Chapter Text
It starts as a job posting.
A position for 24/7 at-home care for a patient coming out of rehab.
Job Title: Registered Nurse - Independent contract preferred
Start Date: As soon as possible
Salary: $75 an hour
Work Schedule: Round the clock care
Work Location: Patient’s private residence - room provided
More bullet points about care specifics line the screen
- Medication administration
- Ambulation and mobility assistance
- Plan and prepare meals
- Housekeeping duties
- Personal care and hygiene
- Transport to and from doctors appointments
- Targeted physical therapy
- Be a pleasant and supportive companion
- Maintain a professional relationship
- Act quickly and responsibly in cases of emergency
Application listed: 14 days ago
Number of applicants: 0
Rumors had spread around the hospital of an angry, disgruntled, man recovering from a quite horrific head injury. He made vile remarks for the rare times he spoke, made everyone else’s job ten times harder for no other reason than spite, and refused help and medication to the point his feeding tube had to be put back in.
Eventually, miraculously, he made it to the point he was ready to be transferred to at-home care. But there was no one available. Word of mouth and postings to message boards urged nurses, especially women, to not take the job under any circumstances no matter how enticing the payment was.
You take it anyway.
He can’t be that bad.
By the time he’s being rolled in a wheelchair to a transport vehicle he’s entirely and utterly dejected. Resigned to his fate. He doesn’t speak at all, not even to argue. The only way to know for certain he’s still alive is the fact his body is here and not in the morgue.
You read over his file in your car sitting in the driveway of his house while waiting for the transport to arrive.
Naoya Zen’in
Intake: 27, 163lbs/74kg
Discharge: 28, 137lbs/62kg
Traumatic brain injury… damage to the cerebellum… resulting in intention and kinetic tremors…
Orbital exenteration… bone fragments embedded…
Jaw reconstruction… Cheek reconstruction…
Dental implants…
Combative… Uncooperative…
Cold details written in dark ink like he was a specimen rather than a human.
There wasn’t much about how he ended up in this situation. A few scribbles about a violent altercation with a family member, notes of no living relatives.
The sound of a van pulling to a stop behind your car shakes you from your trance. You step out of your car, clad in a pair of teal scrubs, and stand awkwardly at the side of the van as the driver exits and moves to the sliding side door, giving you a look of irritation and maybe, you think, pity.
He tries to tell the patient to “Wait,” with a stern voice for him to bring the wheelchair out but he has already unbuckled and pushes past him to step out of the van, a bit wobbly on his legs.
He’s quite frail, was the first thought to cross your mind. His clothes hang loose on his frame. A sunken cheek and patchy stubble mark the side of his face not wrapped in a large, triangular, cloth eyepatch. Yellowed blonde hair with a few inches of jet black roots sits atop his head, shorter on the side of his wound, but still long enough to almost reach his nose.
They could have stood to groom him some more, was your second thought. But if the rumors are true they indicate that he was not likely to let them even if they tried.
You stick out your hand to introduce yourself with your name but he walks past you without a glance. You watch him struggle to get the keys inside of the lock but finally he does, shoving the door open and leaving it that way with the keys still dangling with a slight jingle.
The driver is eager to hand you a considerable portion of pill bottles and a paper signing off on a successful transport. He’s your problem now. You bid a thank you and farewell to the driver with a sympathetic smile while he burns holes into the facade of the home.
You take a deep breath and follow your new patient into the house, the slam of an upstairs bedroom door overpowering the noise from you closing the front door. You lock the door behind you and begin to take a layout of his house. It's a bit larger than you’d expect for a man his age, and someone who’d soon be responsible for six figures of medical bills, on top of your wage, but that’s not your concern.
A living room, kitchen, dining room, and bathroom on the first floor; laundry, and two bedrooms with attached bathrooms on the second. A door to the basement. A patio to a fenced in backyard, extremely overgrown. Single car garage. The home was a mix of Japanese and Western style interior design and furniture, part of which reeked of conservatism.
There was something…off about the place. It felt…empty, in more ways than one. Paintings and artwork decorated the walls with bare spots that obviously used to be occupied. Glass cases with nothing inside. Missing books on the shelves.
You bring in a few suitcases and crates of supplies to your room and settle in the best you can. Long term, live-in care has become somewhat of a niche for you, but you’ve never dealt with a client quite like him.
You sit at a desk within the room and open the bag the transport driver has given you, a symphony of pills rattling around in bottles of different sizes. You organize his medication into a weekly pill container, morning and evening, seven days a week.
