InsaneJournal

WHO: Kendall Broadmoor and Thomas McCormack
WHAT: Hospital visits and revelations
WHERE: St. Mungo's
WHEN: Today!



All Kendall had wanted was to leave Germany, he just wished that his return to England didn’t require a hospital stay. Unable to figure what was going on, the German healers decided it best to transfer him back to St. Mungo’s with hopes that they would have better luck.

It took him longer than he expected to compose a letter to Thomas. At first, he didn’t think the fall was worth an immediate owl. Mostly he was embarrassed that he had lost grip on his broom and just wanted to wait until he was ready to laugh about it before confessing it to his friends. Broken bones were easily fixed, so it wasn’t worth the worry. Then it suddenly became serious. More than anything, Kendall wished his friend were sitting at his bedside, not his father, but he thought it best that he had some sort of answer before sending the owl.

Except there didn’t seem to be any answers, and days kept passing. Kendall couldn’t remember how long he stared at the parchment before he finally managed scribble some words down. He couldn’t remember what he even wrote. He tried his best to request that he come without causing a panic. Who knew how successful he was.

Kendall pushed his food around on his plate, having only taken a few bites. He had been scolded more than once about the amount he had been eating, but out of everything that was upsetting about this situation, the ‘food’ was the worst. Well, almost the worst, he thought spotting unusually empty chair.

“I give anything for a cheeseburger,” Kendall muttered to the ceiling, pushing the tray away. His pleads to the nurses and healers were vastly ignored, and his one attempt in asking his father left him with a glare that had him questioning if the elder Broadmoor was above hitting someone confined to a hospital bed. “Or perhaps a plate of nachos.”

“What about waffles?”

Thomas held up the bag with caution, having had to sneak it all the way up through the floors of Mungo’s. He eyed Kendall carefully from the doorway of his room, and after a moment he stepped forward and shut the door behind him. When he’d received the letter from his friend, the eerie calm had managed to cause Thomas’ mind jump to the worst conclusions, but as it was evident that Kendall did not want to make a huge ordeal of the matter, Thomas had kept himself composed.

His trip to Fitchburg had not been necessarily cut short, as it had not had a projected end-date, but it felt like a long goodbye. Alice was excited to see her grandparents again when Thomas had dropped her off, and the feeling of remaining stateside for the rest of his career began to wane. Not completely, but…

He moved forward and handed the bag with the styrofoam box to Kendall, his expression still curious. Kendall looked okay, but it was the hospital stays where you couldn’t immediately diagnose what was wrong that worried Thomas the most.

“What’s wrong?”

Kendall’s eyes snapped quickly to the door at the sound of the familiar voice despite the dizziness the sudden shift was bound to cause. Turning so he could actually see that it was Thomas standing there, a grin spread across his face for the first time in weeks and his stomach growled at the mere idea of food that wasn’t made in the hospital. “My savior!”

Kendall reached out for the box before his friend had even fully entered the room. Nearly dropping the much desired food, a gasp escaped his lips as he did his best to recover, pulling it in close to prevent any further attempts for it to escape to the ground.

“This is why you are my favorite.” Kendall said ignoring the fact he could barely feel it in his hands. He wondered for a moment, how undignified it would be to just shove his face into the box. The thought didn’t last very long as Thomas was already asking what was wrong. It was a fair question, Kendall hadn’t said much at all in his letter. As relieved as he was that Thomas was here now, he thought he would have more time to figure out what to say.

“The food in this place is awful…” He attempted to joke knowing that wasn’t the answer Thomas was looking for at all. Avoiding his gaze, Kendall opted for picking at the waffle, wishing that the moment had lasted a bit longer. Flexing his fingers had become something of a nervous habit since his hospital stay, the tingling sensation reminded him why he shouldn’t just leave when he got particularly fed up with the healers.

“I don’t know,” Kendall confessed with a shrug of his shoulders. Mostly he didn’t know where to start. He had mentioned the fall and broken leg in his letter but he had been vague on just how long it had been since then and the suspected reasons behind why it had happened. All of his symptoms, they were scary enough to hear from the healer, he had yet to say any of it aloud. “Apparently I should have been grounded weeks before my fall and--- no one seems to be able to piece it all together, so I’m stuck here until they do.”

Thomas frowned, his eyes jumping all over Kendall in an attempt to figure out his ailments. When nothing seemed evident, Thomas took a quick look over his shoulder before taking the few steps he needed to reach for his friend’s records. From his time spent in hospitals, and from his innate need to know everything about everything, he was able to decipher some of the problems Kendall was facing.

This was...this was more than a headache, this was more than...Thomas folded up the parchment and put them back in place, turning to Kendall with a neutral expression, keeping his true concern hidden behind pressed lips.

“You’re in the right place,” he said with a nod, putting his hands down to the blanket covering Kendall’s legs. The healers of St. Mungo’s had a combined experience that should be able to figure out what was wrong, even if...Should’ve been grounded weeks before his fall… “How...how long has this really been going on?”

