ArchivedLogs:Checkups and Checkouts

Checkups and Checkouts
Dramatis Personae Ivan, Kelly, Lyric, Rasa
In Absentia	2013-11-05 The Medbay is a tense place to meet up.
Location <XS> Medbay
Already quite crowded, lines of curtains divide the med bay into sub spaces that keep shifting as the hectic needs of this crisis change. Of most worrying though is the one where the 'sick' students thrash against heavy padded restraints, their shifting silhouettes getting worried attention from the students in less dire situations. Though the tension of the room is ratcheted up to a level near the breaking point. The outburst of occasional screaming or tears as common as breathing. Though even that is becoming more and more uncommon as time goes on. Kelly sits on on one of the portable beds near the door where the least serious of the patients are currently corralled... though in a much more tightly packed arrangement than anyone would hope for. He moves uneasily in a fresh set of clothes, skin still moist from the regular mandatory showers since he arrived, quite uncomfortable due to the increasing strength of the antibiotic soaps issued. His chart lists him here as under 'observation', since despite lack of symptoms so far... his exposure was quite extensive. He keeps eyeing the door, and more than once he has been directed back to his bed upon attempts to leave before he'd been cleared. And his arm is spotted with needle marks where blood has been draw, and redrawn. His new clothing doesn't hide his mutation in the least, as thin as it is, and his vines continue to writhe nervously, thorns overlapping thorns like snakes coiled in too small a container. Lyric is quiet; she often is. She is sneaking her way into the medbay dressed in long grey skirt, pink cardigan, a grey scarf wrapped over her poofy hair. She has a small box of chocolates in her hand and she makes her way over to the bedside of another sophomore girl (currently pale, cold, in restraints that she lunges against at every sign of movement around her) to eye her friend's face with a deep frown. Slowly deposit the small heart-shaped box on the bedside table, lips pressing thinly together. She signs something quickly ('I'm sorry, I'm not supposed to be here but these are your favorites.') and slowly backs away. With her eyes still on her friend she doesn't watch particularly well where she is going, bumping up into Kelly's bed on her way back out and turning quickly with wide eyes to place a fist over her heart, rubbing it in a quick circle. Rasa is released to the 'observation' and 'less sick' section of the med lab, encouraged to sit and wait it out a while longer to be sure that the bite doesn't contain any resilient, unexpected contamination. Dressed in the same flannel pajamas as yesterday, with a blood stain on the collar, ze has lost hir blanket from the night before and hir slippers have been replaced with clean, new socks. Ze comes to a stop and blinks at Kelly, looking him over with a small frown. "Are you sick now? Is that my fault? Sorry. Sorry about that." Ze moves toward his bed to sit on it next to him, but it is nudged away from hir when Lyric bumps into it. "Sorry," ze apologizes to the moving piece of furniture before looking to Lyric. Sorry. Were you going to sit here?" Exhaustion is evident on hir pale pink skin, with the word 'sorry' written down hir right cheek. Recovering from the bump, Kelly initially reacts with a quick jerk and sharp intake of air, then a grumpy snort. Some of his petals fall from one of the lowers on his forehead, and they're a little brown around the edges when they do. His skin moves with the twitches of the sleep deprived, because how could he sleep here of all places? And then he very forcefully sucks up any harsh retort he would have given the small spring of a girl who bumped his bed and instead scoots a few more inches to one side to offer Rasa a seat. "No, well, I hope not. And it wasn't your fault if I am." Kelly answers Rasa, "C'mon sit down, I'd give you the whole bed, but I think if I try to leave it again before they say so they'll chain me to it." this last bit was a joke... but he wasn't so sure they wouldn't... and finally the clumsy newcomer needs addressing: "Sorry, you sick, too? I can try and call one of the docs over if you are?" Lyric's fist moves against her chest again -- 'Sorry, sorry' -- she is watching Rasa and Kelly with wide eyes. Inching back away a few steps and then standing. She looks from Rasa to the bed, shaking her head no at the question of sitting there. For a moment she leans slightly inward to peer at the others carefully, her brow creasing. 'Sick?' she signs, and then to explicate this for those unversed in ASL she pantomimes. Exaggerated sniffling, exaggerated fake-cough. Gesturing to the others around the medbay, and then to Kelly and Rasa. And then -- 'You're here now --' But her signs stop there, a somewhat frustrated look on her face. "Don't want that. Wouldn't want to be locked up here with them... at night." Rasa's head stays bowed, gaze lowered as ze slides backwards onto the bed, using it as a seat. "Not at night..." Ze inhales deeply and turns hir attention on Lyric. "Oh. Yes. I've been sick. I was in my room until yesterday though, because of this," Ze gestures to the largish white patch of gauze taped to hir face and jaw. "Uh. I... fingerspell, if that helps, but slowly. Also, you can write on my arm so Kelly can see. Oh. Kelly. This is Lyric. She has magnificent hair. Lyric, this is Kelly. Sometimes his hair has flowers." As ze speaks, ze rolls up hir sleeve to expose a length of arm where a transcription of what ze just said is printed. Indeed, Kelly's hair has lots of flowers for the moment. Though some of them are like the first, browning slightly around the edges, and a