Logs:We Are Moving Parts

We Are Moving Parts
Dramatis Personae Lily, Polaris, Wendy
In Absentia	2021-10-17 "I heard that there are some people, some times, who heal from things without superpowers at all."
Location <NYC> Riverdale
This isn't one of the biggest of the mansions here, just a quietly respectable sized old home at the end of a quietly respectable old street. Not as plush or luxurious as some of their stolen accommodations but still perfectly serviceable for lounging around watching Hulu, which is what Wendy is currently doing as she sits by a low wide coffee table in front of the couch, sorting and folding a large basket full of just-washed clothes whose extremely eclectic sizing and style suggests they've been donated, borrowed or stolen from a variety of sources. She herself is in a long-sleeved pink dress with slightly scooped neckline, cozy warm hood and asymmetrically draped skirt, a pair of grey leggings underneath, her ankle boots kicked off by the door. Only Murders in the Building isn't muted, but the current episode's sound design might lead one to think it is, very little sound coming from the television every time the point-of-view switches to the deaf character on screen. "That," she comments, hand smoothing carefully over a sleeve of a three-quarter raglan tee, "is not where I saw this going." Polaris is draped across the chaise longue end of the plush couch, propped up with pillows, a soft plaid blanket carefully tucked around her. Her already pale skin is sheet white and her eyes are sunken deep, but her long green hair still looks vibrant in a loose wraparound dutch braid that leaves its hanging naturally and comfortably over her right shoulder. "Oh. My. Gosh. It was that guy?" She blows a raspberry, brows furrowing. "Wait, who is that guy? Did they literally just introduce him to solve the mystery?" She pushes herself just a bit more upright, wincing and sucking a sharp breath through her teeth. "Yeah no, I'm not moving until my next fix. Please tell me that's soon?" As if summoned, Lily appears at the door of the room. Has she changed since the raid? Only partially -- the loaned boots have been replaced by paint-splattered Blundstones, the black top replaced by a grey University of Utah sweatshirt with a peeling duct-tape red cross on the back, but she's still in the black ripstop cargo pants she left in the day before, knife still in one pocket and keys to a long-gone bus in another. Her hair is loose, a hair elastic abandoned in the hood of her sweater. A hiker's fanny pack rests at her waist (a juicebox tucked into the water bottle pocket, unopened), a 30L daypack on her back. She walks in, glances at Wendy's shoes, and walks back a few steps to take off her own. Lily makes a bee-line for Polaris, her borrowed healing power reaching out ahead of her to survey the remaining unaddressed damage. "Good news. It's now." She takes a seat on the floor next to the chaise, digging through her daypack after giving Wendy a small nod of acknowledgment. "What did we give you, Oxy? Roxanol?" There is a possibly concerning amount of opiates in Lily's pack, stashed among other painkillers and first aid supplies. Lily has mostly been using the pill bottles today in her rounds -- the first one she opens is empty. She frowns, sets it aside. "I'd like to keep it the same if you remember. What are we watching?" She's all focus, all business -- her healing is already at work on Polaris. "Only Murders in the Building", Wendy replies. "Do you like true crime? Do you hate true crime? It's probably funny either way." She pats her shirt neatly, puts it in a pile with some others. Plucks another out of the heap, checks its tag. Her dark eyes flick up to Lily, brow scrunching momentarily. "Have you slept? You -- don't look like you've slept." "Sweet." Polaris starts to push upright again, winces again, and subsides back again. "Oxy. I got no idea the dosage but it's making the plot of this show way more convoluted than it probably is. Still funny, though." She eyes Lily speculatively. "You should hang and watch it with us. Take a break. I know how medics are like..." This trails off and she bites her chapped lower lip. "Joshua and Skye still MIA?" “I had a girl detective phase. I’ve slept.” Rattle-rattle-rattle. Lily digs until she finds the Oxy. “Some.” Her bloodshot eyes, flickering to the quiet screen for a moment, don’t inspire confidence in this front. She passes up a mini bottle of water to Polaris with two pills. “See how you feel in ten minutes. We can up it from there.” Inside Polaris, dead and damaged cells are sloughed away, replaced by rapid new growth as Lily pushes along the repairs. “Not back yet. And. This is my break. I’ve been