Chapter Text
“Last thing, so listen up,” Wymack said, trying to corral in the waning attention. All the Foxes were gathered in the locker room, going over the schedule for the week. Though eager to get on the field (most of them, at least), they dutifully gave their attention to the coach.
“Flu season’s upon us. You all are liabilities enough with the nonsense that is you and your lives, so flu shots today. Can’t afford any of you getting sick. Go one at a time with Abby, it shouldn’t take the whole practice.”
He pointed over at Nicky. “You’re up first, then cycle through the backliners. I don’t care the order after that. Let’s go.” Wymack grabbed his clipboard from the table, and headed for the field, the rest of the Foxes trailing behind.
Nicky grinned at Aaron, gloating his avoidance of practice, even if just for a minute, and headed into Abby’s office.
The team started laps around the field. Matt ran next to Dan, setting a comfortable pace for the majority. It couldn’t have been more than ten minutes when they were moving to get onto the field, and passed by Nicky on their way past the locker rooms. He smiled and pointed at Matt as he donned his armor. “Your turn!”
“Good luck!” Dan called, securing her helmet as she turned away.
Matt jogged to Abby’s office. He knocked on the door that was slightly ajar as he entered. She turned from where she was throwing something away, and smiled.
“Hello Matt,” she said. “Take a seat there.” She gestured to the exam table in the corner of the room.
Matt made his way over, trying not to rip the paper as he sat. Abby approached with an ear thermometer. “I’m going to take your temperature, if that’s okay?”
She genuinely waited for his nodding consent before gently pushing the thermometer into his ear. She knew her patients, and with the Foxes in particular, she was careful of explaining her movements and assessing their comfort.
They waited the minute for it to get its reading. Matt was happy to sit in companionable silence with Abby. Abby, and by extension her office, had always been a comforting presence (excepting the times he’d spent here for drug tests and checking his track marks, but at that point in his college career, there had hardly been any place he’d consider comforting). It served as a refuge from the chaos of the Foxes, on the court or off.
It should have been a welcome, if brief, distraction from practice, yet Matt felt an undercurrent of anxiety settling in his stomach. He had never had issues with needles before, so he doubted it was any kind of needle-phobia, but the unease was undeniable.
He struggled to remain still, his body screaming at him to do something to relieve the anxiety fluttering through his body.
Finally, the thermometer beeped. Abby checked, and said “98.4, no fever.”
She walked to put away the thermometer, and turned back with a tray in her hands.
“Ready?”
“Yep!” Matt said with false cheer. Abby nodded and approached his right side.
She was just lifting his sleeve, when Matt blurted out, “Stop!”
Abby startled and pulled back. Matt looked embarrassed. “Sorry, I don’t…I don’t know what that was. You’re good.” He nodded his head at his arm, and sat still, clearly not intending to say anything else.
Abby waited though, observing Matt. It didn’t take years of getting to know Matt on a personal level, or even decades of being a nurse, to notice the discomfort her patient was feeling and the tension he held in his entire frame.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize there was any fear over needles, I should have been more sensitive.” She had a feeling it was more than that, but didn’t want to pry, no matter how unsubtle he was tracing and rubbing at his track marks. It was a nervous tick she’d known about since he was a freshman, usually manifesting when dealing with anything related to his past addictions.
“No, it’s not - I mean, clearly I don’t have issues with needles,” he laughed ruefully, eyes stuck on the crook of his arm.
Abby didn’t laugh. Too vividly she could remember his sophomore year: monitoring his sobriety, helping him through cravings and withdrawal, staying with him that night after Columbia until his mother could get him. (Which…there were many thoughts Abby had on Randy’s decision-making, private thoughts that wouldn’t be shared with Matt. There was no need, and she knew how he idolized her. It was easy to see how that happened even with the little she knew of Matt’s father, and she liked Randy well enough, but even if Matt had forgiven, she would never agree with Randy’s choice regarding that night).
“What can I do to help?” She instead asked evenly.
Matt was grateful for Abby’s understanding. Anyone else, and he’d be scrambling to just push through, but he took a moment to evaluate what he needed.
