InsaneJournal

The results weren’t good.

They weren’t terrible -- Tom had certainly seen worse -- but they weren’t the results you wanted to see when your patient was a 23-year-old male in a competitive sport. Hell, they weren’t the results you wanted to see when your patient was a 23-year-old anything. Any one thing could be explained away, but all of them, combined with the fact that Evan had deliberately got around Tom’s stance on coming to practice drunk by coming to practice practically floating on hangover potions --

The results just weren’t good.

He’d left Evan in one of the private rooms with strict instructions to wait there, and God help the younger man if he wasn’t still there. They needed to talk, now more than ever.

This? Was fucking bullshit.

He wasn’t hungover. That’d been the deal -- come to practice hungover, get benched -- and he’d taken enough potions to avoid those ill effects. Hell, he hadn’t been this peppy in weeks, with all the caffeine those potions had put into his system, and if the downside to that energy had been a few harsh snaps at the Chasers when they underperformed… it was a small price to pay to play.

But no. He’d been dragged to fucking Mungo’s before practice had even properly started, told he needed to be tested, and then told to wait like a fucking dog.

“Can I go now?” he asked with a sneer the moment Tom returned. “I can still catch the tail end of practice.”

“Sit down,” Tom said quietly, closing the door behind him. It had been a long time since he’d been in this position, carrying a chart with results and talking to someone in the actual hospital. A part of him had missed it, for all he knew the environment at St Mungo’s wasn’t good for his workaholic tendencies. Sighing, he set the chart down and said, “These results aren’t something I can ignore, Evan, and they aren’t something you can ignore either. We need to talk about this.”

Evan’s sneer grew at the command to sit, but he obeyed, plopping down on the examination table and glaring at the Healer. The sight of charts didn’t exactly please him, nor did what Tom said next, and the sneer faltered, slipping into a frown.

“I’m not going to practice, am I?” He asked with a huff. “Fucking great...”

“Your heart rate is extremely elevated,” Tom said, ignoring the frown and the swearing. They might have bothered him in another situation, but this was medicine; he knew what to do here. “I can ascribe some of that to the caffeine in your system. What I can’t put down to your methods of getting around our agreement is your blood pressure, your elevated liver function, the fact that your hemoglobin threshold is less than half what it should be -- which means you’re anaemic. You also have signs of metabolic acidosis and ketones in your blood work. How much of this do you expect me to sweep under the rug, Evan?”

Evan didn’t understand the nitty-gritty of Tom’s explanation. He knew it was bad, yes, but Healing had never been the path for his particular brand of genius. Still. Context clues.

“I’m fine.” He said firmly, hands gripping the edge of the table to keep himself level-headed. “You don’t have to sweep anything because I’m fine. My playing has never been better, you can’t tell me I’m not fit to play.”

“You are not fit to play.” Not by those results, and not by what Tom had seen and heard. “Every time you go into a game you’re courting disaster, and then you make it worse by drinking again. Your heart is working too hard, and your blood pressure is elevated, which increases the risk of a stroke -- yes, even for someone your age. Every time you drink to excess, you risk putting yourself into acidemia, which can kill you. How long has this been going on? I knew things were bad, but I didn’t expect the results to be this bad.”

Evan bit his lip as Tom went on. He wanted to yell, wanted to scream, wanted to start hitting things and never stop. Instead he just tightened his grip on the edge of the table until his knuckles started to ache.

“Nothing has been going on,” he said flatly. “I’m fine. I told you, I’m fine.”

“Evan.” Tom sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Today’s practice aside, I can’t overlook these results. The hypertension alone is bad enough. I’m sorry, I am, but I can’t sign off on you playing this weekend.”

Evan was silent for a moment, though his arms shook as his grip grew tighter, rage building and building and building until…

His shoulders sagged, and he let out a huff of air, jaw dropping. “You can’t… you can’t do that!” He cried, shaking his head. “We’re out of the playoffs bracket, I’ve got to play! We’re a hundred points down from the Arrows and… you… you can’t do that!”

“Right now, my priority isn’t whether or not you make it into the playoffs,” Tom said quietly. “And considering I haven’t been downplaying your condition in the least, the fact that that’s your priority concerns me. Do you understand that I’m telling you that if you continue the way you have been, you’re going to die, Evan? You’re going to end up in a coma because of alcohol poisoning or you’re going to burst a blood vessel in your brain and we may have magic but there are some things we can’t fix.”

“You’re exaggerating,” Evan replied, running a hand through his hair. “You’re… you’re making it sound worse than it is, just because you’re trying to prove some stupid point.” Healers. Fucking Healers. You couldn’t trust Healers. Everyone knew that. “I’m Captain. It’s my job for playoffs to be my priority.”

