alec again. "Is he gonna be okay? What else do you need to know?"

"Doesn't look like he's gonna be waking up any time soon," Paul offered, the indication being that they needed to take him in. Once they knew more about his condition, they could move him.

Julie noted a couple things down as Toby spoke, nodding her head. "Does your friend have any pre-existing medical conditions? Anything we should know about?" She scribbled a couple things. "You mentioned he had a cough and he was bringing up blood? Has he collapsed like this before?"

She glanced over at Paul and nodded his head. "We got a gurney in the back of the ambulance, can you see any obvious signs of trauma?"

"No... until the cough started he was really healthy. I mean, the guy likes to jump out of planes for fun." Toby wrinkled his nose. "I'm not sure how that constitutes as fun in anyone's book but still..." He shifted, looking over at Alec, obviously very worried for his friend. "He fainted at work. But don't tell him I said fainted. He "passed out". And a nurse bought him home."

Paul shook his head. "The guy's just gonna have one hell of a headache when he wakes up."


"What about the stuff in the toilet?" Toby asked a moment later.

Julie took a couple notes, adding Paul's remark about the headache so the doctor could watch out for any head injuries.

"Stuff in the toilet?" Julie asked, looking past Toby and into the toilet itself. "What the hell?" She muttered, obviously confused. "I have no idea what that stuff is." She made a note of it anyways and then turned back to Toby, resting a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "Your friend is going to be okay, you did the right thing in calling us."

"I'm guessing he threw it up. Or coughed it up." Toby offered, leaning forward to look into the toilet again and his stomach twisted uncomfortably. "Can I just flush it or do you guys need to do some kind of analysis thing?"

Paul got to his feet, touching Julie's shoulder gently as he passed. "I'll go get the gurney," he said, "I'll be right back." It was heavy to carry upstairs, but with the two of them it would be fine to get Alec down.

"You know, Alec's a doctor." Toby said almost conversationally, rubbing at his left eye, stupid contact lenses. "'m just worried, not every day you see someone pass out."

"We should probably take some sort of sample back to the hospital with us," Julie said with a nod of her head. "So the doctors have some idea of what they're dealing with." She rested the clipboard down and leaned down to rummage in her bag, pulling out a plastic container more commonly used for urine samples and other delightful body fluids.

She slipped on gloves and took a sample of the black substance, sealing the container up and tucking it away for further analysis later. In all her sixteen years of doing this job she had never seen anything like it. "You can flush it now if you want."

Whilst Paul went for the gurney Julie moved over to Alec to keep a check on his vitals. "He is, huh? Where does he work?"

"Oh God yes," Toby rushed forward and flushed the toilet as soon as the woman had taken a sample, quickly washing his hands and drying them off quickly before he frowned. He watched Julie's fingers against Alec's throat, the careful way she was looking at his house mate and he couldn't help but get even more worried.

Why wasn't Alec awake yet? "Uh- he works at the Memorial?" he supplied, apparently questioning himself. "And he's a crappy patient... you might have to strap him in if he wakes up on the way to the hospital. Can I come with you guys?"

"I know Memorial," Julie said with a nod. "Good hospital, good people." She glanced at the door and wondered when Paul would be needing her help with the gurney. "Does he have any next of kin in the city?"

Her lips tugged into a small smile. "Most doctors are pretty bad patients." She glanced back at Alec, doing her small but important checks. "Do you think you'll be okay to follow us in your own car?"

"I bet you guys must suck when you get ill too." Toby said with a small smile, nodding in answer to her question. He would have said more when a clatter on the stairs and a yowling meant he got to his feet to help Paul carry the gurney up the staircase, Spacey at the bottom spitting feathers and hissing at the strange man in her home before she trotted up the stairs behind them, curious to see what was going on.

"Sorry," he apologised, "My cat doesn't like strangers all that much."

Paul glanced at the door and then nodded to Julie. "Gonna need to slide this in so we can get him on it..." It would be a squeeze, but the bathroom was bigger than some they'd done the same thing in before.

Julie nodded and rose to her feet, moving her bag and a couple other things out of the way so they could in fact bring the gurney into the bathroom. "I'll take his upper body, you grab his legs, we'll lift on the count of three."

She moved around to crouch beside Alec's head, placing her hands in the correct place for lifting an unconscious patient. "One, two. Three." And on three she lifted at the same time as Paul did and Alec was slid onto the gurney in one smooth movement.

Paul placed the blanket over Alec and then did up the straps so he wouldn't fall off as they took him down the stairs, leaving Toby standing just in the hallway like an idiot. He bent down and picked up Spacey, hugging her gently as she purred and rubbed her head against his chin. "S'alright gorgeous," he murmured to her. "Alec's gonna finally go see a doctor like he shoulda done when this first started happening."

She just continued to purr as Paul started talking to Julie, propping the gurney up on its wheels so that they could maneuver it more easily down the stairs. Toby wanted to ask if he could help, but he felt spectacularly useless. Instead, he went down the stairs first, seeing Wolf at the bottom ready to beg whoever it was that had come in for attention since they had ignored him the first time around.

And they would continue to ignore them as the two paramedics manoeuvred the gurney and focused their attention on transferring their patient to the ambulance as soon as possible. Time was always of the essence with any call-out.

"You gonna stay with him in the back, Paul?" Julie asked as they made that final lift, sliding the gurney into the back of the ambulance.

"Yeah, I got him." Paul said with a fleeing smile at his partner. "You're the better driver anyway." He winked at her and then climbed into the back after telling Toby - who was standing at the door like some kind of anxious wife - where they were headed so he could follow. He ushered Wolf back into the house and called that he'd be along after them, and not to wait for him.

After all, they had the flashing lights that meant they could get Alec looked at quicker. Not that he needed the flashing lights. Toby reserved the right to freak out completely if the lights did start flashing. Because that? That was generally a really bad sign.

Julie offered a parting smile to her partner before she slid in behind the wheel, closing the door. "Let's get him to the nearest hospital." She started the engine and began to pull away, flipping the lights on and reaching for her radio to check in with the hospitals and which emergency rooms were open and ready for a new patient.

Hopefully the doctors would work their magic and another life would be saved.