ArchivedLogs:Got You

Got You
Dramatis Personae Dusk, Hive, Kay, Melinda	2014-03-22 '
Location <NYC> Mount Sinai Hospital - Harlem
On the cutting edge of many medical technologies, Mount Sinai Hospital is often ranked as one of the nation's best hospitals. The medical school attached is one of the best in the world, meaning that even your med students know what they are doing. Chin up, then -- when you come in here badly mutilated after the latest terrible catastrophe in Times Square, you're in good hands. Saturday afternoon brings sunshine and warmth through the plate glass window at Mount Sinai Hospital, shedding warm rectangles across Melinda's bed, the solar energy nudging her nap into consciousness, her eyes flickering open to the bright light. She draws her chin back reflexively and turns toward the door, waking up a little slower with out the intense light. She exhales softly and glances around the room before bringing a hand to the belly and rubbing it gently. New room. She's been moved out of intensive care and settled in a place where she can sit out the rest of her pregnancy in relative peace and quiet. Delightfully, it appears that there is no dual occupancy in this room. Wonderful. Her hand moves to the controls and slowly sits herself upright, fidgeting in place, mind starting to reacquaint itself with things forgotten during unconsciousness. Fire. Yes. Explosion. Everyone she knows is possibly dead or dying or hurt. Her place with Hanna and Jayna is gone. Where is she going to go at the end of the month. Oh. Hospital. yeah, that solves that. But ... Everyone. She can't really think much past that. She scoots up a little more in her seat and pulls her purse out of the cabinet next to her bed, fishing out her phone, displeased to see it without battery. She can't even look up phone numbers to use the land line. Does she have a phone charger? She certainly wasn't thinking about that on Tuesday. Somewhere just upstairs there's a bed that Hive has been -- mostly glued to all this while. He doesn't really smell very good by now, he's barely been leaving. Grumpy Bear hoodie, fraying jeans, soft fleecy Theta Tau cap. In the bed he leans down against, Flicker is swathed in bandaging; the burns covering much of his body are not really visible. The sound of a familiar mind pulls him upright with an exhausted startle, heavy-lidded eyes opening as he jerks upward. << Huh? >> His voice isn't its usual heavy sledgehammer-thud; it's soft and gentle, a quietly echoing chorus whispering into Melinda's mind. << What? >> He's sleepy-confused, sounding a little bit /puzzled/ to hear Mel here. << Whathuhwhy? >> Though his words aren't quite clear the intent behind them is: why are you here? You could ask the same of Kay - though /Kay/ hardly seems to feel he's out of place. He's 'dressed down', for a public jaunt, in loose saggy jeans with a wallet chain, blue converse shoes, a gray fraying hoodie for him to cram his long arms down into the pockets of, floppy urchiny cabby hat with enough of a bill to obscure his face somewhat. He's probably come with Dusk - making ROUNDS, walking backwards to be explaining to his compatriot, "-I'm just saying, if they were playing a little god damn music around a hospital, man, it'd be less fucking /dire/." Dusk is in a long trenchcoat -- not his usual, this is a shabbier secondhand one paired with an ill-fitting pair of jeans and a cheap pair of white sneakers. He's meandering down alongside Kay, rapping on the door to Flicker's room to wander on in, looking frownily at his roommates and leaning in against the foot of Flicker's bed, hands thunking down against the rails. "Music does make /everything/ less dire. Or more dire, actually. Coulda set the explosion to the 1812 Overture, really, done it with some /panache/." He turns a bright fangy /grin/ on Hive, though this immediately ends with his brows drawing together, too. "Hey, y'aright, man?" << -- Or. Alright as you /can/ be? >> Melinda stirs quietly, perking as well when the chorus of voices starts to filter into her perceived thoughts, her brow furrowing deeply as she looks toward the door first, then the window, then in a few other equally useless directions. << Hive? Is that you? >> she asks, not really answering his question. But then she thinks back. There was the cab ride over to the East Village. She just didn't feel like walking just then. Then a faint rumbling and traffic