“What point? That I’d like for you to not drink yourself into an early grave? Yes, I’m trying to prove that point,” Tom said, fighting to keep his tone as calm as he could. “It’s my job to ensure the health of the team, and you are not healthy, Evan. Do you want a second opinion on these results, if you think you can’t trust me? Take them to any Healer here, they’ll tell you the same. Risk of stroke, complications from anaemia, from your liver and kidneys struggling to deal with the toxins you’re forcing on them, and that’s just the long-term effects. Short-term is entirely another thing.”

He let out another sigh, closing his eyes for a moment and taking a deep breath, forcing himself to stay calm. Evan was exactly the worst sort of person for him to deal with, given his own temperament, but it was his job. His responsibility.

“Do you know why I told you I couldn’t overlook you coming to practice hungover anymore?” he asked, after a moment. “I hoped that if you cut back for a week -- a week -- you could manage it yourself. But this is going too far. I can’t overlook substance abuse just because the substance is legal.”

Evan shook his head. “One test doesn’t prove anything. I’ll go to management. They’re not going to bench the Captain when we’re hovering at the bottom…”

It was a weak argument and he knew it, especially when Tom had already made the threat to go to management himself. But he was running out of options, and it was better than acknowledging anything the Healer said. Strokes, organ failure -- it was all bullshit. all he did was go out once in a while. He was young, young people did that shit all the time. Hell, half the league did it. There was nothing wrong with him.

“How much did you drink on Halloween?”

It hadn’t escaped Tom’s notice that Evan hadn’t been at the Ogdens’ event. He wasn’t optimistic enough to believe that he hadn’t been drinking elsewhere, though.

“I don’t know,” Evan said, shrugging, and looking down at the floor, remembering Lex. How often do you get sloshed? Your memory get worse since Hogwarts? “Nobody keeps track of that stuff.”

“How much did you drink last night?” Tom persisted. Halloween hadn’t been that long ago, and plenty of people kept track of how much they drank, but still.

“I don’t know!” Evan snapped. “What the fuck is this, an interrogation?” He hopped off the table, onto his feet. “I don’t have to sit here and answer every fucking question you feel like asking.”

“How many nights a week do you drink more than one or two drinks?”

He was pushing it. He knew he was pushing it. But he’d learned a long time ago that sometimes, in cases like this, you had to push a bit before people understood that they needed help.

“Who goes out and only has one?” Evan replied, ignoring the actual question.

“How many nights, Evan?” Tom asked flatly, although Evan’s evasive answer was, in itself, an answer that told him enough.

“I don’t know,” Evan sighed. “I like going out, I go out a lot. There’s nothing wrong with going out.”

“There isn’t, until you start doing this to yourself,” Tom said, picking up the chart and looking down at the numbers. He was silent for a moment, before sighing again. “Your health is more important than one season. You’re killing yourself, Evan, and I can’t for the life of me understand why.”

The silence weighed more than everything Tom had said, and Evan’s fists clenched at his sides as he shook his head again. “I’m not… I’m not doing anything. Stop talking like I’m... “ He sighed, took a step back toward the table. “Just get off my back.”

“This is my job,” Tom said softly. “And this is what I trained to deal with. Everything I learned is telling me that you’re not well. Can you honestly tell me that you think you can keep going like this?”

“There is no ‘like this,’” Evan protested. “I just like going out. I like having a few drinks. I’m not doing anything wrong. Just because you don’t appreciate my lifestyle doesn’t make it invalid.” He shook his head and stepped toward the door. “And of course I won’t keep going out; I’ll stop when I’m older, when I settle down. I’m allowed to live as much as I want until then.”

The hard way, then. Tom had hoped he’d be able to talk some sense into Evan, but he hadn’t had much hope of it.

“I’m going to speak to management,” he said. “You can’t play in this condition. If your bloodwork is free of metabolic acidosis markers and ketones and your heart rate is closer to normal by this time next week, we can revisit the idea of you playing against the Harpies, but I cannot allow a player in your condition onto the pitch this weekend. Exertion increases lactic acid buildup, which is a direct contributor to metabolic acidosis, and I will not be the Healer who stood by and let one of his players kill himself out of sheer stubborn ego.”

“Oh fuck you and your sanctimonious bullshit!” Evan snapped, turning to face the Healer. “Go to management! See if I fucking care! I already told you, they’re going to agree with me -- I’m playing fine, I’m doing fine. They can’t afford to bench me!” He sneered as he turned back to the door, ripped it open, and slammed it behind him as he stormed out.

It was bullshit. It was all bullshit.

He was fine.