#anyways we love the cornley hospital staff! all my homies ADORE the cornley hospital staff!

[cornley-amateur-drama-society]

I'm gnawing upon this like that video of the tiny dog with that bigass stick

Under the cut because we know how I am a;ldksfja;ld

Post-writing edit: Jesus I really went in with this one, aye? Hope you enjoy it anyway 😅😅😅

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So I'm picturing this as a situation where it's just him and Nessa at A&E still. Everyone else was cleared to sleep off the tranquillizers, but due to her past with being knocked about on the head, the doctor wanted to keep her overnight for observation. Trevor had to act as the rest of the cast's personal cabbie, driving them home. Chris doesn't know how the rest of the night went, back at the Theatre, and his phone had been on silent the entire time until now because he was backstage, and then he was talking with the doctors and nurses, and trying to coordinate with Trev about everyone else. He is not wearing the Prince of Wales getup, having managed at least get his trou back on and toss off the elaborate coat, leaving him in a pair of navy slacks and a plain white T-shirt.

Also, because this is me we're talking about, there's also some ChrisNessa in here, in part because of my personal headcanons about both of their parents.

“She's fine,” Doctor Samander “Sam” Aarons reassured him. “Like Erika said, we're jus' keeping her overnight for observation.”

“Right, right,” Chris agreed weakly, trying to keep his eyes from darting over to Vanessa again and again and again. “Because of her history with head injuries.”

Doctor Sam smiled sympathetically at him. Zyr brown eyes were understanding as ze said, “She'll be righ' as rain, Chris. We both know how resilient she is.” Doctor Sam joked lightly. Zyrself, Nurse Erika Rodgers, and the Nurse at Reception Nerys Bogman were the three of the five members of staff at Cornley A&E who regularly saw to the Cast when they came in.

Zyr pager beeped, and Doctor Sam pat Chris on the shoulder—his good one—a few times before ze reminded him, “Nerys'll come check up on you and Ness in a bit. You know where to find her or Erika if something happens.”

“Thanks, Sam,” he said, a wan smile somehow making it to his face. Ze gave him one last glance as they left the room, the shadows from the dimmed lights making zyr expression difficult to read. Zyr pager beeped once more, and like a ghost, ze vanished.

Chris let out a deep sigh, going to the chairs next to the bed where Vanessa was unconscious, hooked up to a few machines. He ought to see how Trevor was doing, or maybe see how the end of the filming went with Jonathan's ensemble piece. What he really wanted to do was collapse into bed with his weighted blanket, Vanessa curled up next to him, and her fluffy cat Othello at their knees.

He collapsed into one of the chairs and, after staring at Vanessa for some unknown to him amount of time, he pulled out his phone. He didn't even bother to look at any notifications at first, his phone unlocking to show the text message chain he had with Trevor. The arrow to the main screen—that is, the screen which shows all of his text messages—was highlighted, letting him know that he had more unopened and unseen texts to look through. He hoped that they would just be messages from the techies or some of his and Vanessa's friends, perhaps even Mrs. Bennett or Mrs. Twilloil checking in on them. But he knew, even before looking, who the messages were probably from.

He'd barely managed to hit send on a text asking Trevor if everyone got home safe before his screen was lighting up with “INCOMING CALL FROM Mum”.

He swallowed, standing up and moving away to the far corner of the room before answering the call.

“Hello?” He greeted quietly, not wanting to disturb Vanessa.

“Hello? Hello? That's how you greet me after two hours of ignoring my worried calls and messages?” The voice of his Mum immediately kicks off in his ear.

“I'm at hospital, Mum,” Chris tried to explain, “and the rest of the Cast were incapacitated. Only Trevor and I were able to coordinate with the staff.”

“I am aware you are at A&E,” she said, her tone even and measured. “I watched tonight's, tonight's disaster.”

The slight joy he felt at hearing that his Mum had watched the show was immediately cut by her summation of it.

“How could you be so reckless,” she asked, and for the briefest of moments, he thought that she was talking about the mix-up with the tranquillizers. But she continued, “wearing the outfit of the Prince of Wales and prancing around like that! Violet watches your plays, you know, and now Raymond—your father—will have to answer to her husband Mark why you were in your pants on national television. And with the Union Jack printed on them, no less.”