“I don’t know, it’s just too similar right now. In my head.” He didn’t specify, but knew she’d understand what he was alluding to.
“Remember, it’s just the same vehicle, and that’s all,” she said.
Matt nodded. Abby waited another moment before coming closer. Matt closed his eyes, repeating the mantra of it’s not the same in his head. He wasn’t failing his sobriety, this was just a goddamn flu shot.
He made it as far as her sanitizing his skin before he felt visceral phantom sensations of foreign substances injected into his body and racing through his bloodstream. His eyes flew open, and he said desperately, “Wait, wait, wait.”
“Waiting,” Abby said patiently, taking a step back once again.
Matt fought to calm himself. The longer he struggled, the less control he had, a feeling he both despised and sought every day of his life. He didn’t know how long he sat, struggling to breathe as Abby waited.
“I can’t do…” he trailed off, swallowing hard as he tensed his arms and rolled his shoulders in disgust at the tingling he felt in his inner arm. “Not today.”
Not today, when the cravings he constantly fought off were inexplicably stronger than normal. Not today, when said cravings were immediately followed by blazing guilt. Guilt for his weakness, for the worry he caused Dan. Worry that echoed his own fears of relapse and subsequent rehab he didn’t think he had the strength to endure again.
“Matt,” Abby said, trying to stop the spiral she could see accelerating before her. “Do you want me to get Dan?”
He considered for just a moment before shaking his head definitively. He tried not to be ashamed of his past, and he wasn’t with Dan, but he still didn’t want to worry her. Besides, getting Dan would be an obvious sign to the other Foxes that something was wrong. Not that he didn’t trust them, they were family, but he could admit he struggled with letting them see him vulnerable in a way he didn’t with Dan.
“All right, what if it didn’t go in your arm?” she asked, trying to come up with more solutions. She knew that as much as it was in the past, Matt still struggled with his addiction. She had been witness to it firsthand, but hated to see the state he was put in now.
Matt mulled it over. His arms were off-limits, for sure. Any other day, there would have been no issue, and he’d have been out in five minutes like Nicky was, but unfortunately here they were.
“Like, my thigh or something?”
“Exactly.”
Matt waited the space of a breath, letting the idea sink in.
“Okay,” he said quietly. He hoped it was dissimilar enough to his drug use that he could trick his brain into chilling out for five minutes.
“Lie back,” Abby said. She moved quickly, grabbing a new alcohol wipe and pushing Matt’s shorts up slightly. She gently cleaned his thigh, and all too soon was ready to inject.
Matt looked up at Abby, a normally comforting figure, looming over him as the, fair to appoint or not, source of his anxiety. It took everything in him not to drop his gaze to the syringe.
“Breathe in,” she instructed, “and out.”
Matt acquiesced, and she slid the needle in on his exhale. Matt grit his teeth.
“Relax,” she told him, and it took Matt an admittedly large amount of energy to relax his leg muscle that had tensed. The flu shot burned slightly, but was over soon enough.
Abby put a band-aid on, and moved to clean up, allowing Matt a moment of relative privacy. He sat up and rubbed at his already aching thigh.
Forearm skin unbroken for the foreseeable future, he was feeling calmed down, if still on edge, and even though Abby had seen him at far worse, seen him at his lowest and reached out a hand to pull him up, he was more than anything embarrassed. He didn’t want her to see him regress, be another thing she needed to worry about. Still, he was reluctant to return to practice. He’d easily been away for over twenty minutes, so his teammates would be wondering, but he didn’t feel like explaining or coming up with excuses.
“Thank you, Abby. Sorry for all that,” he said. “You don’t need to worry or anything, there’s just…bad days, I guess,” he rushed to explain, not sure what exactly he was worried about Abby thinking, but feeling the need to defend himself.
Abby stepped close to him, and gave him a hug.
“I know, and I’m so so proud of you. You’re remarkable, really.” They all were, all the Foxes.
They held there for another few minutes, and if Abby felt tears fall onto her neck, she wouldn’t say anything. She was glad to be there, to witness the proud moments of the Foxes, and more importantly, be there for them at their lows.