ArchivedLogs:No Hospitals

No Hospitals
Dramatis Personae Hive, Jackson, Jim, Sebastian, Shane	2013-01-12 The evening continues to go not quite as planned. Set immediately after According to Plan
Location <NYC> 303 {Holland} - Village Lofts - East Village
This apartment is cheerful, in its way -- bright and airy, its floor plan open and a plethora of windows providing it with an abundance of light. The tiny entrance hall opens into a living room, small, though its sparse furniture and lack of clutter give it a more open feel. The decor is subdued and minimalist; black and white is the dominant theme, with occasional splashes of deep crimson to offset the monochrome. The couch and armchair are upholstered in black corduroy, and a few large pillowy beanbags provide additional seating by the large windows that dominate the back wall. Towards the back, a couple of doors lead off into bedrooms, and to the right, the kitchen's tile is separated from the living room's hardwood floors by black countertops. Standing in front of the partition between living and cooking area is a fish tank: one lone Betta, blood-red, swims regally among several species of black and silver fish. A hallway beyond the kitchen leads further into the apartment. The farthest door leads to the apartment's final bedroom, the door usually kept shut to hold in the acrid fumes of turpentine and paints from within. It's not a long trip from the park back to Jackson's apartment, though it might seem longer when bleeding out of the stomach. A short block walk, a short elevator ride up, and Jax is rattling keys out of his pocket, picking one out of the bunch with his teeth as his other arm stays looped around Jim. "Why no hospitals?" he is only now asking, nudging his door open with a foot, and then, "We'll find you help, though." Jim is, against standard convention, only growing more steady as he travels. White in the face and bruisey purple beneath the eyes, the soak of red into the sweatshirt gripped against his stomach has not spread any further. He spends much of the journey trying to use his elbow to discourage the arm around his back and look down at his clothes and free hand - glancing jittery in a store window to check his reflection. "Let's say I ain't gonna have answers to the questions they'd have." The flakiness around his knuckles and nape have thickened and darkened like a bad suntan, jaw tight with concentration. He glances the opposite direction as Jackson's face, bluntly inquiring with continued raspy tension, "So. You one of 'em, too?" The door is pulled open even before Jackson is finished toeing it, a small blue face peering out with a worried expression and twitchy sniff of nose. "Pa, what'd you -- Oh. /Oh/." The door is yanked open further, one webbed clawed hand waving Jim in with furrowed brow. "/Tell/ me you didn't tackle another cop." One blue face is joined by another, comfortably dressed in black terrycloth pants and no shirt, both sets of gills -- small against the sides of his neck and larger rippling down his sides -- flared wide. His nose twitches, too, though with a faint press of lips to accompany it. "Ah -- Oh -- oh." He darts back into the room, clearing a space on the floor to spread a blanket from the sofa there instead. And then vanishing. Somewhere else. "One of you?" Jax is eying the flakiness with a slight frown, moving over to let Jim down onto the blanket. "You don't seem dying anymore. What do you need?" Notable as the door closes behind them, his glittery makeup and vivid hair fade back away, leaving nails neat-trimmed but plain and his hair a deep almost-black brown. "No cops," he adds to one twin, "can we get clean warm water and some cloths. And. Uh. Bandaging." "--whiiich answers the question of which one /you/ are," Jim mutters, /either/ to the first little blue face, or to himself, one eye slowly squeezing SHUT, beyond surprise at the moment. "What the hell are you two -- oh. Blood. Right. Yeaaah." He watches the color fade from Jackson's hair with weariness as he drops his ass down to the ground with a rather heavy-sounding thump. His hair, still grizzled, has gotten more and more stiff and brittle, and he massages the bridge of his nose, "Uuh. I don't know. This isn't - nng - something I do all the time." He grimaces. "I needa go to ground. You uh." Sideglance, "Got any houseplants y'don't want?" "We're /drawn/ to it," Shane says with a /sharp/ toothed grin, "smelled you a mile away, followed you back here. Uh. Plants? There's plants, shit." He glances around with a slight frown -- boxes of herbs growing in the kitchen, an abundance of aquatic plantlife in the very large aquarium, a past-due Christmas tree shedding needles in the corner, poinsettias still bright and vibrant by the entry to the kitchens. "'bastian has aloe. And cactuses. He /likes/ the cactuses. Are you going to die? You really should stay out of trouble, the fuck did you do this time?" He says all this /while/ disappearing around the low wall into the kitchen, remarkably unhurried in his collecting of a wide bowl of warm water. Some clean rags. He is breathing deeper now, less twitchy but perhaps more intent for it. "We can't smell you a mile away unless you're in the water," Sebastian says with a slight sigh, returning from a bathroom with a bright orange bag slung over a shoulder; there's a typical blue star of life on the top. "Pa, what happened, that's a lot of blood." He doesn't come very close in his fretting. He sets the first aid bag down on the couch and retreats behind it. "-- Will the cactuses help you?" He's edging back towards one of the bedroom doors, albeit slowly. The voice that cracks into Jax and Jim's minds is a blunt hammer of force, thudding heavy and hard into being without preamble. << You dying? >> is followed soon by, << Found a doctor who'll treat you. You need it? >> Jax tenses abruptly, head turning as though listening, but only for a moment. He stands to take the water and rags from Shane, crouching beside Jim and finally removing his sunglasses to better look the other man over. Beneath, one eye is wide and vivid blue; where the other should be it is sunken, lid dropped shapelessly over empty space beneath. "You get that?" he asks Jim, and then gestures to the man's clothes, reaching for the orange bag to get -- first a pair of /gloves/ in purple nitrile. "You were walking better already. You heal? Uh. 