Chris clenches his jaw, trying to remember what Sandra had told him about letting his Mum's criticisms get to him. But this time… This time, she'd watched their performances! It was different, right now, to what Sandra had said to him about their other showings. It was!

“It was a farce, Mum,” he said quietly, “from nineteen seventy-nine. It was supposed to be a comical, sort of, play.”

“And laughing at, making fun of the Royal Family? Is that what passes for comedy nowadays? Is that what your Father and I raised you to do? Spit on our National Heritage?”

“I,” he tried, “I'm sorry, Mum. Annie picked the show, the roles. It wasn't my choice.” He hated that he could feel tears start to build under his skin.

“At least the radio play you did didn't involve anyone getting hurt,” Mum said after a few moments of silence, her voice softer now. More like the Mum he distantly remembered from his early childhood.

But what she said was wrong. Wasn't it? Sure, Trevor didn't get himself while drumming with hammers or throwing bricks around or shooting a gun into the air. But Sandra got hurt. Granted, it wasn't as serious as some Cornley injuries could be, but she must've got hurt by breathing in Dennis' deodorant spray. Right?

“But wouldn't Sandra have got hurt by the wrong spray?” He couldn't stop himself from asking his Mum. He bit at the inside of his lower lip.

“… She seemed to be speaking perfectly fine during the farce,” Mum replied, the chill in her voice rising some.

“Right, of course,” he said quickly, wanting to appease her in any way he could.

Silence fell on the line again, and Chris started digging his nails into the palm of his free hand. He daren't look back at Vanessa, sure that seeing her looking so unnaturally calm would make an already poor moment turn worse.

“I just,” Mum started, then stopped, unusually hesitant. Chris tilted his head in concerned confusion, though he was aware, somewhere in the back of his mind, that it wouldn't matter. She wasn't here to see him.

“Mum?” He prompted when she didn't continue speaking after a few seconds. He was tempted to pull his phone away from his ear to see if the call had dropped, when she started speaking again.

“I just wonder why you keep that man in black on the payroll,” she finally said, “he doesn't seem to do all that well at his job. Just look at poor Vanessa,” she sighed loud enough on her end of the line that he could hear it.

“What,” he stopped himself when his voice cracked. Swallowing, he tried to ask again, “What about Vanessa?”

“Well, if you would've been stronger in talking to the cast after their shoddy attempt to take the role of Director from you like your Father had said,” Mum's voice was kind, her words wrapping around him the way her arms rarely did. “This wouldn't have happened.”

Chris felt more ice in his veins start to appear. He could barely muster out a questioning hum, his mind was so focused on what she was telling him.

“Vanessa getting shot with a tranquillizer gun, her not having any actual role in that radio drama,” Mum listed off seemingly carelessly, “Vanessa wouldn't be in hospital if you had put your foot down like Raymond's been telling you to all these years.” Her voice had grown stiff and harsh again, and Chris wasn't sure where the anger in her voice was directed: at himself for not being strong enough, or at the perceived failings of the Cast.

“It's not your fault, of course, Chris, dear,” Mum said, her voice back to being the sweet and gentle sound he always strived to hear from her, “but… No. No, I shouldn't say anything more.”

“No, Mum, it's alright,” he said, part of him screaming at himself that he should've hung up the phone on her ages ago. “What were you going to say?”

“Oh, dear,” she laughed—the way he'd heard her laugh at gatherings in the evenings growing up with the other women in her sewing circle. It had always sounded slightly off to him, and he could never quite figure out why. “I, well, I was just going to say that it wasn't your fault that this happened to Vanessa, but… It also was, a little bit, don't you agree?”

His breath caught at her words, and his doubts and insecurities about everything that had happened over that night, over the past several months after the coup, took her words as Truth. It was his fault that Nessa is hurt, wasn't it? If he had done better at getting on Trevor about stage safety, making sure that the window box from Summer, Once Again and the Royal Crest from The Most Lamentable were secured to the walls of the set properly, maybe Vanessa wouldn't have to be here right now. Maybe the two of them could be back at her flat—a place that's nearly become synonymous with home to him—curled up under the covers, a cat purring away happily on the bed with them. Maybe he really did get Vanessa hurt. He didn't pull the trigger of the tranquillizer gun, not physically, but in a way, he did. Didn't he?

