Chapter Text
He was a fourth year med student when it went down.
Vanilla was set to shadow another doctor for the day, to say that he was excited would be an understatement. He was beyond thrilled to get the chance to be on the field. He worked so hard to get a scholarship to get the opportunity to go to medical school.
He had always wanted to be a doctor. From the moment he heard the story of how doctors saved him from a deadly infection, he had found his calling in life. He always held such a deep admiration of those in the medical field and wanted so desperately to be one of them, so that he too could help others.
He walked through the hallway, knocking on the door of the doctor he’s going to shadow. The door opened and Vanilla greeted him with a big smile, the doctor smiled back. He walked with the doctor through the corridor, still smiling so brightly. The doctor looked at him, skeptical of something. “Is everything alright, sir?” The doctor dusted their coat. “Have you been eating as of late? You look thin.”
Vanilla silently shook his head, denying the fact he had not eaten in two weeks. There was no time to eat when he had to study in order to keep his grades up and his scholarship secured. He was still grateful for the existence of foundation to hide his eye bags from others. He didn’t want anyone to worry or worse have him take a gap year and miss school. He just wants to help everyone.
He and the doctor heard an announcement from the speakers, “All hazard disaster plan in effect. Anyone who can help please report to the emergency branch.” The doctor rushes ahead, Vanilla follows them. People were being rushed to different rooms on stretchers, Vanilla feels his heart throbbing with empathy.
Without thinking twice he rushes towards the nearest stretcher to see if he can help. He couldn’t stand by and take notes, the drive to help others won’t let him. He sees a nurse locking eyes with him, she motions him to come close. He goes with her to see a paramedic doing chest compressions on an unconscious man. He stands outside of the room, frozen in place. His mind screams at him to step forward, but his body refuses out of shock.
The paramedic glances at him briefly before turning back to the flatlining man, “You are?” Vanilla realizes that the paramedic was talking to him and he rushed to answer her. “Vanilla, fourth year med student.” The paramedic kept her eyes focused on the man, “Can you do a left femoral in his groin for me?” He nodded, and quickly sterilized the skin of the groin.
He sticks the needle in the area to try and find a vein. His eyes widened when he couldn’t find a vein in put the needle into, so he spoke up for assistance. “I can’t find it!!” The paramedic took the needle from his hand, then turned to the AED. Grabbing it and placing it on the man’s chest, “Shock at 120. Clear!” The lifeless body jumped at the shock, Vanilla physically flinched as it did so. A nurse checked for a pulse. “No pulse,” the paramedic looked at the nurse, “Again. Put it to two hundred. Clear!”
Vanilla understood that this was necessary to get the patient stable, but he couldn’t help but flinch when the AED shocked the lifeless patient. “I got a pulse. Get the bp, keep giving him blood and get him to the or.” Vanilla sighs in relief that he managed to get the patient back, he ran off to see if anyone else needed help.
Another doctor pulled him to the side, “I need to attend to another patient, can you please check on him.” He nodded, as the doctor gave him the details. “It’s a six year old male, got a few broken ribs from the crash.” Vanilla’s heart aches at the knowledge that a child was injured, he did a quick sprint before turning to the room where the child was. He knocked on the door to announce his presence.
“Hello there. I’m just here to check on you, your doctor is running busy.” He goes to the heart monitor to check the child’s vitals. All seems fine so far, but it could go south at any moment. The doctor he’s shadowing watches him from the door, monitoring his movements with bated breath. Vanilla keeps himself focused on the task.
“Everything looks in order. I’ll get someone to monitor you, just in case.”
The mother nods and thanks him. He leaves the room, walking alongside the doctor. The two are quiet for a moment before the doctor speaks. “You did good in there.”
Vanilla suppresses the urge to jump for joy at the knowledge that he did well in his interaction with the patient’s mother. He made him relieved that he could do this, that he belongs in the field. The doctor waved at someone, presumably a colleague of theirs. The colleague headed over with a young woman following them, she looked to be in the same year as him. The doctor turned to Vanilla.
“Vanilla, have you met Raisin yet?” He had seen her while walking to classes, they’d say a quick hello occasionally. But other than those times, he didn’t know her. He shakes his head, holding his open hand out to her. She takes it, “It’s nice to meet you, officially.” She gives him a smile, “You too, I mean how many times have we exchanged a fast greeting?” Vanilla knows the answer to that question, he had unintentionally keeping track of it in his mind.
About fifteen times this semester, ten times last year. And I guess that makes it sixteen right now. She looked at him with a blank expression, “You’ve kept count?” Vanilla blushes and covers his mouth with his hands, that wasn’t supposed to come out of his mouth. He said that out loud in front of the doctor he’s shadowing. He rubbed the back of his head with his hand, rushing to explain himself. “Not on purpose!! I swear to gods, I’m not a stalker!!”
