Chronic Pain Awareness Month 2022

TPTGW - Prompt 1 : Overworked - Robert & Dennis

Note : TPTGW stands for The Play That Goes Wrong
Prompt : Person A has a bad pain day but still forces themself to go through their day (work, school, whatever) despite this because they're afraid of being seen as incapable, they want to stay productive, whatever reason the author wants really. They start to burn themself out and Person B notices and helps them (in whatever way you see fit for the character/dynamic)
Chronology : Post-canon
Headcanons : Dennis has chronic pain, Nonbinary!Annie (they are only mentioned though)

Dennis, despite how much of a disaster his performance and the play as a whole had been, had actually worked pretty hard. Pushed his limits.

See, Dennis had chronic pain, so even though he wasn't doing anything super crazy for the play, he'd still put quite a lot of effort in. That, mixed with the exhaustion that naturally overcame him as the adrenaline and anxiety-filled performance came to a close, left him in quite a lot of pain.

He stumbled backstage, immediately sitting down on the couch to help soothe the burning ache in his calves, lower back, and shoulders. His fellow castmates and the stagehands also made their way back there, though they didn't pay him much attention outside the occasional fist bump or an awkward, clearly fake "You did so good"

Robert, however, saw the state he was in and decided to sit by and see what was up.

"Hey, man" Robert said with a weak smile. "Don't be too hard on yourself about that, yeah? We all fucked up"

"It's not that" Dennis replied tensely. "I mean, yeah that wasn't great, but..." he trailed off. The others knew about his pain, of course, but he didn't like to point out when it was particularly bothering him. He worried it'd make him seem weak, or incapable, or a burden. But, on the other hand... Well, they'd all lost their dignity that night anyway.

"What is it, Dennis?"

"I'm having a pain flare up"

...

"Oh" Robert said after a moment. "You know you could've told us during a downtime" he said. "We could've made it so you could be sitting on stage or something"

"I didn't want to be a burden" Dennis insisted. "Especially with everything that was already going wrong"

"You're not a burden" Robert assured him. "Where does it hurt?"

"Kind of everywhere, honestly" Dennis admitted with a shaky breath as he felt a spike of burning in his shoulders.

"Shit, dude" the older actor replied. "Do you wanna come to my place for the night?" he offered. "I got some shit that helps with that sort of thing since Annie usually comes to my place for support when they're having their-"

"Yeah" Dennis accepted. "Thanks, man"

"No problem"