You keep the bedroom door open, but there isn’t a peep to be heard from down the hall in one, two, three hours. He’d already been administered his morning doses, evening would need to happen soon.
After a deep sigh your feet carry you down the hallway to stand outside of his room with a bottle of water with a straw and his pills tucked into your pocket. You knock on the door. “Zen’in-san.”
No response.
You try again, a bit louder, “Zen’in-san, you need to take your medication.”
Silence again.
You shift your weight, a bit irritated. “Zen’in-san, I’m not going aw-“
The door flings open. "Don't call me that.”
The abruptness startles you and your body jolts backwards just slightly. His voice is low and scratchy in his throat, like when you speak for the first time in the morning.
He leaves the door open and turns back towards the bed. “My name's Naoya.”
“Naoya-san-“
“Just…Naoya.”
He sits on the edge of the bed. You try to stop yourself from thinking he looks pitiful, it’s unbecoming of a nurse to think such things, but he does. His shoulders slouch and his head hangs low. He resembles a child who had just been scolded, waiting for punishment.
“It’s important to take your medication on the same schedule you were on at the hospital,” you relay softly.
Maybe he flinches.
You hand him an opened bottle of water with a straw stuck in it. Treating him like he’s helpless isn’t going to get us anywhere. He hesitates for a moment before grabbing it and quickly placing it in between his thighs to keep it steady. He hears a rattle of pills and a pop of the container as you set a pill into his upturned palm. He doesn’t move, instead shakes his hand a bit harder than it’s moving on its own, a bit of a scowl across his face. In your line of work you’ve become a pro at reading non-verbal cues.
You dump the rest of the evening pod into his hand.
You do your best not to stare while you observe the movement of his hand. It moves in slower, jerky motions resting on the top of his leg. As he raises his hand the tremors increase but he manages to get all the pills into his mouth with a flat palm smushed against his lips.
His left hand travels to the bottle of water and grips it tightly around the middle. His fingers dig into the side as much as they can without the liquid overflowing from the top. He bends his head to accommodate the distance needed to reach the straw and tags a big drink.
He lets it sit in his mouth, unmoving. You think for a second he’s going to spit them, and the water, back in your face, but after the pause he swallows, strained.
Naoya carefully sets the bottle of water on his side table. “What are all these for?” he asks, staring at his hands in his lap.
“They didn’t tell you?” you ask, unable to hide the shock in your voice.
Naoya shakes his head back and forth in small movements and keeps his gaze downward.
You take a spot on the edge of the bed next to him, on his unaffected side, and open up tomorrow's spots in the weekly pill box, dumping them into your hand.
“This one,” you hold up a small, round white pill, “is Furosemide, a diuretic. It helps reduce fluid buildup and pressure around your brain.” You drop the pill back into the morning container. “You’ll be off this one soon, it’s more so needed directly after surgery, but they wanted to keep you on it a bit longer as a precaution.”
You pick up a pale, yellow oval shaped pill next. “Levetiracetam, an anti-seizure. Pretty self explanatory,” you relay before placing it back. “Same thing, you’ll be off this soon too.”
Naoya watches out of the corner of his eye as you pinch the next one between your two fingers, a half white-half purple oblong pill. “Methylphenidate, a stimulant, you’ll start this now that you’re in the rehabilitation phase. Helps cognitive fatigue and keeping you alert.”
Another pill returned, another picked up.
“Propranolol,” you start, showing him a round orange pill. “This is effective in treating hand tremors, but you need to start on a small dose and work your way up.”
You continue to the next pill, a pale pink, and say the name, “Haloperidol.”
Naoya knows this one; not what it does, but the taste… bitter, sour, harsh. it always goes down his throat harder than the rest.
“You’ve been on this for a while, they increased the dose for your discharge.” You say it without thinking, going into work mode, wanting to keep your patient as informed as possible. “This is a…” you hesitate, and you know the man beside you catches it before you can continue. You have to keep going. “An anti-psychotic.”
The air around Naoya shifts, becomes still, stale, uncomfortable. He doesn’t say anything, but the harshness with which his breath now comes out of his nose and the way his chest inflates and deflates tells you all you need to know. The sight of a protruding vein on his arm makes you realize just how close you are to him on the bed. Pitiful had shifted to furious in the span of three seconds.
You keep going, listing off complicated names he doesn’t care to hear. “Sleep aid” and “painkillers” make it through to his ears. Naoya stands up when you click the top of the container closer.
“I’ll have dinner-“
“I’m not hungry,” he interrupts while striding into his attached bathroom, slamming the door behind him.
You guess you can give him one night to get adjusted.