[Open] Dr. Medic's Sleepaway Funtimes Camp

[mementomoritz]

I. So girl keep telling me [network post]

[About three hours after the whole post-Esmeeting kerfuffle, every phone included in the Executor group chat suddenly blares loudly with an incoming post that appears to have every possible alert and priority notice the person writing it could find attached to it.]

ANYONE WHO ATE ANYTHING AT ESME'S HOUSE REPORT TO MEDIC IMMEDIATELY YOU ARE POISONED


[Well, you can't accuse her of burying the lede.]

i'm in my lab in invidia [The exact address and coordinates of the lab are attached along with the message, including a helpful photo of a scribbled map just in case anyone is really bad with directions.] if you ate ANY of the food esme served or if you're feeling sick, come here so i can treat you
if you find someone unconscious or unable to move on their own, BRING THEM HERE
if you don't have anyone around and think you need help getting here, reply to this message immediately

i threw up, so i tested some of the leftovers i took home
and that food is very, very poisoned
(also, if you brought leftovers home, don't eat them)


II. pick me up whenever i'm feeling down [in-person log]

[True to her word, Medic is ready and waiting in her lab the second anyone arrives.]

[The living room of the apartment she commandeered has been turned into a makeshift hospital. She's dragged cushions and mattresses in, laying them out on the floor and covering them with clean sheets and blankets to make sickbeds. Next to every bed is a glass of water and a bowl for, uh. Any stomach issues you might have to deal with.]

[Anyone healthy who walks in the door will be cheerfully pressganged into nursing duty.]

[The beds are set up facing the living room's lone TV, but well... this is Invidia. Guess who's probably on every channel.]

[You might have better luck with putting on a movie, but no one actually saw this coming, which means your available selection consists exclusively of stuff Medic brought with her from the Limbo library when she came down to Invidia. By which we mean exactly one film.]

[Whether having to see Esme's face is better or worse than watching Brutal Instinct again is a choice you're going to have to make amongst yourselves.]

Comments

[phantasmagorial]

[ So, this is new! Rei has literally zero memory of being sick before in her life (unlife?), so this is an eye-opening if not exactly enjoyable experience. But Beast zoomed her over quickly enough that she's been seen to and plopped into one of the beds and just sort of... accepted her fate to stay here for the foreseeable future.

To her credit, she takes the whole thing rather well – she's not happy about it, but it's certainly less emotionally fraught and complicated than the whole last few weeks have been. Maybe the quiet and the express requirement to Get Some Goddamn Rest is doing her some good.

And get some rest she does – she spends a lot of time sleeping pretty deeply, and when she's awake, she's watching Brutal Instinct with a look of what I can only describe as open disdain. What is this movie. ]

That's definitely ketchup, right? [ In the midst of a particularly gory scene. It's beyond fake looking. ] Or maybe even hot sauce.

[ Once she's feeling a little more up to it, she also takes herself to visit the other patients as well – she's got a guilty sort of smile on her face as she approaches them, though. ]

Hi. How are you feeling so far...?

[mementomoritz]

I think it might actually be marinara. [Medic is just shaking her head slowly at this utter lack of scientific accuracy.] That's super not how stab wounds work! You only get spurting like that if you sever an artery, he got cut on the hand.

[Smiling cheerfully, she holds out a thermometer and puts a cup of what looks like chicken soup down next to Rei.] I just want to check your temperature at regular intervals to be safe- once I've recorded it, you can eat your soup, okay?

[phantasmagorial]

Ah– okay.

[ Feeling a little wrong-footed still at all the fussing, Rei pushes herself up into a sitting position. She's not quite as dizzy as she was before, so it's not the end of the world, but laying down is definitely more comfortable. ]

Do I just... what was it? Bite the end of it?

[ Area Executor Has Never Been Sick In Her Entire (Un)Life ]

[mementomoritz]

[Sorry, Rei, but your teammate has a literal career in fussing. If they didn't keep denying her graduation from medical school on ethical grounds, she'd have an entire degree in it.]

Mm-hm! You just hold the metal bit on this end here under your tongue until it beeps.