She laughed and held her hands up, “Relax, it’s okay. I didn’t even expect you to even answer that. Has it really been ten times last year?”
He nods, not meeting her eyes out of sheer embarrassment at himself for saying that. She meets his eyes, “Well I let you get back to your job, it was nice meeting you.” She smiles and walks off with the medical technologist. Vanilla finally lets himself breathe, groaning at his absolute fumble of a conversation.
The doctor chuckles, “How’s your dorm mate doing by the way? Dougheal, was it?” Vanilla sighs in hidden sadness at the mention of his prior dorm mate. Dougheal was a year ahead of him and had recently moved out to return home. He was devastated when he got the news that they were leaving, he felt like he could tell them anything. And now his only line of support he had throughout his time in school was gone, and he wasn’t coping with it well.
“Actually they moved out two weeks ago.” He fought back tears as he walked into another patient’s room, checking their vitals and making sure everything was fine. The doctor turned to him as they walked through the hallway, “How are you holding up after that?”
Vanilla smiled, lying by the skin of his teeth. “I’ve been handling it well. You don’t have to worry about me.” I’m not worthy of it. He let that part go unsaid, he didn’t want anyone to worry about him. Because he’s the helpful one, the helpful one’s don’t feel like they’re constantly not doing enough and they just aren’t enough. They simply keep on going and helping.
But sometimes, the carefully crafted mask that Vanilla constructed slips. Not all the time, only very specific moments. Like when he got a 99% on a test, when a hundred was the norm for him. Or when he misheard an instruction and had to be corrected by the instructor. Those times he had absolutely felt like he was letting everyone down.
—
Vanilla eyes another patient from across his vision. A nurse is already in the room, the two were talking. Vanilla walked over, soon being joined by the doctor. “You sure you don’t want to take a break?” Vanilla shakes his head. “I’m fine.” He knocked on the door, the nurse opened it. She had grayish hair done up in a perm style, she looked at him confused.
“May I come in?”
She nodded and proceeded to give him the rundown on her patient, “This is Lily Bell, thirteen year old female with Cystic Fibrosis, just came in. Me and her were just catching up.” Vanilla’s eyes widened as he realized that he knew of her, she’s Lily’s cousin. Lily Bell looks at him, tilting her head.
“You look familiar…” The nurse glances at her in surprise as Vanilla smiles softly.
“Do you have a cousin named Lily White?”
She gasped, “No way!! You’re the Vanilla my cousin told me about?!?!” He nodded and sat down on a chair beside her. “The one and only. What are you in for other than CF?” She chuckled darkly, “Caught a cold.” Vanilla hissed through his teeth. She continued to talk, “I’m just waiting for lungs so I can finally breathe like a normal girl.”
Vanilla lets out a nervous laugh, “Well, I can guarantee you that you will get those lungs. If not, then you have every right to haunt me from the afterlife.”
She laughs, “You sure? I won’t give you any mercy.”
He smirks, “I think I can handle it.” She laughs again, causing a small coughing fit. Vanilla immediately felt guilty for causing her more pain. She caught her breath and turned to face him, “It was nice seeing you. Tell cousin Lily I said happy birthday.” He refrains himself from grabbing her hand, knowing that she could catch his bacteria. “I will. Get well soon, Lily Bell.” Before he left the room he goes to the nurse.
“Thank you for letting me talk to her, nurse…”
She pointed to her name clip, “Truffle. But you can call me Truff, it’s a nickname she gave me.”
He giggled, “Either way, thank you nurse Truffle, for allowing me to speak with her.” She nodded, “Here’s to hoping that you get placed in this hospital for residency.”
Vanilla waves and closed the door to the room. He and the doctor walked for a moment, “Well, that was nice to see a familiar face.” The doctor smirked as Vanilla continued.
“I mean, what are the odds that I could encounter my best friend’s cousin here??”
The doctor glanced at him, “It’s actually more common than you think. I remember treating close family friends a lot more times than I expected.” Vanilla leans over to look at the doctor, catching a glimpse at his name clip. ‘Millennial Tree’ it read.
“Really?!”
Dr. Tree nodded, “It’s true. You’re more likely to encounter those situations than you’d thought.”
Vanilla hummed in thought. He guessed that’s what made the profession so exhilarating, at least that’s how he sees it.
You’re constantly being tested on your medical knowledge with every step you walk through the halls. Every patient is like a rubix cube, a puzzle to solve. You go through every piece of information that you can obtain via scans, then you decide the next course of action. Doctors are literally solving complex rubix cubes of medical conditions every single day.
A perfect profession for a person who has a determined drive and a sharp, intelligent mind and an understanding of every background of how to communicate with patients. The perfect job for Vanilla.
—
“Code Blue. Code Blue. Code Blue.”