slowing. Emergency vehicles started zooming, by, leaving all of the cars that were heading in crammed up against the side of the road, parked at funny angles. When they finally gave up, she tried walking the rest of the way, tired of the cab getting stuck. It wasn't until she cleared the corner and could /see/ the Village Lofts that she had any idea whatever that the emergency vehicles were for people she loved. The rest was a blur. She can't remember if she caught a cab or if a cabby saw her in distress, but she was taken to the hospital soon after, admitted with fetal distress and preterm labor and they've been trying to get the kid to both show signs of life and settle down. Her reflection is distracted immediately when someone enters her room. Oh. Look. Lunch. Hospital food. Joy. << It's us, >> Hive confirms, still sleepily puzzled in his answer; it's immediately followed by: << Oh shit, >> as Melinda's thoughts filter through. His eyes open wider as Dusk and Kay arrive; he greets them with an exhausted mental brush of mind(s) to minds, touched up light against their own. "Mel's here," he tells then, tired and uncertain. "Somewhere -- here." << Where are you? >> his next question comes to her. << Are you okay? Should we come --? >> His 'we' this time comes with clarification, mental image of Dusk and Kay beside him. And Flicker, swathed in bandages, not hugely conscious. Presumably Flicker will not be coming. << Are you both okay? >> "... did the explosion have a soundtrack?" It sounds like this may be a genuine question. Hive -- hasn't had a /whole/ lot of sleep lately. "Dunno," Kay comes right in, closes hands around the back of Hive's shoulders to lean /over/ him to get a view of Flicker, "Wasn't there. Figure the auth-OUR-it-tay might do their job a little better without having to shoot a man on sight." << ...all that bandaging; fuck lot of burns. Flick my friend, lotta trouble you found yourself in... >> It's grim, but starkly /warm/ in thought. Fiercely affectionate; as though a part of him were fighting right here and now, a small part /for/ the teleporter. "-- wait, /Mel/?" That startles him more sharply, looking from Dusk to Hive, "Was she in the blast as--?" There's no helping it; thinking of her rounded stomach. Of her stomach /burned/--... "Nah. Only soundtrack was a lot of roaring flames. Some screaming. Wasn't really music I like to hear," Dusk says with a grim gritting of teeth, his fingers tightening hard against the railings on the bed. His eyes rivet sharply on Hive, a sudden ping of alarm in his mind. "Shit, /Mel/?" There's something that flares fierce and upset and protective. "No, no, she wasn't /there/, she couldn't have been -- where is she?" He straightens suddenly, his coat twitching with a spasm of wings beneath it. "She's okay, right? They've gotta be okay." Melinda smiles quietly as they come in and deliver the food, her fingers fishing out the receipt on the page to figure it out. "Oh. Thank you." Her voice is quiet and catches on consonants from disuse. There are small portions of everything. Little bit of lettuce with a cherry tomato and a packet of Italian dressing. 'Beef strognoff' the receipt reads, but the lump of brown over noodles with off white gravy is a bit less convincing. << 406. They're here too? Oh god. Is everyone okay? Flicker. >> She holds on to the thought of Flicker all wrapped up and unconscious. << Please, I know nothing. My phone is dead and I have no one to ask. >> She pauses for a moment, calming herself down and trying to organize her thoughts. << We're okay. Just. Trying to stay a single unit for a while longer. Kid's not done cooking. >> << We're -- >> Broadcast to everyone, /this/ 'we' comes with a distinct impression of /Flicker/, this time. << Got hurt real bad. Saved a crapton of people. >> There's a small note of quiet pride, here, and heavy /guilt/ as well, that also seems focused more at Flicker. << Always does. Not sure it -- >> Hive cuts off into an uncertain quiet, words trailing off in a pained wash of confusion. "Not sure." He pushes himself to his feet with an unsteady wobble, gripping Flicker's bed as well, though in his case this is for support. "406. You want to go see?" /He/ at least seems like he's going to go see, turning already to weave his way towards the door. "Not in the blast. Heading towards it? There was -- labor? The kid -- something. Something --" He shakes his head. "Should check on