Logs:Finishing Touch

Finishing Touch
cn: description of some extensive injuries, references to death
Dramatis Personae Joshua, Lily, Mirror
In Absentia Spencer, Winona	2023-07-24 "I'll just pop back off, then."
Location <NYC> Guest Room - Le Bonne Entente - Astoria - Queens
This is a "standard" guest room, the smallest on offer at here, but Le Bonne Entente's standards are quite high. Careful interior design makes the most of the limited space and keeps it from looking or feeling cramped even with a queen sized bed, nightstand, and a little sitting area complete with coffee table, love seat, and chair, all upholstered in blue velvet. The walls are a pale and soothing sea blue, largely unadorned except for a few small plant sconces and the art mirrors that make most of the copious natural light streaming in through the tall sliding glass doors that lead out to the small balcony. Though the toilet tucked into the hallway corner is fully enclosed, the rest of the bathroom is enclosed in only partially frosted glass that leaves sight lines open. The closet by the front door is not large, but outfitted with a clever organization system. Across from it, the expected minibar (with some less expected but very thoughtful amenities), minifridge, and mini-microwave are cleverly concealed in a sleek sideboard in the entryway. It's late -- just as late here as in Ohio, as one tiled window on Lily's (new) (replacement) laptop is helpfully telling her. Her eyes keep glancing over at the clock, fingers stalling out on the notes she's making on Lucien's prep notes, tomorrow's actual interview questions buried several tabs deeper. She's dressed for bed in long flannel pants and an oversized red University of Utah shirt, hair is wrapped up in a plush LBE monogrammed towel. On the bed, two (new) dark, almost identical navy dresses are laid out on hangers, recently returned from drycleaning and yet to join the sparse number of other, identically neutral interview outfits in the room's closet. Into this late-night scene is, suddenly -- okay, this is probably not what Lily expected tonight. One tall young teleporter -- currently dressed in loosely oversized tac gear -- appears in her room. "Oh, good," says -- can we assume this is not Spencer, I think probably, we can -- "this is a good spot. Hold, please." And then he's gone again. Hold, please. "Wino--" Yep, probably not at all who Lily expected. She blinks at NotSpencer before he blinks away. Looks at the time. Looks at the minibar. She's holding! She's just also immediately going to get a drink. "Spencer" has returned in short order -- with more time to inspect, it's fairly clear that in addition to not being Spencer at all, he's far too pale, not particularly steady on his feet. He now has a backpack on his shoulder and he's dropping -- is that a corpse. It might be a corpse. Carefully swaddled with a pair of soft fleecey blankets, for modesty -- Into Lily's bed. No, wait. Joshua still looks unhealthy as the grave, but he is breathing. Pretty shallowly. "Do you have the healing. Thing." Mirror!Spence is turning wide and hopeful eyes on her. "It's been a long night." Lily eyes go wide as she stares at Joshua. "He -- you --" Wherever this is going, Lily abandons it in favor of a simple "Yes. Fuck you," she says in the moment it takes to rouse Eloise's power from earlier today, to snake it through Joshua's cells and feel out what's wrong, (to stare at his slow rising chest with horror as the power brings back bad news), "what did you do to him?" There is, in fact, quite a lot wrong with Joshua. Quite a number of his bones are broken -- especially around the ribs, and the barely-healed skin that's holding his chest back together is a bit of a rush job, really, like someone has only hastily and very superficially knit the skin back together around some very large and very extensive chest wounds. Inside -- well, his organs are there, for the most part, but almost all -- oddly underdeveloped and functioning fairly inadequately, like he has been taken out of the oven Too Early. "Brought him back here." At the reassurance that the healing power is, in fact, available, Mirror is slumping back in relief -- boots and all! -- onto the nice cushy L'Entente bed, beside Joshua. Spencer's form is melting like wax, leaving their own face in its place. "Alive. You're fucking welcome." "Jesus Christ." Is this to Mirror or to the state of Joshua's internal organs? Lily narrows her focus -- the heart and its nearby lung are getting sent to the top of healing priority list, ribs and skin around the chest cavity getting a spare piece of attention to be Good Enough and only that. Her dresses, still underneath the swaddle of blankets around Joshua, she pulls out and tosses to the floor. "How the fuck is he alive." Only now is she taking in Mirror's outfit, eyes narrowing. "Nah, he just got some nails through his hands." Mirror is closing their eyes, and for a moment their breathing slows, too. Their nose eventually twitches in a hard sniff, and they fold one arm back behind their head. "The magic of healing powers. Obviously. Thought you'd have noticed." "What healing powers have you been snorting?" Lily is hopping up onto the bed now, too, bottle of peach brandy abandoned on the nightstand. Pours all her borrowed power into Joshua -- a fervent plea for him to wake up in every new heart cell, in every sprouting bronchiole -- with no regard for pacing herself. "The damage here, it's -- he was dead." The realization was probably on her tongue the whole time, but it's said with such accusation maybe Lily still blames Mirror for this. "-- oh, Landry would have a fit, you know the resurrection power person?" "Yeah, wow, it's almost like someone fucking said going to Lassiter was a shit idea." Mirror opens their eyes, staring hard up at the ceiling. "Landry's going to burn." Their jaw tightens, and they sound a little more sullen when they add: "They all should burn." Joshua's eyes have not opened, but he's breathing a little easier, now, the rise and fall of his chest steadier. Deeper. At least, until it hitches on a rougher inhale -- his voice is a croaky-hoarse whisper: "Lit that fucking match." "Landry wouldn't be burning if I had gone to Tagliacozzi, would she? Some of them are already trying to weasel out of it as it is --" Lily's voice catches when Joshua speaks -- pushes more into the healing power, trying to bring the other lung up to scratch. Her cheeks are damp -- is she sweating from exertion, or is she crying? Probably, it's both. "Oh, shut up," is down to Joshua's face, slightly hysterical. "You're supposed to be dead, act like it." "Next time," the moment Joshua is speaking Mirror is snapping this crisply down at him, "maybe you'll listen to me." Joshua groans, or maybe this is just air struggling back into his expanding lung. His eyes do squeeze shut, and at his current level of energy it would be hard, maybe, to tell what the rattly-rough wheeze of breath is -- at least, for anyone else it might be. These two can probably clock the laugh that he's scraping his way towards and then abandoning. "Fine. I'll just pop back off, then." "Don't you fucking dare." Lily tugs down a pillow, lifts Joshua's head up ever so gently to settle onto it. "Die on me again any time soon, I'll bring you back -- again -- and kill you myself." Her voice is cracking its way towards laughter, too, though mostly it just sounds wet. "I'll make Mirror show me the trick of it." "Like fuck you will," Mirror is crabbing sharp and immediate in time with Lily, in Joshua's general direction -- and they pull the pillow out from under their head to bap him with it. Admittedly, at their current level of enervation it's more of just a targeted fall of downy cushion than an actual strike. "I'm spent, I'd have to show Lily how to drag you back." "Hhh." It's all that Joshua manages, at first, before, "-- s'too damn early for--" This is kind of muffled, under a PILLOW, before he's lapsing back into silence. At least, for now. "Shush," Lily says, wiping at her face with her palm as the laugh threatening to come out since Joshua started talking finally bursts forth. Pulls one more pillow from the excessive amount at the head of the bed and settles it behind her. "Rest. Talk after I've put your diaphragm back together." When she looks back over at Mirror, Lily doesn't say anything -- just mouths 'thank you'. Mirror drags the pillow back from where they have dropped it onto Joshua's FACE and, more carefully this time, tuck it plush and plumped against his side, like a comfortable fence between them before they settle their head on its far side. Do they say you're welcome? They already did some minutes ago, maybe that counts. Right now a corner of their mouth is just twitching up, momentarily, into a small thin smile, and what they do say before their eyes close again is: "Just hope you're better at healing than spying, Doctor."