ArchivedLogs:Follow Up

Follow Up
Dramatis Personae Corey, Jax, Jim, Kate
In Absentia	2014-07-04 '
Location <NYC> The Mendel Clinic - Lower East Side
With its sharp crystalline edges and sleek lines knifing up into the sky, this building is one of the most /distinctive/ new additions to the neighborhood. An angular structure in glass and steel, the tall tower has a deceptively slender look to it that is belied by the heavy security as soon as you enter the doors. The front doors are frosted with the Clinic's logo -- a rising sun over a rod of Asclepius -- a motif echoed in many places throughout the building. Visitors to the clinic must first pass through a small mantrap, guarded by some of the Clinic's security guards; once they make it through the metal detector and airlock's double doors they emerge into the much more hospitable lobby. With dark wood floors underneath and comfortable black and red couches at its edges, the high windows give the room an airy feel. A bank of elevators to one side carry visitors to the many destination floors, while the wide welcome desk at the other side is manned by a security guard ready to help point visitors in the right direction. The madhouse stretch of hours that had flooded the Clinic with a combat-zone mass of wounded has settled back into a semblance of order. No more are there alarming flat-line machinery screams and the staff is finally passing from one job to the next with only nominal amounts of blood to stain their clothes. There's not much to be said for /privacy/ for the lingering patients; over crowding has every bed in use and Jim is currently sharing a room with a young girl with huge frilled pink ears that flutter and twitch while she reads a copy of Seventeen magazine in between naps. Jim himself is awake and propped up in his bed, watching the news on a tablet that was probably smuggled into him by /some/ raid party member or another, earbuds in to be polite. One of his arms is in a cast from shoulder to wrist, and his coloring isn't at its greatest; rather pale and kind of yellowish. His harrowed /frown/ is out and /hearty/ however, and possibly the most jarring aspect of his appearance is that his flesh color /is/ visible at all; the side of his face that had been tree-barked over is now only a swatch of flesh that, while burn-scarred and rough, fully normal and human, the visible hand swatting along Huff Po posts like they make him MAD free of branches or flaky skin. For all the hectic doom and gloom of the past few days of trauma care, Corey at least does not look any worse for wear from fatigue. Wearing a clean (for now) plain grey tee shirt with an old pair of jeans and tennis shoes, he has a temporary badge pinned to his belt. Carrying the clipboard holding the current schedule or priority list, he shakes his head at obvious drain on Kate. "Just a few more days of this, hold in there." He offers her a reassuring smile as they make their way into Jim's room. Knocking at the door frame before making his way in, he smiles pleasantly to the twitchy ear girl, and inclines his head to Jim. "Here for a follow up." In a Clinic not /built/ for being a hospital things get a little chaotic; the cafeteria commandeered as an operating room, doctors' offices cleared out with cots brought in to make makeshift wards. A whole lot of /improvising/ and it means that sometimes tracking people's rooms down can be a little bit of a puzzle. It's taken Jax a bit to /find/ where he needs to go, but eventually he knocks quietly on the doorframe of Jim's room, pushed there in a wheelchair with one leg (it's in a brightly /rainbow/ tie-dye cast) propped up on a legrest. He's been wheeled over by a guard, a dark-haired woman in red-and-black uniform who leaves him there once he finds Jim. There's a cloth shopping bag on his lap and half his face is still swathed in bandaging; whatever else lurks beneath his clothes (cheerful yellow Funshine Bear t-shirt, baggy black shorts) can't immediately be seen. "Hey --" Though his warm smile shifts into something just a little awkward-polite when he notes Corey and Kate. "Oh, gosh. 