ordered away from the medbay.” She only sounds slightly upset by this development. Wendy's peering gets a little more intense. Her voice, just a touch more dubious. "Do you -- understand what a break is?" Polaris's "Do you even know what a break is?" comes almost in time with Wendy's question to somewhat bizarre effect, given their only slightly divergent phrasing. It's only at a delay that she seems to remember what the pills in her hand are for, and downs them with a gulp of water. "Thanks, but like seriously have you just been spamming cure light wounds 24 hours straight cuz that's probably not great for you." "Some of those wounds were not light," Wendy murmurs. “Yes, I do. That was extremely freaky timing.” Lily is twisting the cap back onto the pill bottle, scowling. “Breaks are. For people who aren’t racing the clock. I’m fine.” She pulls the juice box from her pack, stabs it with the straw. "I think we might watch We Are Lady Parts again next," Wendy informs Lily, "it's great." She's moving back to her folding, deliberate and careful. "I heard," this is soft and musing -- perhaps she's informing the pair of jeans she's smoothing out of this! "that there are some people, some times, who heal from things without superpowers at all. Possibly, that might happen if you sit down for a bit. Long enough for the juice, at least. Maybe an episode. They're short." "I'm not smart enough to argue right now, so you do you." Polaris shrugs (winces), and takes another sip of water. "But like you are totally still a whole...most of a doctor, without powers. People are still gonna need you. Anyway We Are Lady Parts is amazing. I'm in love with Saira. You should--" She narrows her pale hazel eyes at Lily. "Wait, are you healing me right now?" "Long way takes too long. People need healing now." Lily does take a sip of juice now that Wendy has mentioned it, trying to not look like she's knitting cell and nerve networks back together, like she's not coaxing red blood cells to come forth and multiply to replenish what's been lost. Grimaces when Polaris calls her out. "Yes. Sorry." She doesn't sound apologetic. "What's this Lady Parts show about?" "Yes," Wendy is already tattling in an absent murmur even before Lily confesses this herself. "Why the rush, it's not like they need to --" she starts, but then pulls herself up short with a narrowing of eyes. "Are you all planning to go right back out and get killed again?" Her tone has gotten a marked few degrees cooler, which makes her following explanation a bit more stilted than inviting: "A group of Muslim women who start a punk band." "Wait, are we?!" Polaris actually sits up this time, and immediately regrets it, to judge by the strangled "motherfucker!" forced out of her before she sinks back against the pillows. "Then you definitely need to rest. I mean. We won't have Joshua... Fu-fra-fuck." She scrubs both hands over her face. "Fuck this shit. Fuck Prometheus. Fuck humans. Fuck!" After this rather un-Saintly outburst she seems calmer. "This was all so much simpler when I was crazing, but I don't see how we can pull this off again so soon no matter how much you heal. It's not just the injuries, there's like. Fifty thousand moving parts..." Her eyes snap to Wendy as she trails off. "Don't sit up," Lily says too late. Sucks harder on the juice box, which is already making a hollow empty noise. Her shoulders sag at Wendy's question, doesn't bother to nod. "I need to get as many people as I can as up as I can before I lose my grip on -- whatsherface, Ellie? -- Ellie's power. Then I will. Take a nap. Find Ellie. Do it again. Hope Skye didn't take the flashdrive with her. I don't know. Figure out how to be Joshua?" The juice box crumples in her grip. "Fuck. I don't know. I should know. Maybe. Maybe I beg for my job back? Sneak people in? Out?" Lily slumps against the chaise now, rubs at the bags under her eyes. "I would love a better plan. Any plan." Wendy pinches thumb and forefinger delicately against the bridge of her nose. "Of course. Why would I have imagined anyone chooses the sane option." The episode is ending and she flips from one app to another, pulling up We Are Lady Parts on the screen now. "There's one thing I can tell you without looking at the data and that's that if you all were this overwhelmed when you were rested up and prepared, it won't be better if you work yourself to death before the next time. Do you -- think they'll stop needing you, then? There may be worse coming." One slim hang pats delicately at her large heap of laundry. "It's very mediative. And the newbies need clothes. And maybe," she concedes reluctantly, eyes cutting briefly to Polaris, "I'll talk to Jackson and Ryan afterwards."