Vanilla zoomed through the hallway and skidded into the room with a small child around eight or nine years old. The mother was screaming for help, Vanilla started doing chest compressions, Dr. Tree soon came into the room and noticed that Vanilla wasn’t compressing hard enough.
“You have to compress harder. Go for the heart, Vanilla.”
Vanilla looks up at the doctor in shock, she’s so tiny…. And Vanilla didn’t know what he’d do if he accidentally broke something, he shoved his apprehensions down into his subconscious and obeyed. His heart sank to his stomach as he heard tiny cracks while he compressed. He was breaking a little girl’s ribs, he kept going. He’ll have to cry himself to sleep about it later, right now he’s solely focused on saving the patient.
“Hold.”
He stops his chest compressions immediately, holding his hands up and internally sighing in relief that they brought her back. A moment later, a team of nurses began to wheel the child out, Dr. Tree turned to face him. Vanilla was standing there frozen, mumbling under his breath, only snapping out of it when the doctor spoke.
“You did a good job there.”
A good job?! A GOOD JOB!?!? He just broke a child’s ribs from doing CPR!! How was that doing a good job. Vanilla didn’t say anything, that would be highly unprofessional. He wanted to make a good impression on the staff here, so he could hopefully get placed here for residency.
Doubts started flooding his mind, most of them were chastising him for getting so freaked out over that. Many doctors probably had to do far worse to keep their patients alive than breaking a patient’s ribs while resuscitating them.
—
Vanilla’s thoughts kept swirling around, he kept moving forward. But he felt that the chain’s around his legs were getting heavier and heavier. He takes a deep breather, he had excused himself to use the restroom. Which was a lie, and even his soul knew that. He just needed to stop the feeling of inadequacy from consuming him.
He crouches in front of the toilet, his breathing shallow and rapid. He locked the stall door to prevent anyone from finding him indulging in such a thing. It calmed him tremendously, now on to the matter at hand. He inhales deeply, before shoving two fingers down the back of his throat. The habit was the only thing that numbed his thoughts from devouring his sanity.
He felt too heavy, he had too much for breakfast this morning and too much for dinner the evening before. He had to fix this problem immediately, he needs to shave these horrible, unwanted numbers off his body. And he had found that this method was the best way for him to do so.
He gagged a few times, nothing but water came up. He growled at himself for not even able to do this properly. Barely anything was coming up, despite the constant gagging caused the two fingers still in the back of his throat. He breathed heavily as he sticks his fingers back into his throat.
He just needed to purge.
He just wants to get rid of all of that blubber that he knows is still there. But it just won’t go away, like it was taunting him with his own reflection. It wasn’t just the blubber on his stomach that he wanted to be rid of, it was everywhere else on his body.
Especially his thighs, gods his thighs. Those were always the heaviest part of him, the way his mind pointed out how the skin ripples when he would slap his hand on them absolutely made his usual purges worth it.
Finally, after what feels like an eternity. He throws up his breakfast and dinner from last night, the mush splashed into the water of the toilet bowl. Once Vanilla was done, he smiled at the vomit. Immediately feeling much better than when he went in. He stumbled backwards against the stall door, clutching his head in his hands. He brushed off his lightheadedness.
That was a new development as of late. The constant feeling of being cold, tired and lightheaded. But it’s nothing that he couldn’t get used to eventually. He takes one last look at the puke in the toilet, smiling proudly at his job well done. He then flushed the toilet, not taking his eyes off of the water swirling until it retreated into the toilet bowl.
Vanilla stepped out of the stall, almost losing his balance. He examined his face, his cheeks were slightly swollen and red from the previous purges. He grabbed a container of foundation that he kept on him and reapplied it, upon noticing that the moisture from his eyes watering had caused the foundation under his eyes to wash off.
He dipped his finger into the cream and dragged it under his eyes mechanically. It practically became muscle memory at this point, he had only started the whole purging thing during spring break. After a bout of food poisoning led him to losing two pounds. And that had planted an idea in his mind that if he did this enough times, he’d be able to shut up those thoughts that kept telling him that he was eating too much.
The moment he reached ninety pounds, he celebrated. He celebrated because his theory was right!! After that, he kept going with his purges. He didn’t care if his cheeks were getting swollen from his stomach acid coming up his throat, he could just hide that with just enough foundation. He gazed at his reflection in the restroom mirror.
For a brief moment, he faltered. He squinted his eyes at his reflection. Is that really me? He shakes his head, washing his hands with his eyes not looking at his reflection anymore. He leaves the restroom, before he goes back to shadowing Dr. Tree, he sees a scale. His gaze lingers on the scale for a while, then he walks forward.
It couldn’t hurt to check his weight before returning to his shadowing. He stands on the scale, sliding it a bit until it balances itself in the middle. His eyes lit up like Christmas lights when he saw the number.
85 pounds.
He smiled and hopped off the scale to go and help more people.