Hey y'all!!! MERRY CRISIS AND HAPPY HARDSHIPS 💕💕💕 Was gonna update a few days ago but decided to wait until today✨ Anyway, ENJOY!!!
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"OH MY GOD, MITCH!!!"
"KEVIN IS HE OKAY?!"
"WHAT DO WE DO?!"
"HE JUST COLLAPSED!!!"
"WHAT HAPPENED?! WHY'D HE FAINT?!"
Those were just a few of the questions Kevin was bombarded with as he checked to make sure the charmer was alright. Tuning everyone out, Kevin was able to discover Mitch was out cold with a weak, steady pulse. He carefully moved him onto his couch and tuned back in to hear everyone debating if they should call an ambulance.
"No, we're not calling an ambulance." He told them. "Mitch just told us he had a run in with the police and now they know he's here."
"He wasn't shot was he?" Kirstie asked, concerned.
"Not that I know of, I didn't see any blood."
"Well, what do we do?" Avi wondered. "We can't just leave him like this."
Kevin checked over Mitch one more time before getting an idea.
"Don't worry. I know someone we can call."
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Mitch found himself standing in the empty kitchen and looked around. It almost looked like no one had ever used it. That's when he noticed someone was hugging him from behind. Recognizing their presence again, he grabbed their arms and leaned into their touch. He wanted to talk, to yell, cry, scream, ask so many questions, but he knew if he did, it would be over.
So Mitch stood in silence, trying to sink further in the embrace until he couldn't take it anymore.
"Where are you?" He finally asked.
They leaned down and whispered in his ear,
"Wake up."
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Mitch opened his eyes and immediately squinted at the bright light in the room. He noticed he was in a bed and heard a faint beeping sound as he started to look around. Taking in his surroundings, Mitch saw a person in a white lab coat writing something down on a clipboard. When they finished, they started walking towards him and reached out their hand.
The beeping sound quickly got faster and louder as Mitch exploded out of the bed.
"NÃO ME TOQUE!!!" He yelled, scrambling to get away from them.
They jumped back, startled for a second before trying to move closer again.
"NÃO!!! ME DEIXE EM PAZ!!!" The person tried to say something but Mitch wasn't listening, he had to get away. "FIQUE A PORRA LONGE DE MIM!!!"
He started climbing the structure behind him to put some distance between them and threw a random object in their direction.
"Quem é você? QUEM A PORRA É VOCÊ?!?!"
As he was freaking out, Kevin quickly ran into the room.
"WOAH, WOAH, WOAH!!! Hey, Mitch, it's okay!" He tried to reason, but Mitch was still going off. It took Kevin to physically stand between them until he was finally able to explain.
"Mitch, it's okay. This is my sister, Candace. She's not gonna hurt you, she's here to help. Okay? So just relax and climb down from... how did you even get up there?" He asked, looking at Mitch on top of his dresser.
Mitch was still looking at the woman with uncertainty, refusing to get down, when he felt a sharp pain. Looking down, he saw a needle in his arm connecting him to an IV drip. The loud beeping got faster and Mitch saw it was coming from a heart monitor.
"Mitch, you need to calm down."
"ESTOU COMPLETAMENTE CALMO!!!" He yelled.
"MITCH!" Kevin scolded, then he noticed how he was breathing.
The quick shaky breaths reminded Kevin of when someone was going through a panic attack. His gaze softened and Kevin carefully held up his hands.
"Hey, hey, it's okay. It's alright." He told him gently. "Look, you're safe. No one is going to hurt you. I just need you to relax, okay?"
Mitch tried to listen, but it was hard when memories of his past kept flashing in his mind. Being strapped down, surrounded by people he didn't know, pain from needles in his arm injecting who knows what into his system. As much as he tried, he couldn't get himself to calm down enough to breathe properly.
Kevin saw Mitch struggling and took a cautious step closer, wanting to help him out.
"Alright, here, follow my breathing. Breathe in for four seconds, hold your breath for seven seconds, and breathe out for eight seconds." Kevin told him, then he demonstrated.
Mitch was trying and messing up the number of seconds he needed to breathe, but after a while, he was finally starting to do it accurately. The heart monitor wasn't beeping as loud anymore, but it was still faster than Kevin liked.
"Good, you're almost there. Keep going and try to take deeper breaths."
After a few minutes, Mitch was breathing normally and glared at the two beneath him.
"NÃO ME ASSUSTE ASSIM!!!" He snapped, and they looked at each other.
"I'm sorry. We wanted you to see a familiar face when you woke up, but we didn't know when that would be. Of course, it happened the minute I decided to step out." Kevin apologized, muttering the last part to himself. "Now can you get down from there? Please?"
Mitch still looked a bit uncertain, but carefully climbed down and sat on what he recognized was Kevin's bed. The woman in the lab coat sat the clipboard on the bed, and Mitch quickly moved away from her.
"Right, you probably didn't register what I said before since you were panicking. Okay, Mitch, this is my sister, Candace. She's here to help." He explained, and Candace moved to the foot of the bed.
"Hi, Mitch was it? I'm really sorry if I scared you. You jumped out of bed so quick I didn't have time to explain myself, haha." She put her hands up to show she wasn't hiding anything. "It's okay, I promise I wasn't trying to hurt you. In fact, I was just about to check your vitals when you woke up. May I continue?"