Thomas thought back to one of the last conversations he’d had with his friend, thinking...had Kendall felt something wrong with him, but hadn’t said a word? Why...why would he continue to fly if he was sick? Because that’s what it was, he was sick, Kendall was sick. Could the pressures from the league, from his team, from his management, from himself had caused him to ignore...Thomas cricked his neck, looking up toward Kendall. He didn’t look sick.

Kendall took the opportunity to eat some of the waffles while Thomas scoured over his chart. All the effort that was put into sneaking them in, it would be a waste to allow them to get cold. It also gave him an excuse not to watch as Thomas read. Far too few times did Kendall truly appreciate Thomas’ ravenclaw ways, right now, he couldn’t be more grateful. Perhaps it was a bit cowardly, but Kendall had no desire to go down the list of things that he had ignored, it was far easier to let him just read it himself.

He knew the question was coming, Kendall had been dreading it. There had been many long conversations with the healers trying to pinpoint when all of this had started. Eventually it had become unavoidable to admit that there had been signs since early on in the season. Though, then it was small enough that any professional athlete would try to push through thinking it a passing ailment. Losing his appetite once more, Kendall pushed away the box and looked up to his friend.

“It was a couple of weeks after all-star break when I first wondered if it was more than just stress headaches.” It was all he could do to not to look away when he spoke. His chest tightened as he spoke, but there was no avoiding it. Anything else would be a lie. Kendall might have been able to withhold information but there was no possible way he could outright lie. “The numbness in my fingers happened the first time right before the season was canceled, but it was so sporadic and the vision thing…”

He trailed off finally looking away shrugging his shoulders. Kendall wasn’t sure when, if he ever, stopped thinking it was just his mind playing tricks. That he was so desperate for an excuse as to why he was performing terribly that he was just imagining it. “There was so much going on, none of it seemed important. For the most part, I felt fine.”

Thomas knew how easy it was to avoid one’s problems, and he nodded along with Kendall’s words even though he was upset by them. For Kendall, he was upset for his friend because no one deserved to go through something like this. Kendall was so talented, and to think...something so out of his control could ruin...or even worse...

“Whatever it is,” Thomas said, keeping his breaths even, “they’re going to figure it out, and you’re going to be fine.”

Because...this was St. Mungo’s, this was the best magical hospital in England, in the United Kingdom, in Europe, in...if they couldn’t figure out what was ailing Kendall, then no one could, and...and he will have this mysterious illness cured, therefore...he would be fine. Thomas swallowed the lump that had formed in his throat and then patted down a bit harder than he should have on his friend’s legs.

“Right, then, how were the Germany players?” Thomas said, thinking that standing around and letting his mind spiral into an endless oblivion of what ifs was useless, and to be honest a little painful. Quidditch, they could talk quidditch. “Is it true that they down a pint before each match?”

Kendall felt his heart speed up as Thomas spoke. He sounded so sure. So calm. It should have made him feel relieved that his friend had such faith that he moved the subject to gossip about the germans, even if it were just an out for Kendall to continue to avoid the truth of the matter. Instead it just made him feel more panicked. He had just told his best friend he had an idea that something was wrong for months and said nothing and topic had already been switched. That could only mean Thomas wanted to avoid the possible outcomes too.

“Thomas,” His voice felt strangled. Kendall spent so much time avoiding his problems. Every week there was a new excuse. He should have told Thomas before. There had been so many moments, but every time something else overshadowed it. His throat felt like it was closing as he finally realized what scared him the most about all of this. “I knew. At that brunch, I knew that I shouldn’t go Germany. That playing would be a bad idea. I had planned to say something then but--”

Kendall rubbed his hands over his face when he felt tears welling. That could not happen, he would not cry despite how overwhelmed he felt. With his father constantly lurking, there was never any real time to allow himself to really sink into his feelings. Now that Thomas was here though, he couldn’t help but wonder why he wasted so much time. He should have owled two weeks ago when he was still in Germany.

“Even if they do figure it out what if---” Kendall couldn’t finish the sentence. Even if they did figure it out, what if he had waited so long that it didn’t matter? “I wasted so much time.”

Thomas couldn’t help but blanch at Kendall’s show of emotion. He froze, feeling unsure of what he could possibly do or say to make his friend feel better. He’d barely been able to convince himself, and he’d only known about the illness for five minutes. Kendall had been here, in the hospital, for weeks! His mind must be going mad, and Thomas winced, looking back down at the bed, so unsure of anything.

He’d planned to say---at the brunch? He’d known? And---Thomas felt such a tremendous guilt overcome him, thinking that they’d been so concerned over lousy loan-outs, quidditch, quidditch was not important. Not as…

“No ‘what if’s,’” Thomas let out sternly, head still ducked. There would be no talk of a negative outcome, there would be no discussion of what would happen if the healers didn’t figure out what was wrong with Kendall. Because it was unacceptable, and that was the bottom line.

“‘What if’ is not allowed,” he said, finally lifting his gaze. His mouth was twisted with pained determination, but Thomas knew that allowing either of their minds to swirl down the miserable well that was questioning the future would bring nothing but pain. “We’ve got to think about what’s next.”