'pologies. S'this a bad -- time?" Shuffling along behind Corey, Kate is beginning to demonstrate the visible impact that is brought on by constant use of her powers - dark circles shade the space beneath her eyes, and she clings desperately to a massive travel mug of coffee. She has changed into another set of old scrubs, faded blue scrub pants that don't quite match with the wrap top, patterned with colorful dancing teddy bears and hearts, occasionally interrupted by a faded stain or splotch. Long hair is pulled into a messy bun at the top of her head, at least a day unwashed at this point, but neatly pinned back away from Kate's youthful face. Taking a long pull from her coffee, Kate steps through the door and in front of Corey, offering a polite wave of greeting to Jim and the ruffle-ear girl. "'H'lo, Jim," Kate greets, soft voice friendly by sleepy, standing on tippy toe to read the name off Corey's sheet, just to be sure, "Not sure how much you remember, but I'm Kate - one of the nurses volunteering to help out in this crunch." She was about to continue with her well rehearsed greeting, but Jax enters before she can say more. "Oh, Hello, Jax," Kate says quietly with a polite smile, nodding to him, "Not a bad time for us, though if you needed to talk to Jim, we can come back another time, if y'all need. Just was checking up and seeing how things were going." She glances towards Jim, and then back at Corey, offering a faint shrug. The ruffly-eared girl demonstrates a heartening nod to her teen years and returns the smiles cast her way with a surly little chin jerk. S'up. "Think it's been a bad time for a few /years/," Jim doesn't even say it dourly, turning from his tablet towards his arriving company and waving them all in enmasse like LET'S JUST HAVE A PARTY of it. "I'm not gonna have to turn my head 'n cough, am I?" Because anyone present during his surgery would probably know he hasn't got much worth /cupping/ anyway. Placing a fist over his mouth, he coughs - not hard. More experimentally, while eying the cloth bag on Jax's lap. And asks bluntly, flatly, "...the others?" "Well you seem to be doing better than when last I saw you. Sorry about the Beach Boy's again," Corey says looking sheepish. "We're just here to see how you're doing, but Kate will be doing more work than me." He looks towards the nurse with a little worry with how much she's pushing herself and shakes his head before he looks to Jax. "You're at least moving around and about. How's you're leg doing?" "Micah cast it," Jax explains lightly to Corey with a small smile directed down at the rainbow cast, "it's doin' pretty okay. -- D'you like cornbread?" This last is directed over to the girl in the next bed, Jax's fingers resting down on the bag in his lap. "I got a bit'a cornbread an' some seafood gumbo." There's a sharp grimace once the guard escorting Jax leaves and he leans just slightly down to wheel himself further into the room -- cracked ribs and a rather ugly gut wound make moving a bit of a /stiff/ prospect. "Folks're doin' pretty -- okay, everyone's --" And here there's a concerned flick of glance sent Kate's way, "-- been workin' insane overtime t'get things stabler." Kate snorts quietly at Jim's initial question, shaking her head slowly, "No. Not that sort of check up. I just need to see how you're recovering. Non invasive - just need to hold your hand for a few minutes. Shore up a few things we might have needed to rush through the other day." Her tone is professional, a pleasant smile softening her tired features as she explains, managing to not wince at the experimental cough. Her attentions turn to Jax briefly, when he bends to move himself via the chair, clucking her tongue very quietly. "D'you want some help with that, Jax? Not to be nosey, but you might not want to be wheeling yourself around quite yet. Don't want you to hurt yourself more - you've been through a lot." The diminuitive nurse moves to help Jax wheel closer if he accepts the help. The concerned glances from both Corey and Jax seem to be ignored by Kate, as she takes another long pull of her coffee, "S'ok. I'm used to long shifts and overtime. Just hope I can help people get a bit beyond just stable and back towards being back on their feet." Perhaps a faint wince at the mention of 'shift,' as though she were remembering something - dark eyes flick briefly to the clock, but she seems content to stay here and get to work with the task at hand. The girl's insouciant shell pauses with Jax's question, turning her head for a moment like she didn't even hear him and then sneak-peeking back at him a moment later. And nods small at first, and mutters, ".../Maybe/." Somewhat defiantly, even. Like what're you gonna DO about it. While her body remains laying still, bandages visible under her scrubs, she leans forward just a little, sniff-sniffing a little hopefully towards Jax's bag, ears perking forward? "Pffhh," this is kind of a LAUGH from Jim, "What I look like /last/ time you saw me?" Morbid curiosity is Jim's siren song. He's hard-eyeing Corey and then Kate, the latter especially after Jax's