her." << Coming, >> he tells Mel. Or tells all of them. "Be more thrilling a conversationalist," Kay makes a hard smile towards Flicker in the bed, and whether he's able to see it or not, seems to feel he deserves a salute, "Rest up, buddy." Hands are returned to pockets. A quick reflex-glance to see if /Hive/ is injured when he grips the bedframe, he's otherwise... well, not relaxing. But not growing more agitated, "--labor like. Fuck, this is a hell of a day to come into the world. She /giving/ birth or something?" And for a wild moment, he wonders -- SHOULD I GET CIGARS? Should someone be there holding her HAND? "-Anyone know who the fucking daddy is?" << Or's he one more lowlife motherfucking sack of shit. >> Enthusiasm for parents: Kay has little positive assumption. No love for father figures in /this/ mind. "Oh/shit/." At the mention of giving birth Dusk is already heading towards the door. << 406? 406. >> He grabs at Hive's elbow to half support him, half /steer/ him off out of the room. Towards the hallway. Towards the elevators. "This is early, isn't this early? I thought this shit was supposed to be like -- June or something -- should we have -- crap. Where's she gonna /go/? This is -- bad. This is bad isn't it?" He jabs hard at the elevator button, glaring at it to /will/ it to hurry up along. "S'been a hell of a /week/, man. On the flip side maybe a kid born in a storm like this'll just be born /strong/." Melinda is steadily picking at her lunch when the notification that others are coming. She nods mostly to herself, but the acceptance is there in her thoughts, followed by a nervousness as she waits to hear and see more from those on their way. She tries switching to the salad, but the inability to get the stupid tomato on the fork leads her to give up for now, pushing the table surface away as she fidgets with the blanket, waiting for them. She is staring at the door when they arrive. She looks them over with the most serious of expressions before raising an arm and beckoning them to come closer. Oh god, she needs hugs. << Not yet. /Trying/ to be not yet anyway. >> Hive leans very heavily into Dusk's arm for the trip down. << We are, >> he answers Kay's question about the father, and this, too, is a muddled confusion of answer; it comes with a complicated wash of sentiment. Strong affection feeling, love-feeling. But avoidance-feeling, too, nervousness and fear and maybe some guilt mixed in twined in a slooow creaking of plant roots. << Too early, >> he confirms, leaning all the more heavily against Dusk as he makes he way off the elevator, down the hall, into Mel's room. He comes closer when Melinda beckons though his bony shaky hug is kind of stale-sweaty from days spent fretting-worried-sleepless by a hospital bedside. "Jesus. What do they --" << think, s' -- are you, >> plural, << gonna -- >> Frown. << keep cooking. >> "Born strong," Kay repeats, grinning. "Fuck yeah - could use some good news. New life. What's uh - too early, what's that mean. Like, kid born without eyelids or something?" God, Kay, shut UP. He's saying this just before they enter Melinda's room, and there's nothing in his expression save genuine /hope/ and happiness to see the woman alive and breathing in her bed, "Hey, momma! Hear your stowaway's trying to make a break for it." He swivels right around the side of the bed to notch his hug in from the opposite side as Hive. His hug, as ever, is /warm/ as a hearthfire in the chill hospital atmosphere. There's confusion /there/ for Hive's muddled answer, but not as much as another man - he's been part of the hive. << Who's all /in/ there anyway. >> "What like a /fish/? No you need eyelids." Dusk allows Hive his hug but then drags a chair over to Melinda's bedside and /steers/ Hive into it. With Mel granted the luxury of her /own/ room he closes the /door/ and sheds his coat, exhaling a sigh of relief, wings rolling in as much of a slow stretch as the confined space will allow; once the others have had their hug he doesn't so much hug as drape one across Melinda in soft blanketing squeeze. He at least smells freshly showered, not his usual Old Spice scent but someone else's borrowed soap; there's still raw singed patches healing on his wings where the nappy fuzz is reddened-gone and he pulls away soon before the contact can chafe too badly. "/Gotta/ keep cooking for a bit, I hope. Bake 'em up nice and strong. How you feeling, hon?" Melinda