Send the Dispatch (Dispatch x fem!reader)

Chapter 12: Pain Killer

Stronger painkillers. Just a quick run.

The morning air greets you as you step outside, cool against your skin. You pull the hood up, shoulders hunched slightly, and head down the street, bruised and battered, but moving forward anyway.

---

You thank the pharmacist with a polite nod, though your voice barely carries. The hospital air sits thick in your lungs, stale, over-processed, and heavy in a way that never feels natural. Not bright, but suffocating. The hallways press in, saturated with too many whispered worries, too many beeping machines counting down moments that matter. Every muffled sob, every squeak of worn-out rubber soles, every sharp call from a nurse echoes long after it should.

When you are not running on adrenaline. When you are not bracing yourself for someone else's survival, you notice everything.

The sterile alcohol tang that clings to your clothes. The faint metallic tinge of blood buried beneath layers of disinfectant. The incessant hum of machinery is ready on a constant run. It is in those rare moments of stillness, when your mind has room to breathe, that your thoughts turn on you.

Spiralling. Heavy. Familiar memories tug at you, sharp and unwanted, dragging ghosts across the edges of your vision.

You push through the last corridor, trying not to think too much, fighting that slow, creeping sense of collapse that hospitals always seem to feed.

But you keep walking forward until the sliding door part.

You step out of the hospital, and the outside air hits you, warm with the lingering heat of the afternoon sun. You exhale hard, the humidity wraps around you, thick but honest, carrying the faint scent of rain evaporating off sun-baked concrete.

It is a smell you have known your whole life, summer storms, wet pavement, the earth steaming quietly after a downpour.

Your muscles protest the movement, a slow ache uncoiling in your arms and shoulders. Your joints throb, a familiar rhythm that settles deep into the bone.

A reminder of yesterday's events.

Beneath it all, there are deeper, emotional wounds that pulse persistently like an unshakeable force. These are the ones you do not want to recognise and that no doctor's prescription can completely address.

You open the small paper bag, take out one of the stronger painkillers inside, and slip it between your teeth. The bitterness blooms instantly on your tongue, sharp and chalky. You swallow it dry, grimacing as it grazes your throat, and cough once to clear the tightness forming there.

For a moment, you stand still on the pavement, letting the world settle around you, hoping the medication works its way into your bloodstream quickly enough to dull the sharpest edges.

Then your stomach growls, soft but insistent.

Right. Food.

You begin making your way toward the nearest mall, or maybe a bakery if you can find one open at this hour. The late-afternoon warmth settles around you like a gentle blanket, the sun dipping low enough that its golden light glints off the glass storefronts ahead. Each pane reflects soft amber patterns onto the pavement, shifting and shimmering with every step you take.

The earlier bustle has softened. The crowds that once surged through the walkways have thinned into loose clusters, tired college students drifting toward benches, families corralling their kids, a couple sharing a quiet laugh by a fountain. The air feels calmer now, carrying the faint scent of various flora and fauna.