words, taking in slow breaths, palm pressing flat against his chest, and exhales just to /feel/ the air rush smoothly out, saying lower, "I dunno what you people did t'me. But something tells me I owe a fuck ton of you. I haven't... fucking-." Haven't /breathed/ so well in a long time, Jimmy? His head is shaking slowly while offering Kate his hand in resignation to the whole hospital procedure. It means he's not looking /at/ Jax when he murmurs, "...Flicker?" "He does good work. Granted, I guess he'd have a lot of practice with the interesting times you live in," Corey says with a soft smile to Jax. Snerking at Jim's comment, he tilts his eyes up thinking. "A bit more like a tree with other bushes stapled to it. They had me sitting with you at the school, so glad to see you out and about, but we probably ought to stop meeting like this." Nodding a little, he glances around the room and slides a chair over for Kate to sit in while she works with Jim. "There, now you can get off your feet a moment." "Kate's kinda a miracle-worker." Jax smiles quick at the nurse, nodding once to accept the assistance with the wheelchair though in the meantime he does take a tupperware from his bag -- there's a couple squares of cornbread in it that he offers to /Corey/ since he's the most mobile, really, and most able to pass a piece along to the girl in bed. "Someone jus' baked it fresh this afternoon. -- She an' Corey," he's continuing easily to Jim, "/pretty/ much regrew me from scratch after the Lofts." He settles back in his chair, absently rubbing a hand lightly against the bandages on his face. "Flicker's aright. Gone through surgery. Came out the other side." Kate takes Jax's cue for the help with the wheelchair, and pushes him to sit closer to Jim to allow easier conversation. "Not a miracle worker. Just a mutant healer," Kate mutters, blushing at the compliment as she takes the seat Corey had pulled up for her. "Thanks, Corey," she says, leaning briefly against him before she turns her attention back to Jim, smirking slightly at his curious breathing. The nurse takes Jim's offered hand, her skin is warm and soft, her touch accompanied by a faint tingling warmth. "Don't know how much you want to know," she offers quietly, focusing her attention on the state of Jim's internal organs, gaining a diagnostic sense of what is going on at present, "Your breathing okay? Feel comfortable enough?" She nods quietly in agreement to the statements about Flicker, though she does not voice any further information. "...Sitting with me." Jim repeats back at Corey flatly. He should probably be expressing profuse gratitude, but instead he's just kind of sitting there in an utter lack of grouchy-looking lack of understanding. Though to be fair, he rarely /isn't/ wearing a demeanor along these lines, head dropping back and closing his eyes for a moment when Kate's warmth spreads into his hand -- what internal flaws aren't likely to kill him immediately remain, for her assessment, but the fresh plentiful organs newly grown are pristine, "Lady. There ain't nothing I /don't/ wanna know. -- Yeah, breathings uh... Fucking. Amazing." The sick-yellow color of his face and slow (smooth!) breathing of his chest giving his whole bedridden form some staid impression that he's slowly counting down from 10 in his head, and then he turns and finally really looks at Jackson, his single eye, then down his body at the bandages and cast, even the surreal addition of normal Jax-wear clothes, and something pinches around his eyes. "Hivey?" "Sitting with people is how my gift works," Corey says with a shrug, not exactly having a better explanation as he passes out the cornbread to the people in the room. He takes up a post behind Jax in case he needs to move the wheel chair though. "That's nice of them making the cornbread. Comfort foods good for the soul at least, I don't know how the Clinic handles taking care of the massive surges that have come up. Was the last time really only in March?" He lets out a sigh, and pat's Jax on the shoulder, figuring it must be worse to be the patient that often than the healer. "April," Jax answers with a faint furrow of brow as /he/ struggles to remember this. "Don't never feel like enough time t' -- an' there'll be another rush. Soon. Ish. The clinic --" His small twitch of lips is less bright than his usual smiles, with half his face burned beneath the bandaging. "-- handles it with a lot of Red Bull. An' we cook a lot." Beneath Corey's hand his shoulder is fiercely warm; the touch softens his smile a little more. "Hive's been lurking around here like a hovering --" He