hugs each of them in turn, closing her eyes with each embrace and returning the contact as strongly as she dare. Soon she is free to look them all over once more, delighted to find all of them mostly free of injury. "I'm... Okay. Mostly okay. Just uncomfortable. The whole process is less painful and more uncomfortable." There's a bit of a lie involved here as some of it was sharp and painful on Tuesday, but they were able to calm that down. She exhales and gnaws on her lower lip, looking over to Hive as she reaches out for his hand. "We're doing okay. There was too much excitement. Too much stress. It was like my body decided it could not handle anything anymore and the child was part of that. I think we're better, but my physical stress threshold is even lower than it was." << We're in here, >> Hive answers unhelpfully, uncertainly; he doesn't seem to really process the question well past a dose of puzzlement, it just comes in a vague sense of jumbled identity. A too-bright flash of bright colors and bright lights and bright /cheer/. An erratic unsteady warm flickering, still fiercely burned-pained-scared. Something slow-moving, slow-thinking, quiet and earthy and deep rooted. Twinned hungers, brilliant strong, one primal-fierce, one exuberant. A calmer quieter mind, soft and gentle and methodical ticking away in gentler soothing influence in the background, quieting even through its layer of still-healing pain. << We -- all -- we. >> It's not even really trying to make sense of one-from-other. Maybe it /can't/. Hive digs his knuckles against eyes, shifting uncomfortably where he sits as a sudden throb of pain pulses against the others. "Excitement. Yeah. Stress. Been a -- lot of that. Hasn't there." "Augh, that sucks," Kay massively simplifies Melinda's plight, but it's not -- made small, in how he says it. At least internally - "S'/always/ a lotta that." All thoughts run on the assumption that his world is on fire, but the fire spans back a consistent thirty-two years of life and has a sort of soldier's peace in it - peace and /joy/ to be here. And he hovers his hands over Melinda's abdomen, fingers all flexed up like he can WIZARD it into behaving. And then sets them both down on her unless someone gets around to STOPPING him. Gentle stomach-noogying. He looks to Dusk like he already knows Dusk is with him on it, when he says, "Anything we ca do? You need a -- place, was it? Could talk to a few people; we /got/ safehouses. You're not in the wind, babe. Right?" "How much longer do you have to keep the kid inside you before it's safe to stop baking?" Dusk's thumbclaw flicks towards Melinda's belly, and he leans up against the back of Hive's chair, hands resting against it. His wings spread slightly outward, head bobbing in a quick nod; in his mind there's quick and easy agreement, not even a question arising there, just a brief mental cataloguing of safe spaces he knows. Safe -- baby-friendly spaces might be harder, though actually he's not even really sure what qualifies as baby-firendly. "We have safe places. Safe as anything around here is, I guess. You just say the word, and we'll find you a somewhere. What do you need? What's -- not stressful?" His head is tilting at the minds felt in Hive's, eyes slipping half-closed at the feelings that wash up against him. "Stopped baking? I read something on the internet recently that stated that babies are born not because the child is finished developing, but because the mother's body cannot handle carrying a kid anymore. It came with a wonderful animated graphic that demonstrated about how all of my intestines are basically being smushed up against my lungs right now." Melinda exhales, closing her eyes as Kay lays hands on her stomach. The child inside is a little restless this this point, gurgles of gas combined with movement below the surface before a very tiny head moves upwards and presses against the warmth he generates. "I have... two weeks until the doctors say it's okay, but closer to five weeks for full term." She is quiet too, when she feels the press of other minds, curiosity causing her to dwell longer on those she deems familiar. "I ... thank you. I just need to..." She thinks quickly of Hanna and Jayna. "I need to figure out what is actually going on with my original plan." << S'that where intestines go? >> Hive sounds puzzled. His brows pull into a frown. He directs it frownily at Melinda's abdomen. "You