sprinkling of arrowhead shaped green leaves. Not to mention the bark patches on his neck and arms, near the squirming vines. It takes him a moment to wrap his head around the skin-word version of Telephone that Rasa has arranged, but it helps as he doesn't even know finger spelling. "Uhm, nice to meet you Lyric." he says awkwardly, looking down to read the words again. "I hope I'm not sick, that's why I'm here. I got Ras..." he begins to explain then opts to leave the poor student out of it. "I got some blood on me and I'm not exactly up to date on my shots, so they made me stick around until they were sure if I'm ok or not." Though as he bends down to pick up the petals, he frowns, shoving them into his pocket and quickly out of sight before any adults manage to see them. Rasa's mind is abuzz with distraction, wishing there was a way to heal them all, the horrifying thought that the scar on hir face may be a lasting reminder of yesterday. << Don't say the zed word, >> ze comments at length, a gnawing discomfort as to how the world is turning into a scary movie. << Sorry. Should have warned you about my head. Sorry. >> To Kelly, Rasa shrugs a little. "You can say my name. It's my fault. Kelly is a very nice guy. Tried to help me, after we disappeared." "Are you sure you wanna be down here, though?" Kelly asks Lyric more directly. "I'm pretty sure this place is sick central... and I'm gonna get out of here as soon as they let me." Though the graveness he gives the word 'here' makes it pretty obvious he doesn't just mean the med bay. "And really Rasa, it isn't... you didn't bite your own face, and I couldn't just let you lay there and bleed all over the.. well, I'm not sure where we were. If I wasn't helping I'd just be freaking out like everyone else." A strictly worried look focused on the bandage. 'Friend is here,' Lyric answers, with a glance towards the bed that she left chocolates beside. And then to Kelly, 'Where do you live when you aren't here?' She fidgets uncomfortably at the mention of The Zed Word, looking over towards the beds where the strapped-down patients thrash. 'He bit you.' Rasa nudges up hir other sleeve so Kelly can see the dialog between the two, unspoken. 'It wasn't him. He's not in there right now.' There's flat out denial at the notion that this means Daiki is dead. He's just absent, like Sophie. They just need to find him. Heal him. Rasa takes a deep breath and bites hir lip, hir stomach starting to rumble. Ze frowns and makes sure Kelly sees Lyric's words before letting them fade away. "Staying busy is a good way to make it through this weird, weird time." "Nowhere, really." Is the answer Kelly gives to Lyric when she asks the question, a little sadness in his voice at that admission, but he pushes it back as soon as he can. "I really hope your friends get better, though. I... god I don't know how I'd deal with this. But they've got to figure it out, I mean... they're smart, right?" There is also the unspoken worry that is slathered on his face that he wishes Rasa gets better, too. He can't stop looking at her bite wound. For a moment Lyric pulls her hands back, reflexively more used to signing her responses than mentally writing them on someone else's arm. 'Weird', she echoes in a swipe of hand across her face. Her touch again comes with a sick dose of worry; worry for the whole school, worry for Daiki (her rather enormous crush on him is factoring into this more acutely), worry for Rasa and her bitten face. '... Where is he then?' and then, 'If nowhere, where would you live? It's not safer out there, have you looked at the news? Leaving is no better than staying.' Rasa is seated beside a new student (Kelly) on a hospital bed in the 'mildly ill' section of the med lab, hir arm being held by the standing Lyric. The pair seem to be alternating their attention between Rasa's arms and a largish white bandage on hir jaw and cheek, worried looks on all three faces. Upon closer inspection, it seems conversation is taking place on Rasa's skin, hir hair poofing up in reaction to hir interaction with Lyric's worried mind. "Yeah, the city... not so good in the city." Rasa exhales moodily, her commentary trickling out of hir mouth audibly as hir more complete thought is written on hir arm. 'It's probably better to be here, all things said and done. We know how many students there are and can do a better job of taking care of each other than risking it with people... who..." There's an impression of 'mutant issues' and random problems cropping up in unknown territory in Lyric's mind, but it doesn't get translated. Ze just sort of trails off distractedly. "I guess you're right." Kelly capitulates reluctantly, though not convincingly, a clear look of distrust on his face as he watches the adults move about around him. "Its just... the only reason I came here was they promised it was safe." The edges of betrayal in his voice, anger. He closes his eyes and takes a slow breath and refocuses. "But, that doesn't matter much now. Are you feeling any better, though? You... I felt how sick you were last night. It seemed pretty bad." Lyric, at least, can't hear those edges of betrayal; she just shrugs in reponse to Kelly's words. 'Go back out there then. Kind of dumb though. It /is/ safer here. But there's nowhere on earth that's a hundred percent safe and it's silly to think there ever will be.' She glances back towards the back of the room, where some of the students (and one teacher) still thrash against their heavy restraints. 'And they don't promise it's safe from everything. They promise it's safe from people who want to hurt you for --' Her other hand tips towards Rasa with the mention of people... who... 