hesitates, uncertain how to finish this sentence; instead just: "He frets." Nodding slowly at the information that she gains from contact with Jim, Kate focuses, her voice quietly breathy, "Good to hear that." She frowns faintly, trying to figure out how to answer the broad request for information, perhaps formulating an answer, "I am not entirely certain how your mutation normally works, but, ah, you had several organs that were, well, no longer functioning properly, or were damaged beyond recovery." As she speaks, Jim may be experiencing a gentle warmth - a bit like being settled in near a fireplace on a winter day - permeating his torso with continued contact with Kate. "We... I... had to regrow a good portion of them to replace them," Kate says quietly, neatening up some of the work that had been previously done in a decided rush, "Um, lungs are definitely fresh. Hence asking about the breathing." The discussion of rushes and another pending, Kate's lips pull into a thin line, "Another?" She muses quietly about the way the clinic handles the rushes of emergencies, "I'm impressed with how well this place reacts to the emergency situations. Though I rather wonder what plans and policies they have in place for things like this, or individual cases." In the background, with attention shifted away, the frilly-eared girl hunches over her portion of cornbread like she has /food aggression/. And after a few very thorough sniffs around its corners she nibbles rapidly. Closes her eyes. Breathes in and out with a... sniffle. Then a second one, wiping a hand under one eye rapidly and scarfing more eagerly. "Gift," Jim parrots Corey again like he's speaking in /tongues/, but context isn't exactly hard to find, hazarding a pistol-pointing finger rising up from the hand otherwise in Kate's custody - /indicating/ Corey, "Healer?" And Kate, far less of a question for all the warm tinglies invading his system, "aaaand healer." He only briefly looks down at his body, as the warm spread invades and breaks apart cramping /wrongness/ inside, and then grimaces like he has a bad taste in his mouth and looks away instead, "You kids sure picked a hell of a place to ply your talents." It's not exactly relaxing, but knowing that Hive has been hovering at least means he's breathing and still being a, "-stubborn bastard." Said in some odd curse-slash-agreement with Jax, "Lurks like a fucking. Vulture. of -- love." Augh, he says suddenly, exhaling shakily up at the ceiling, "...christ, I feel like I'm in someone else's -- /body/." "Kinda ish. Not in comparison to some, but it seems to work on cases other's cant," Corey nods and chuckles at the plying of talents. "Micah had asked for my help before, and well I had met Kate and well, she has suffered for it more. Though, I can't say that what we have accomplished this year hasn't been necessary." Looking down at Jax he smiles and pats his shoulder. "I think we would have a lot sadder people about without the effort." Glancing over to the sniffling girl. "Are you alright over there? Did you need anything else?" he asks with concern. The talk of the Clinic's emergency /policies/ only presses Jax's lips together, eye lifting briefly to the ceiling. His expression relaxes soon, though. "Is kinda a gift. I mean, everywhere he goes he helps people." A very faint shiver ripples up through Jax at the talk of organ-regrowth, but only briefly. His nose wrinkles up, head tipping in acknowledgment to Jim. "Does kinda feel like that, for a while. I had to -- get used to." He shakes his head, a small flush colouring his cheeks. It deepens with his answer to Corey, "What y'all have accomplished this year is -- t'ain't no way we can thank y'all enough. My folks woulda been --" He shakes his head quickly. "There's gumbo, too," he adds a little bit cheerier to the girl. "Think s'-- okra an' bacon an' seafood. -- You like?" This last is to Jim, though he glances to Kate's hand on the man uncertainly. "Once she's done maybe?" "Healer," Kate confirms the obvious, stifling a yawn with her free hand, "I handle the details, Corey is sort of a pleasant cure-all that helps things along nicely. Though neither of us actually works here - I'm a nurse over at Bellevue, and he's at a coffee shop." With that, she lets go of Jim's hand, though she pats the back of it with a gentle smile, "There. That should get you along the road to recovery well enough, internally, anyway. Might feel a little bit odd or sleepy for a little bit. Jus' let me know if you've got other concerns. I'll still be around often enough." There is a nod to the food when Jax mentions