'Bastian's got plants. We can get new cactuses." "No, I'm not /dying/," Jim hisses, shoulders bunching up, "-- who the fuck /is/ that." << ...I am gonna need a doctor, though. This bullet is making itself right at home. Fuck, it's like getting shot all over again in the /head/... >> "Yeah, I got it. Hah. That explains the, nh," he's reluctantly settling down onto his back, gritting and unfastening his lower shirt buttons, "sunglasses. And doesn't that make /me/ look like an asshole. I heal /kinda/. Ssssss," he unsticks his shirtfront from drying blood, though there's little new flow to replace it around a wound pressed into an abdomen seemingly partly coated with flaky bark, beneath which is softer whitedude skin. "If I can get my mitts on something I can chew up to feed the engine. That tree in the park's not gonna be walking so easy. I'd probably have eaten it already otherwise. Man, you see that kid's face?" Not eager to think along this route, he is eyeing the christmas tree. Speculatively. "Who the fuck is what?" Shane frowns, and moves closer as his brother moves away, dropping down to flop onto the couch. Nonchalant. Except for how he's kind of inching his head a little closer, nostrils flared and his teeth a little bit bared. "What did you /do/?" The voice snaps in again, just as discomfitingly hard as before. << If we can get the hospital to see you without /trouble/, will you go? You might guess by now we're not gonna freak that you're a mutant. I know a guy. He's solid. Works at Mount Sinai. Says he can help. >> "That tree is past due to go out anyway, sir. Eat," Sebastian sounds a little uncertain of this idea, but goes with it anyway, "it if you want." He sneaks himself out, slipping into the bedroom to disappear behind the door. "Hive. He's a friend. Lives downstairs. If he says a guy's solid, he's solid. He's careful. Plus reading minds helps. I think the kid got away." Jackson has pulled on gloves (one finger on the right hand hangs loose and empty, only a stub where his pinky should be), and dips a cloth into the warm water, frowning at Jim's stomach as he presses the cloth to it. "That staunched fast. That bullet stuck in you? I think 'bastian's bringing -- plants." << I guess. >> Jim is not entirely confident - nor comprehending, through bloodloss and shock - this communication is accurate, but it's there and /rolling steadily/ forward haphazardly. << I'd go. I don't got an ID. >> (And then, meaning this to be for himself because it's more a manic mental mutter: << Might do better with a freaking botanist. >> ) It's all sort of distracted because he is Frowning Pointedly at Shane, his flesh drifting more and more into an armored hardness, darkening and creasing and rough. "Bite me," he /invites/. Unless he's just being pissed, "I didn't do jack shit. Some dumb bint started screaming and set some tweaker off -- /seriously/ who gives guns to these people. Yeah, the bullets still in there. Who fucking knows, I might just keep it. I got a few others. Start a fucking collection." "So you just attract trouble, then?" Shane is being so /very/ helpful. Lying on the couch. Trailing claws down absently into the bloody sweatshirt. Watching Jax's proceedings with great /interest/. "That's the shittiest mutation ever, dude. And I say that knowing a guy who secreted mucous. That's it. Nothing else." << Jax, can you move him? I'm taking Ryan's car. We're going to Mount Sinai. Get down to the lobby. >> The voice withdraws. Possibly to Car. "/Shane/." Sebastian sounds chiding, as he returns. "Be nice." He is laden with pots -- a /large/ one with a bristling aloe plant curled into the crook of one thin arm, a smaller one with a number of even bristlier cactuses held carefully in the other hand. He puts both down on the floor by Jim. "Don't tell him to bite you, he /will/. I, um. These are plants." He seems kind of at a loss for what to do with them. He pokes one with a toe. Uncertainly. "Move -- ngh. Sir --?" Jackson is now just holding the cloth to the wound, frowning at the Voice In His Head. "The hospital can probably get those bullets out. I don't imagine they'll do you any good in there." He's ignoring Shane, with the kind of dedication that suggests he ignores Shane a /lot/. Instead he is moving the cloth to pad the wound with bandaging, makeshift from pads and rolled gauze raided from the first aid kid. "I can move you if you're not okay to walk again." Jim /cough/-laughs, baring his teeth, "That /is/ a pretty fuckin' shitty mutation." He says it semi-hysterically. And wearily. He /smacks/ Shane's questing hand away from the sweatshirt, possessively gathering it up into a stick bundle under his arm. "Okay." Exhaled. "Okay, I hear you." With a few few deep, calming breaths, he closes his eyes tight, whiskery jaw clenching. He slips fingers into the aloe plant's dirt, and the meaty thick portions of greenery start to yellow, to wilt, to brown. To dry out. The rough texture of his skin begins to recede, to smooth. He swallows and hoists himself up to sitting, pushing down on a knee, climbing to his feet with a quiet snarl to himself, "Right. /Hospital/. What could go wrong."