10. The Eyes Of Obelus
The Eyes Of Obelus
The pager shrieks me awake. I fumble, mumble, drool pooling around my face.
Really? Five a.m.?
I sigh, check my phone for the triage notes as I swing my legs over the bed. At least it didn’t happen during the concert, I think bitterly.
35/M presenting w/ blunt force trauma. Patient reports seeing stars and blood spots/dots. ER visit inconclusive. Needs urgent exam, ASAP.
Great. Probably a bar fight.
I drag myself up, scrubbing eyeliner and glitter from my face as best I can.
Despite my efforts, stubborn flecks still cling to my cheeks.
The exaggerated eyeliner is smeared but passable, reasonable for a five a.m. wake-up, I tell myself.
I shove my glasses onto my face and notice my hair is a fuzzball from dancing and humidity; I twist it into the usual unwieldy bun.
Kind of professional, at least on the surface.
Nobody needs to know I was in a mosh pit five hours ago.
And nobody will care about me, not when they’re afraid of losing their eyesight.
I pull on the first set of wrinkled scrubs I can find before rushing out the door.
By the time I throw my white coat on at the clinic, the chart is waiting.
The on-call tech has done the basics but skipped dilation.
“Good instincts,” I tell her. “Concussions and pupils go hand in hand, better if I check it myself.”
Name: Rafe Ashton.
I square my shoulders, push open the exam room door. “Good morning, Mr. Ashton. I see from your chart we’ve had a knock to the head today?”
And then I look up. My breath stops. Because sitting in my chair, veil gone, hair black with streaks of red glowing under the fluorescents, tucked inside a black hoodie, it’s him.
Obelus.
The man whose voice has haunted my nights since I was sixteen.
Whose veiled face hung on my wall. The man I swore saw me in the crowd last night.
The man whose name is not Obelus at all but Rafe Ashton.
And right now, he’s looking at me like he already knows exactly what I am, someone who was in his pit a few hours ago, screaming like a mad woman.
I shake the idea from my mind, no, he can't know.
Just get through this, be the doctor you are, Kasia.
I take a deep breath, steadying myself, and ask the first question like I would with anyone else. “Explain to me what happened and if you've had any symptoms since then? Seeing any curtains across your vision? Flashes?”
He explains the fall, the ER visit, the headache, almost throwing up.
His voice is calmer in person than I imagined, steady, but rough at the edges.
Almost normal, human. A little worried, maybe even scared.
My instincts kick in, the training, the reassurance, the calm voice I’ve used on a thousand patients takes over.
I reach for the blood pressure cuff on the wall.
“I’ll need to check your blood pressure before dilation.”
As I lean close, he glances up, and I nearly combust. Heat floods my chest, but I shove it down.
My hands stay steady, thank God, as I wrap the cuff around the arm he just freed from his hoodie.
But inside? I’m hyperventilating. This is the arm I’ve seen a thousand times, veins and muscle flexing under stage paint, tossing a guitar like it’s nothing, undulating as he plays the piano.
I force myself to focus on the dial, the hiss of the pump, the tick of the red line.
Just that, just the sound in my ears, muffled except for his heartbeat, thudding, pulse too fast.
“It’s a little elevated,” I murmur.
He shrugs. “Probably the concert. Or the fall, maybe the ER wait. Which do you think?” He says it casually, like it’s nothing. The same way another patient would mention walking their dog or grocery shopping.
To my surprise, I laugh. He does too, the sound is quick, unguarded. He’s not demanding, not larger-than-life. Just… a guy who hit his head and ended up in my exam chair.
“All valid reasons,” I agree, jotting notes.
“I’ll use Tropicamide to dilate you for the examination.
You'll be light sensitive for about four to six hours.” I glance at his plus one, slouched in sunglasses across the room, before looking back to him.
“Do you have anywhere you need to be this morning?”
“No, doctor…” He tilts forward, squinting at the embroidery on my coat. “Swa—”
“Sawadzka,” I finish for him, saving us both the stumble. “It's Polish, a bit tricky for most.” Heat rushes to my face, did I just imply he's stupid? Breathe Kasia.
“Doctor Sawadzka,” he repeats, leaning back with a grin that pulls electricity through me. “I’m in your care for the foreseeable.”
It’s probably nothing. A throwaway charm, the same one that’s made arenas scream. But it feels hotter than it should, curling under my skin. I flip his chart open just to give my hands something to do.
