Work Text:
Cade was always a sickly child, now in his teens, he’s been at the hospital. The hospital practically being his new home, he has no friends, and is quite lonely. The only interaction he gets is by his parents, the nurses, doctors, and volunteers that usually come around. Not that he talks to them much. Always short in temper with others, lashing out on others, he doesn’t care it’s wrong. He was like that with you too. At first. You irked him, seeing you all smiles as you talked to him. The other volunteers usually steered clear of him a week or month so (if they were resilient enough).
Not you though. Why was that? He didn’t know. In fact it made him even angrier. Doing every body language possible to send the message across that he didn’t want you here. You’re not stupid, of course you knew. What he didn’t know was that you were too shy to ask for a change of “buddy.” That’s the name the hospital set up. It’s a little laughable.
He didn’t know, you were quite shy and socially awkward. But why didn’t he? Easy, you tried to better yourself. That was the initial goal of this whole volunteering . You wanted to help others while also helping yourself get out of your shell. Not that it worked. Though as time went on you got used to him and he got used to you. Not that he himself know of that. The nurses noticed though. He was becoming more passive. No longer throwing things at the nurses who wanted to take his vitals. Instead opting to look outside the window.
You got sick. You haven’t been visiting him for a week now. This was the first time you weren’t here. He didn’t care. He was happy, pleased. His body language would say otherwise. He never realized how slow time went by. He never thought so before. So why was he know? He fidgeted all day. It was now 10 almost 11 days. He’s been counting. He asked the nurse where you were. The nurse seemed surprised to him asking, making him surprised he even asked. It came out unconsciously as she took his vitals.
“She got a bad case of the flu, it’s been going around lately.” Oh was all he could manage, it wouldn’t kill her to come for one day he spoke out to himself. Almost snarky.
“Could you please repeat that?” Huh?!oh it’s nothing.. hot he felt uncomfortably hot. Sweaty even.
Stupid, this was a hospital, if she came she could be a hazard to the rest of the patients. Even then, she probably was in great discomfort. But still. He bit his lip as he looked out the window. It was dark.