firefly | zhong chenle

CH11

"uneasy lies the head that wears a crown"

-

It was the night of the same time she got harassed by a patient. Arin strolled down the hallways of the familiar fire station, hands in pocket and a tired expression across her face. It's been a month since she's come here and she's done nothing but help people recover from the epidemic. She thought coming here meant running in and out, saving people and seeing people on strollers, covered in blood. Frankly, it was different. She was just doing what she did best. Healing people.

She stopped in her stride when she heard shuffling and clattering in her office. Furrowing her eyebrows, confused, she entered her office, scared that someone broke in or something. To her surprise, she found Chenle shuffling through her cabinets, reaching for the bottles of pills but due to his body condition, he couldn't even stand up straight.

"Oh my god" Arin gasped, running forward to hold him upwards. Snatching the pill bottle from his hand, she read the label. In utter disbelief, she said softly "Pain killers? Why do you need so many pain killers"

Chenle groaned, crashing to floor, taking her down with him. The two just sat on the ground for a second as Arin felt his unsteady heartbeat and shallow breaths. Sweat was lining his forehead but there weren't any physical wounds. She had never seen the almighty captain so weak before, and she was terrified he was going to fall unconscious. To her, firefighters were heroes, but this reminded her that they were humans too.

"Hey" Arin placed the back of her hand against his forehead, measuring his temperature "Hey, hey, hey. Look at me"

In a futile attempt to force him to look her way, she had two of her hands clasped around his cheek and her body pressed tightly against his.

"Get away from me" Chenle barely made out through clenched teeth, his arms obviously trying to push her away but was too weak to do so "Get away from me"

"Chenle. I'm a doctor. Trust me"

He fervently shook his head at this comment, panting and groaning out of pain. She didn't move away from him, but held him in her embrace.

"Sweating, coughing, dizziness..." She mumbled. And then it clicked.

"The disease..." Arin exclaimed, eyes falling back on him again "He didn't wear a mask in the elevator..."

"Fuck off. Please" Chenle whimpered. He felt so weak and useless in this moment. As if all his vulnerability was being displayed. He hated this feeling. Of being absolutely useless when he was supposed to be the shield people depended on. He was supposed to be the hero, the leader. But as they say, uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

"Why didn't you tell me? The elevator incident was a week ago. You must've developed these symptoms literally the day after the elevator broke down. And what, you just held it and pretended it wasn't there?" Arin scolded, leaving Chenles side to frantically search for any soothing pills to help him "That's why you needed pain killers...Zhong Chenle. You're literally captain of the station. You should know better than anyone that pain killers doesn't fix the god damn issue, it suppresses it"

"I'm fine. Just...just whatever. Leave me alone"

"There aren't any more spare stock till two days later and you can't keep having pain killers. It'll destroy your body" Arin ran a hand through her hair "You're an idiot for not telling me earlier"

"It would have been a hassle" Chenle said, so softly she almost missed it.

Arin let out a scoff of utter disbelief "A hassle? You're being a hassle right now for not telling me literally the moment you started developing symptoms. This disease gets worse and worse if you don't do anything about it"

That was the person Chenle was. He didn't tell people his issues and he didn't want to get involved with things that don't concern him. He deals with issues himself and he prefers it that way. His worse nightmare was bothering others with his issues.

"Just give me the fucking pain killers and it'll be okay" Chenle managed to stand up with the support of the wall, stretching out his hand.

"Oh shut the fuck up" Arin grabbed his arm and forced him to lay across the one hospital bed in her office "We don't have anymore spare space so you're just going to have to deal with this bed". That bed was used for patients to get temporary checkups so the longest amount of time Chenle can stay there was until the next morning or before her next patient.

"I'll just get up. Leave the space for other people" Chenle groaned

"Yeah yeah. And let you rot somewhere" Arin grabbed a thermometer and roughly shoved it in his mouth "Keep that in there and don't talk". Arin managed to fish out the remains of the medicine targeted at these disease to try and soothe his pain a little. With the little medication left, she went to lowering his temperature physically with a wet clothe in cold water. Placing it gently on his forehead, she let out a breath of relief. They've always had an enemies kinda of attitude towards each other, but she was glad she found out about his illness early on. Or else the consequences would be unimaginable.

She watched as Chenle stopped fighting against his will and slowly fluttered his eyes shut. With one look at him, she could tell he had been through a lot. The calloused fingers, the rough skin, the unkept hair. Expected of a firefighter.

Her watch buzzed, signalling her that another patient needed her attention. Standing up from her position, she placed a bottle of pills on his beside table "Take two pills after you wake up again". Perhaps it was out of instinct, or she just simply wasn't thinking, but she lightly ruffled his hair. It took a moments of realisation to process what she even did. She worked a lot with kids before and her old job instincts must have just overtook her.

Her hand froze between his hair for a second, before awkwardly coughing out "You need to...uh...wash your hair. Bye" and she bolted out of that room as quick as she possibly could.

Chenle blinked, frozen too. But chuckled at her response, reaching to fix his hair.

"Cute"