He felt fingers carefully grasping his hand and wrist, pulling the phone away from his ear. Glazed eyes lighted upon someone familiar—Nerys, his mind makes the connection a few beats later, as if he was thinking in sludge—puts the phone up to her face.

“Sorry,” Nerys' gentle voice said after she took the phone away from his frozen self, “Chris has sustained a concussion, and it is the Doctor's order that he not be on any sort of electronic device for the next few days as he heals.”

Chris can see, in a vague sort of sense, how the corners of Nerys' eyes tighten, how her smile becomes even more plastered on than before.

“Thank you for understanding that no one, not even the Director of the Cornley Drama Society, can disobey Doctor's orders. Have a good night.” She said, evidently bowling right over whatever it was Mum was saying to her.

After she hung up, the tension on Nerys' face seemed to melt away, and she turned to face Chris more fully. “Sam said that you are not to use any electronic devices until tomorrow afternoon at the earliest. Ze've already told Trev, and he knows to text me any updates about the rest of the Cast if anything happens overnight.”

Chris blinks several times, mind still working overtime to catch up to the current proceedings. His physical awareness starts to come back in pieces, the feeling of the floor solidly under his feet, the chill in his limbs as the numbness begins to leave them. The way he felt clammy all over, yet still too warm.

Nerys set his phone down on top of the cabinet next to Vanessa's bed before helping him to the chairs next to her. She was awake now, eyes still slightly hazy from the ketamine—which, honestly, could only be expected—and those hazy eyes were watching him, a frown on Vanessa's face accompanying the look.

His own brow wrinkled in return, though his look was one of confusion. Did he miss her waking up? When did it happen? Another thought struck. How much did she see? Did she hear?

Nerys rubbed his shoulder gently as he took Vanessa's free hand, the one without the IV or blood pressure moniter attached. The nurse puttered about the couple in silence, only the steady beeps from the moniters interrupting. She finished her check-up, wrote the results on the clipboard at the end of Nessa's bed, and left them with a small, polite smile.

As her footsteps faded away, Chris allowed himself to fully collapse against the bed, against Vanessa. His head leaned heavily into her thigh, near where it met her hip, and her grip on his hand tightened. Her other hand comes to rest on his head, her thumb stroking back and forth through his hair. He knew that once he was feeling better—once he'd slept some, gotten out of the costume, and washed his face—that they'd talk about this. He was starting to put the pieces together in his mind for how, exactly, Nerys had known to come to the room.

He knew that tomorrow would be filled with soft words, murmured reassurances, and the sound of a cat meowing behind the door to a flat. He knew the day after would be full of talks with Sandra and Max and Jonathan, even, about boundaries again. How to tell his parents when to stop, how to tell himself not to pick up their calls.

But for now, Chris falls into the sleep one only gets when they're emotionally and physically drained, the sounds of steady beeping and fingers brushing through hair accompanying him to the Land of Nod.

*shakes you by the shoulders* HOW DO YOU THINK CHRIS' PARENTS REACTED TO SEEING HIM WEARING THE UNION JACK ON HIS PANTS AND FLOUNCING AROUND WITH A "WEH HEH HEUH" LAUGH IN A UNIFORM AT THE END OF ANNIE'S PLAY FOR THIRTY SECONDS???

HOW LONG WAS IT THAT THE SHOW WAS AIRED THAT CELIA AND RAYMOND WERE ON THE PHONE TO TALK TO HIM ABOUT HOW NOT ONLY DID HE DISGRACE THEM BY DOING THAT, BUT HE DISGRACED THE COUNTRY AS WELL?

HOW MANY TIMES DID THEY USE NESSA'S GETTING KNOCKED OUT AND CARRIED OUT AS ANOTHER PART TO THEIR GUILT TRIPS AAAAUUUUGGGHHHH