need lungs. For breathing." He slouches deep into his chair, palms pressing heavily up agains his temple. "I don't -- actually know how --" he starts, but then stops, and thinks. << Jayna hit her head pretty bad but she an' Hanna are okay. >> It doesn't sound like his own voice, an echoed Southern tinge to the words, though it doesn't, either, sound like a voice /in/ his system either. Maybe something repeated, something heard secondhand. << Don't know where they'll be staying either, though, >> he admits. << There's a shelter but -- crowded. >> "AHH-" Kay makes a kind of excited-vulpine /squeal/, his shoulders hunching up and open-mouthed smile /excited-started/ when movement meets his palm. Grasping that maybe you shouldn't make too many alarmed sounds in a hospital room, he then hunkers over Melinda's abdomen to hiss-whisper, "Holy shit, I feel that. Look at /you/, ankle-biter. Fucking - squirming around. Warden says you ain't up for parole yet, yo. Quit trying to dig your way out, work the system." He kind of -- /chases/ after the little fluttery movements, nudging /back/ at them. "Fuck, we could probably reach out to those two /fine/ honey's, too." << -that jax? man, how's he. the others. the kids- >> Still drumming fingertips after Melinda. But he's also calculating. Safehouses... after the zombie outbreak, they'd put people up. And how unsafe would it be for so many mutants to be undefended in shelters... Should really talk to Regan... "Oh, shit. Don't really know where /anyone's/ going to be staying," Dusk suddenly realizes with a faint widening of eyes. "Hive, /you/ need a fucking -- house to -- shit. Shit, we gotta find a /place/, man, you need somewhere to -- fuck." His fingers rake through his hair, a sudden restless agitation bouncing his weight up onto his toes as his mind races over -- he's got the island, Flicker's got the school, they'd probably take Aly in a pinch, but Flicker wouldn't likely /want/ to leave Hive and honestly he doesn't want to all that much either the guy can barely dress himself on a /good/ day where are they going to /put/ him -- "-- Fuck." His other hand clamps tighter against Hive's chair, lifting after to squeeze against the other man's shoulder. "Guess we'll have a lot of people we need to reach out to." "Some people can take my apartment," Melinda offers quietly. "I can try to talk to my landlord about letting me go month to month until the Commons are ready. He might be up for it. It's kind of a crap shoot, but the market has been pretty bad lately. He might not have new tenants, and an explosion is kind of a good reason." She is entirely uncertain the man will go for it. He may want to gamble on the others displaced by the explosion for permanent tenancy. "Does anyone have a phone charger?" << Phone's been dead since Tuesday, >> Hive answers, a little brusque but mostly more /amused/. << Don't have much of anything. At all. Might remember our entire lives just blew the fuck up. Haven't actually left the damn hospital since we got here. >> He leans into Dusk's touch, eyes closed and posture wilting as another heavy pulse of pain ripples through the others in the room; it's followed, reflexive and unthinking, by a heavy squeezing-sinking of mental fingers closing in against their minds. "Don't -- actually know where I'm going to go," he admits. "Nowhere, till Flicker's --" He shakes his head. "If your landlord lets you do that at least you'll be okay. Shit. I can't really speed up work at the site. Rush job's a shitty job and those houses are going up /right/." His eyes open again, though reluctantly, squinting up narrow as if the light is paining him; his eyes slant between Kay and Dusk in brief thoughtfulness, but then close again. Still smiling down at Melinda's abdomen, long spindly fingers playing with a life not yet born, Kay's steely fire resolves itself inside to a decision. Simple, steady and without remorse, "I've got just the place. You'll be a lil crowded, and you'll lose a /formal fucking address/ but s'better than any god damn /red cross/ shelter. And you'll be around friends." Just one safehouse. Just our brothers, their family. Yeah. Rey can take it out of my ass for jumping command, if she don't like it. God take me, I'm excited. /My/ people. "You guys," he reaches out to run his fingers through Hive's growing-out hair with an overwarm palm, patting Melinda's abdomen, "Old Jax and all, if he wants a place. All