As uneasy as he felt, he figured it was a good idea to make sure nothing was actually wrong with himself. She gave him a smile and picked up the clipboard again, moving over to the beeping machine. While she worked, the pain in his arm became a lot more apparent. Noticing his flinch, Candace offered her hand.
"Is it okay if I take a look?"
Mitch hesitated before slowly nodding. She gently grabbed his arm and took a look at it. After a few seconds of inspection, she was able to figure out what was wrong.
"Ah, I see. It looks like when you were jumping around earlier, the needle shifted in your arm so now it's lightly scraping the other side of your vein." She quickly continued explaining when she saw Mitch's panicked expression. "It's okay! It's nothing too bad. Our bodies are full of nerves which is why we feel some sort of pain whenever we get a shot or need to draw blood.
"It's because the needle is hitting the nerve going in and coming out, which sends a signal to our brain that says, "Ouch, this hurts." So with the needle scraping your vein, it's brushing against the nerves on the other side which is constantly sending the same signal to your brain. It's perfectly fine, nothing to be worried about. We just need to adjust it, if you'll let me?"
Mitch gave a nervous nod and let her grab his arm again. He closed his eyes while she carefully moved her fingers around his inner elbow. While Mitch made no expressions, the heart monitor started beeping faster when she started moving the needle. Kevin put his hand on Mitch's shoulder and gave him a gentle squeeze for comfort.
Candace finally finished fixing the needle and Mitch visibly relaxed when she let him go.
"There, see? Nothing to it." She smiled. "You're also really lucky. With how it was nudging against your vein, I'm surprised it didn't burst."
Mitch's eyes snapped open and he looked at her with panic.
"QUE?!?"
"Oh, probably shouldn't have said that out loud," Candace muttered as the heart monitor started beeping faster again. "Hey, it's okay! It's not even that bad! If you had a busted vein, there'd be some pain, swelling, and a lot of bleeding, but there isn't! I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you again, I was just telling you how lucky you were that it's not a busted vein."
"Mitch, remember to breathe." Kevin reminded him.
He practiced the breathing technique he learned from Kevin until he was somewhat calm again. He was about to ask something when there was a knock on the door. Kevin went to open it and four heads peeked into the room.
"Hey, we know you told us to wait in the living room, but there was a lot of noise and we got worried. Is everything alright?" Kirstie asked quietly.
Candace laughed and nodded.
"Yeah, everything's good now. Come on in."
Everyone else quickly piled into the room and stood around the bed.
"We're really glad you're okay." Avi told him with a small smile.
"Mhm, sure." Mitch muttered, not bothering to look in his direction.
"You're really lucky I was on my break when you called," Candace told Kevin as she finished up, and he gave a nervous chuckle. Then she sat down in the chair next to Kevin's bed and looked at Mitch again. "And you're really lucky you have friends who care about you so much."
Mitch glanced at the people in the room before looking away.
"They're not my friends."
"Hmm... Well then, I guess you're really lucky you have strangers who care about you so much."
"Yeah... whatever."
"Hey, you should be more grateful. Do you have any idea how many people probably would have left you passed out on the floor instead of calling for help?"
"By the way, did you ever figure out why he fainted?" Todrick asked.
"I have an idea, but we can't know for sure until Mitch answers a quick question for me." Mitch gave her a suspicious look and Candace chuckled. "Don't worry, Kevin told me about your situation and I promise you're safe here."
"YOU TOLD HER?!" Mitch asked in disbelief.
"I had to! She wouldn't come over unless I told her why." Kevin insisted. "Besides, she's my sister. I know her and I trust her."
"But I don't know or trust her! How do you know she won't give me away first chance she gets?"
"She won't."
"How do you know?!"
"She won't!"
"If I may cut in? I promise I'm not going to give you away." Candace reassured him. "I'm a doctor, training to be a brain surgeon. Our priority is making sure the patient is getting better so they can go home. We help people, and even if the patient did something bad, or is a horrible person, our main objective is still to save their life. If we do anything that would put the patient's life in danger, our medical license would get revoked immediately. So if keeping your secret keeps you out of danger, then I'm not going to tell anyone."
"Yeah. She's a doctor, not a cop. It's not like she can arrest you anyway." Kevin chimed in. Mitch still looked uncertain so he decided to go a bit further. "Besides, even if she does try to sell you out, I'll just post pictures of her in high school when she was going through her awkward phase."
"Don't you fucking dare." Candace threatened.
"What are you going to do? Tell mom?"
"No, but I'll show them your awkward phase in high school."
"What awkward phase? All of my pictures look amazing."
"Your sophomore year, middle of the semester. If my memory serves me correct, I believe a certain someone got a certain bad haircut on picture day?"
"Nice try," Kevin scoffed, "I burned those negatives years ago."
"Burning the negatives just means I can't make printed copies. It doesn't do anything about the printed copies I already have, dumbass."
As Mitch watched them argue, he finally concluded, 'Okay, yeah. I guess they really are siblings.'
"Okay, okay. We can argue about this later." Candace said, cutting him off. "Right now, we need to make sure Mitch is okay. I still need to ask him a question that could tell us why he passed out."
Mitch felt unease bubbling in his stomach as Candace sat down in the chair next to him again.
"You ready? It's just one question." Mitch took a deep breath and nodded.
She gave him a patient, friendly smile before asking, "When was the last time you ate something?"
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MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!!! Hope you liked the chapter! Let me know what you thought in the comments! And don't forget to boop that little vote button with your nose! Love you guys!!! BAIII!!!!~