“Okay,” I say briskly. “Focus on my face.”
His gaze locks on mine, unwavering. The air thickens instantly, my throat goes tight, and for a moment I can’t breathe. “Don’t take your focus off of me. Now cover your left eye. When you look at me, here in the center, am I blurry or clear?”
He doesn’t blink, doesn’t even twitch. He holds my stare with a force that makes me feel pinned, considered too intently. Finally, he answers, voice low. “Clear.”
“Good. Now I’ll hold up fingers in the four corners of your vision. Don’t follow my hand, just look at me.”
“Got it,” he says, “just look at you.” I swallow hard.
Suddenly, I understand why patients fall for their doctors, why they bring Dr. Conrad fruit baskets and chocolates.
It’s never felt this… intense until right now.
I push everything down again and force myself to finish the test with perfect precision.
Nothing missing from his periphery. All intact, even if my breath is not.
“Good news,” I say, scribbling.
Then comes the pupils. I dim the lights, lean close, flashlight in hand, watching the delicate contraction, the bloom of his irises in the beam.
Up close his eyes are a thousand colors, glassy and alive.
His skin is impossibly smooth, close enough I can feel the heat rising off him.
His breath catches once, brushing against my cheek, and he swallows, his Adam’s apple leaping like he’s nervous too.
“I have to say…” His voice dips low, almost a whisper in the charged air. “You’re not exactly what I pictured when they said the on-call doctor would see me.”
“Hmm?” I lean back just enough to record the millimeters, reaction times, though my pulse is racing.
He tips his chin toward me, traces his own face in an echo of their placement. “The eyeliner. The glitter.” His mouth curves, knowing. He knows. He absolutely knows I was there and he’s playing with me.
As much as I feel the draw, this is my domain. I’m the doctor, and I won’t let him shake my confidence. I force Conrad’s clinical phrasing into my delivery. “Patients often assume youth means inexperience. Social conditioning, but I assure you, your retina is in capable hands.”
His gaze lingers on me, heavy and intentional.
“I have no doubt in your capable hands. You seem thorough.” He nods, an acknowledgment and a dare wrapped in one.
I explain the numbing drops, dilation, the sting, the blur it’ll cause.
He nods, easy, no hesitation, and for a second I have to remind myself: I’m treating a patient, not Obelus.
Not the man whose voice has soothed me for years.
Which is not an easy thing to remember when those eyes are fixed on me through every word, every movement.
I snap on gloves, brace myself, routine. I’ve done this a thousand times, no big deal.
“Look up for me,” I say softly.
He does, lashes dark against his skin, eyes vulnerable and waiting.
I steady his face with my gloved fingers, thumb pulling gently at his lower lid, and tilt the drop into place.
It feels like I’m all over him, invading personal space in a way I never noticed before, but with him, I can’t ignore it.
The drop lands. He flinches, blinking rapidly as his eyes water. His mouth quirks sideways. “You must like making people cry as much as me, doctor.”
It’s the same tired joke about making patients cry I’ve heard since residency but reinvented, through the lens of Obelus, and on his lips it does something lethal.
Makes him real. Just a man, blinking against stinging drops, letting me dab the tears from his face.
He looks… touchable. Every drag of tissue across his cheek feels like proof that the distance I built was always an illusion.
Some false pretense, some demi-god I conjured.
“Just means the drops are working,” I mutter, voice steadier than I feel, tossing the tissue and scribbling the onset time.
But my mind is spinning. I was never supposed to touch him in reality. Not supposed to notice the warmth of his skin even through gloves, the way his lashes flutter against my fingertips, how close I am to the perfect slope of his cheek.
I move briskly, back to the chart. “It’ll take a few minutes for the pupils to fully dilate. We’ll check again at the slit lamp.”
“Whatever you say.” He leans back, arms loose, head tilted toward me like he’s already settled into my orbit. “It all sounds good.”
The words land heavier than they should, curling under my skin. I make my excuses to give his eyes time, pop out of the room, and breathe.
At the desk, the tech mouths oh my god, is it really him?
I nod. She squeals silently. I motion to the bathroom and duck inside.
The mirror doesn’t lie, there’s still glitter clinging to my cheekbones, eyeliner smudged from sweat and sleep.
A typical patient might not have noticed.
But him? He’s looked out on faces like mine for years.
Of course he noticed. I sigh, splash water on my cheeks, and steel myself.