it, "Should probably eat something - quirk of my mutation is that it tends to make people hungry after being healed." She yawns widely, covering her mouth with the back of her hand, "Just wanna help. Can't stand to see people in pain or suffering, not when I could maybe help. So I help." The dark circles beneath her eyes have deepended a little bit, as she wobbles slightly on her seat, peeking over towards the girl on the otherside, waiting to hear if she needed help, too. The girl rapidly crams the rest of the cornbread into her mouth greedily when Corey addresses her, cheeks pouched out like a chipmunk and eyes shinny and feral. Chewing with that same threadbare defiance, she answers with a raised middle finger and drags her magazine back over to her lap, opening it at RANDOM and sinking down in her bed to hide behind it. CRINKLE. Jim has a very /dry/ laugh, looking mostly just sick, "It's gonna depends who you're asking, what's /necessary/. Some would say burning this place to the fucking /ground/ was /necessary/, fucking-- How long'd it take you?" Jax's flush does not go unpunished, Jim turning his hard-grilling stare front and center on the photokinetic, "Don't even know what it's like anymore to go around anymore as all this god damn walking," his teeth bare, eyes closing tight again, "meat-fuck-/Yeah/, I want some gumbo." That transition from topic to topic sounds JUST like that, words just spilling over. "Bless your sparkly ass, you know how long I been photosynthesizing my meals? What the fuck /is/ this -- empty god damn--" NOPE, he is not in the mood to look at his body right now, focusing his hard-faded blue eyes on Kate and saying with alarming, gritted sincerity, "...I didn't think I'd ever feel this again." Kind of like a thank you? Shrugging at the middle finger, Corey turns his gaze back to the others. "I should get Kate out of here and a different meal option. She's vegetarian, so I think bacon and sea food sorta take that off the menu for her." Offering her a hand, he glances to Jax. "I can have the guard come back in a bit to push you back to your room if you want?" He looks to Jim with a smile, "Enjoy your meal, Worse things to have for your first solid meal than a proper gumbo." "Oh! Thanks, I'll be okay, my husband's around here somewhere. He an' Hive brung this, they thought y'might want --" Jax glances back to Jim, flicking his fingers down towards the bag in his lap before he removes a small tupperware of gumbo and a spoon from the cafeteria. He offers both of these towards Jim, and gives Kate and Corey a -- small, careful, not-moving-burned-lips-/too/-much -- smile. "Thank you. Again." He exhales quick and quiet at Jim's question. "Took me a --" There's a small uncomfortable twitch of one arm. "-- while. But I mean, y'get your /life/ back so. You /got/ a while to work with." Kate accepts Corey's hand, rising to wobbly feet with his assistance, before leaning into his side for support. Offering a cheery smile to Jax and Jim, Kate nods, "I'll likely see the both of you around more as the week goes on. Y'know how to get in touch with me if you need me." The somewhat-thanks from Jim earns a confused blink from the tired nurse, but she smirks lopsidedly, "You're welcome? Enjoy your dinner." Waving goodbye, Kate allows herself to be walked out from the room, still leaning against Corey for support. "...life." Jim sounds flat and semi-/dubious/ while he /muscles/ the lid off his gumbo one-handed, his cast arm kind of stuck in its position for the time being. He has just enough grace to nod silent thanks to Kate and Corey as they make their way out, and remains quiet until they've fully exited. At which time he asks his-- gumbo? "...n' how /you/ been holding up through all this." Hhhhhaaaaahm, that first bite of fatty meaty savory food crumples together his brows like it's so good it HURTS. Hissing softly. Another faint smile twitches at Jax's lips with Jim's first bite of food. "Yeah. Life. S'kinda nice to get back to, sometimes." His hand lifts, fingers tracing slowly against the unbandaged side of his face. "Oh, these things is always kinda tirin'. Guess it's a little fittin' we did this in the leadup to the Fourth. I ain't much for all the woo-America stuff but /Independence/ Day, I think a lotta our folks can get behind t'day." Whatever Jim is thinking, it's not really visible behind his grim frowning eyes and the cyclic mastication in his jaw muscles. What he opts to snort, however, is, "God bless America." And slowly, a fist extends towards Jax, while he chews. And, appropriately, with the tap of their knuckles, they blow it up.