y'all. You pulled /my/ ass outta the fire once, a while back," his smile is full of unkind teeth, "'til you get a better place, looks like I finally getta return the favor." There's a moment when Dusk resists the pushing, a sharp bloody-fierce surge rising up in his mind to claw against it, but this moment wars with some other impulse in him wondering how much easier it would be to keep /tabs/ on his half-dead roommate one floor up -- and then, distracted with Kay's words his attention turns aside from those grasping claws anyway. "No formal address anyway," he says with a sharp-toothed grin, "harder for the registration motherfuckers to come after you. Look, it'll be like a party. What kinda phone you got, Mel? I could go /bring/ you a charger. Don't have one, but I have money. And stores have 'em." Melinda's hands reach up to press against her temples, groaning quietly against the squeeze as her brow knits against the pressure. "Um. Yeah. A new one would be good. I have some cash in my purse, just no real mobility right now." She rubs at the spot between her brows as her other hand searches out Hive's hand again. "It's right over there," she gestures and leans back against the bed. "Standard miniUSB will work. Don't speed up the work, Hive. We'll be okay. It's way too soon to panic about where to live yet. We gotta focus on getting our people healthy first. And thanks, Kay. It'll help to know we have options." There's another pulse of pain, and another quieter squeeze; with as many people as Hive has already taken, it doesn't even feel particularly jarring when his mind pushes in, mental fingers gripping tight at first but then easing there way in in a quiet /rush/ of other minds that, at first, flood in but then rather quickly subside into background murmur. What is more prominent is the pulse of headache throbbing in tandem with Hive's own, gripping in sudden-hard clench as the telepath tries (and fails) and tries (and fails) to stand. "We need to --" The third time he actually makes it to his feet. From somewhere else, groggy and very /drugged/; they've been giving him the good stuff, Flicker's (or is it their /own/ voice, now?) -- << Wait, again? You can't keep -- need to let -- them -- mnnh. >> Objection doesn't last long; it fades back into drowsy narcotic-fuzz. "Nghah," Kay has a practical enough mind that he removes his hand from Melinda's abdomen and bears a palm down on the bed instead, for the flood of (<< -what is/was all that-? >>) He bears it out, fairly well, and in the fading of intensity, his subtle contribution to the stewpot is liquid-fire energy, love, hope, adaptability - forward MOMENTUM. Also, a predominant and uncomplicated intention for murder at some future juncture. There is another half to all of this; the bombs were set. There are people that did this. Healing, support, protection - but This, too, is a Next Step. He gives his head a hard final shake and steps back, "A'right. I'm gonna go sort out the best house to keep y'all in. Dusk, you two," Hive and Dusk both are flicked at, "wanna get me a body count? How many of /our/ people need a place?" << Gh, can't take in too many humans; they /got/ places to fucking go. >> "And you, gorgeous?" He pats Melinda on the side of a cheek, grinning, "You keep growin' us a new one. Could always take a few more." "Woahhey watch yourself --" Dusk reaches to Hive's elbow, steadying the other man as he rises. "Mini-USB. Check. I got you. I got --" He stops with a wince, a sharp teeth-clenched grimace, his head pressing forward against Hive for that wave of pain. << all of us. >> His wing curls out around Hive, wrapping warm and /firm/ and strong and there's some fiercer impulse there mentally that carries out to everyone as well, an expansive bloody-minded protectiveness that surges warm-firm-strong too. "On it," he answers Kay, and, "On it," to Melinda. His wing stays scooped around Hive to lead the telepath back out of the room. "Let's get you back Jesus man you need a fucking shower." << If you wanted me, hun, all you had to do was ask. >> There's no real tone in Melinda's thoughts, more of a tired muddying of all emotions on the subject. She watches him go quietly, her hands reaching down to gently rest on her belly. She smiles to them all, but it seems as if she needs her sleep again, her mind echoing Hive's headache and the strain of all the new emotions to deal with. "I'll be here for a while yet."