'being a mutant. That's a big difference. It's not safe from meteor strikes or alien invasion. Or getting sick.' The presence of a great number of bugs in the med lab is probably no greatly desired thing - not that this appears to stop one particular student from leading them right in; Ivan, skin and clothes covered in several kinds of insects and arachnids (though a lot of them appear to disappear in the collar of his yellow t-shirt on the way in), appears to walk into the med lab almost for no particular reason. His eyes scan the room while his expression stays mostly blank, until-- they tick down just ever so slightly upon finding Rasa. Wordlessly, he makes a straight beeline for hir, a few moths trailing behind him. Anyone else in the room? They're not particularly important, it seems, and receive only a very brief look of acknowledgement, and no words. 'Sorry' prints itself over and over all over hir clammy, pale pink face in dark black letters, the stroke marks heavy and almost childish. 'Sorry. Sorry!' it keeps repeating upon the hearing of the betrayal in Kelly's tone, hir gaze growing distant and listless again. 'Sorry,' writes next to Lyric's words, this time in conversation. 'If it helps, it's warm here, there's food, and they are very smart and will figure out this disease. I... am starting to feel better. Maybe almost healed. Maybe healing as we speak. Things will be okay in a little while.' The shape of Ivan's rapid approach captures hir attention first, head darting in that direction, a cringe climbing between hir shoulderblades and staying there - until recognition causes hir shoulders to drop and hir posture slump. There's a soft pull of yearning in hir mind and the distinct feeling of 'home' that floods hir thoughts at the sight of hir partner. "Vanya," ze half chokes out, brow wrinkling. Ze remains sitting though, afraid throwing hirself at the teen will squash bugs. Since any path directly towards Rasa right now involves going past Kelly in a tight space... the plant mutant quickly pulls his feet up into his assigned bed and scoots back next to Rasa as fully as he can to give the new arrival covered in creepy creepy bugs all the space he can manage without climbing onto the ceiling. And a special attempt to try and not let his writhing thorny vines on his arms scratch anyone in the process. "Guess I can be pretty stupid sometimes." he says to the pair giving in for now at least. Though Rasa's news that she was feeling better perks up his spirits just as much, forcing a smile on his face. "Hey." he offers Ivan, as his knees pull up to his chin, a flower on his left foot getting ruffled in the process. "/Out/." The bugs draw attention from the harried nurses where the quiet conversations did not; one is over at Kelly's bedside in short order, stress and overwork pinching his expression into something more severe than it probably needs to be. "The bugs need to go. /Now/. Not just out of here, out of the /building/." Lyric shrinks back from Ivan's arrival, moving kind of /quickly/ away from Ivan and Rasa -- though there's nothing in her expression that tells of squeamishness so much as a low-grade nervousness as she looks from the bugs to the sick people and back. Her hands start to lift to sign a reply to Kelly, though drop again with a tired slump of shoulders as she remembers the futility of this. Her arms cross over her chest instead, brow creasing back into a deeply worried frown. There is an unfortunate lack of consideration from Ivan for anyone who might look his way - regardless of whether they do so disapprovingly or not. Until... there is suddenly a distressed nurse, and /this/ is who manages to catch Ivan's attention. At least... for a few seconds. Though he stops in his tracks, head held high and eyebrows ticking slightly lower /still/, there's something indecisive about him. If there's an interal conflict within, it doesn't make it past the moths that follow him suddenly fluttering idly around the nurse ahead. "... But they are okay." Ivan finally answers, with a strong Russian aceent and a voice weak from disuse rather than disease. "I just..." Want to go to Rasa? This is what his stare at hir implies, unwavering as he stands. Several spiders that flit across his neck and shirt show considerably more distress than his face. "Sorry, sorry," Rasa immediately begins apologizing again, copying the motion Lyric made earlier and is lucky ze gets it right. 'Should take care of Ivan,' is shown to Lyric and Kelly before ze starts to shuffle out of bed, hir legs stumbling only a little bit when hir feet touch down on the ground. "You're not stupid, Kelly, you're scared. It's okay to be scared. Sorry for scaring you." Ze begins to cross the distance toward Ivan, eyes shifting between the nurse and hir target. "Come, Ivan, I will take you outside." Kelly scrunches up his face comically. Is not scared! Ok... probably is. He lifts his hand in a farewell greeting as he tries to set his foot down on the other side of the bed... pushing up to a stand. And then gets a firm look from one of the nurses. "Oh come on!" he grunts out frustrated, and instead offers the departing pair: "Just... get better quick, and... I hope to see you soon." and then slumps back defiantly on his now vacated bed. "He can stay. The /bugs/ go." Though the nurse seems mollified enough at the thought of /everyone/ going. So long as the bugs do, too. The moths are blown back away from his face with a tiny gust of air that surfaces from nowhere and disappears again immediately after. 'Sorry,' Lyric echoes this gesture with a fist circled over her heart. Her worried frown remains, and she lingers for an uncertain moment after Rasa gets up, fingers flexing and then her hands dropping to her sides. Her head droops, afterwards, too. 'Sorry,' she signs again, backing over towards the door. Head still bowed, as she scurries back out of the room.