Misfit (Phan AU)

Chapter Forty

warnings: no demon spooks really but lots of ghostie spooks bc they're at a hospital, mentions of minor injuries but nothing graphic

*Dan's POV*

"Excuse me!" I shouted, my hands balled into determined fists at my sides as I rose to my feet. The nurse turned, her eyes soft as she raked them over me, filled with an overwhelming amount of pity.

I was aware of how troubled I looked, how there were surely tears staining my cheeks after the lengthy ride in the ambulance, how I hadn't even bothered to wipe them away when keeping my eyes on Phil's unconscious form seemed so much more important. I could feel the way my hands shook, my palms cold and clammy with sweat as my anxiety built toward a steady precipice.

Still, she had no right to look at me like that, like she had any semblance of what I was going through right now. She couldn't even see them, the horrifying walking corpses surrounding her, one even pressed firmly into her side like it belonged there.

I swallowed harshly, digging my nails into the soft flesh of my hands. I hated the way she was looking at me, but I didn't have the willpower to change it. I settled for avoiding eye contact instead, insistent that if I couldn't see the way she was looking at me, then it probably wasn't happening. "Is there anything you can tell me yet?"

"I'm sorry, Sir, you're just gonna have to be patient with us." She spoke, pacing across the room toward me, her hand outreached in what was probably meant to be a comforting gesture. I flinched, scrambling backward, using all of my strength to avoid staring at the spirit hanging off of her.

She slowly retracted her hand, clutching the clipboard in her hands tighter. "He has a lot of injuries that need tending to before we try to wake him up."

"Does he need stitches?" I blurted, my voice suddenly far more animated than I'd allowed it to be since walking through the doors of this awful place. Realistically, I knew that they couldn't tell I was any different from the rest of the people here, couldn't tell that I could hear every word they said. Still, I did my best to talk as little as possible, anything to avoid drawing their attention.

This was the one exception though, my eyes wide and watery as they finally looked up again and found hers in the brightly-lit room. It was almost too bright, overwhelming in the way it cast light over the painfully barren waiting room. I winced, looking down at my hands and slowly uncurling my fingers, the crescent moon shaped indents remaining even after the loss of contact.

She noticed it, I could tell, but thankfully she didn't say anything. I looked up at her, an apologetic smile on my lips. "He hates stitches."

"Luckily, he's pretty unconscious, I think he'll be able to tolerate it." She assured me gently, reaching up to tuck a strand of her hair behind her ear. A quick glance at her nametag gave me the answer that her name was 'Kate', something that she'd definitely told me already at some point since we'd met. After all, I had spent the duration of the drive here begging her for answers, then stopping her every single time she left the room Phil was currently in for examination.

I frowned, staring down at the linoleum floor like it might swallow me whole if I pleaded with it enough. I didn't want to be here, I wanted circumstances to be different so badly that it hurt. I hated hospitals, I always had. It was worse being here alone though, it was the first time I hadn't had any distractions whatsoever to take my mind off of where I was and why.

Seemingly sensing my growing discomfort making a return at full-force, Kate cleared her throat and prompted me to focus on nothing but her. "I'll let you know as soon as anything changes, I promise, you don't have to keep asking."