[She hands the thermometer over to Rei, using the other one to steady her by gently resting it on her shoulder, just in case she starts to tip over and needs someone to catch her.]

[phantasmagorial]

[ Rei maneuvers the thermometer under her tongue with what can only be called a dubious expression, like she half expects to be told this is a prank. But this is Medic, who is never serious about anything but medicine, so she knows it's not a goof.

The thermometer beeps and Rei pulls it out of her mouth, handing it back to Medic without even glancing at it. It's not like the numbers will mean much of anything to her anyway. ]

Has it gone down?

[mementomoritz]

Yep! [The numbers do mean something to Medic, who makes a little note of it on her clipboard before disinfecting the thermometer and putting it away.] It's been dropping pretty steadily for a while now. You're pretty much back in the average human range already, but it's hard to say whether you're back to normal when I don't have a baseline to compare it to...

Maybe come into the lab sometime when you're feeling healthy, so I can take your vitals and see what they're like normally, okay? [This is ninety percent because she cares a lot about your health, and only ten percent because she wants to know for science. Really.]

Anyway, I'd say you're set to make a full recovery soon- as long as you don't do anything silly and strain yourself in the next day or so.

[I Hauled Your Dumb Ass Out Of The Grave And You Swan-Dived Back In: the story of every healer who has ever had to handle an entire party. Thank fuck for Chiron.]

[phantasmagorial]

You don't have to worry about that with me. [ She's not saying 'Ariel', but She's Saying Ariel. ] I just about have enough energy to get out of bed, so I don't plan on getting myself into trouble anytime soon.

[ We'll see how long she keeps to this. ]

And um, Medic...? Thank you for all the hard work you've been doing. I don't imagine it's been easy.

[mementomoritz]

[We were all thinking it.]

Oh, don't worry about it, this is what I live for! [Pauses.] Unlive for? ...We really need to sort out our vocabulary. I'll have to start inventing some new phrases.

[phantasmagorial]

"Unlive for" has a nice ring to it. Though we'd better be careful about saying too many things like that in front of the Specters. The last thing I'd want to do is accidentally wake someone up.

[ The world's most existential alarm clock! ]

[seasharp]

[Ariel may have been poisoned, but she's feeling just fine, weirdly enough? She seems chipper enough, anyway. It's taking a lot of effort, when what she's really feeling is unyielding rage. But! She's going to keep on smiling around the poison victims.

Especially Rei.

Speaking of whom... Ariel's coming over with a bowl of ramen? Smells like chicken flavor. Well, of course, that's the flavor of cup ramen she picked out.]

They'd need a lot of ketchup for that much. [Just. Sets the bowl down.] Ah... um... I don't know if you really want to eat again, but I brought this?

[phantasmagorial]

I'll give it a try. Medic's been doing a good job taking care of us all, so the least I can do is do my part and keep my strength up. Thanks.

[ Bowl of ramen, get! For the time being though, she's just holding it in her lap. She's got to work up her appetite before she can give it a try. ]

How are you doing? I could've sworn we both had something to eat back at the house...

[seasharp]

Yeah, I ate some of it too. I'm all good, though! I mean, I passed out for a bit, but now I'm right as rain again!

[she says that... like it's nothing...]

[phantasmagorial]

[ RECORD SCRATCH ]

Hold on a second, you passed out?!

[ ARIEL???? ]

[seasharp]

...Yes?

[is this

distressing information]

Only for like a minute! It wasn't a big deal at all.

[phantasmagorial]

Ariel! That's a huge deal!

[ She sounds SO DISTRESSED ]

Have you spoken to Medic yet?!

[seasharp]

Oh, yeah, she wanted me to come in right away. But I really am alright! Since then, I've just felt totally normal.

Well, what passes for normal here, you know.

[daughterofthemark]

[Veil is lying in "bed" looking and feeling miserable. That's probably not surprising. Slightly more surprising but only by a very narrow margin, there've been sniffles coming from her direction that don't sound particularly illness-related, somehow.

At the sound of Rei's voice, she looks up.]

Dame Rei.

[...and then turns over to face away from her.]

[phantasmagorial]

...

[ Rei doesn't say anything, but she very pointedly walks around to the side of the bed Veil turned to, and sits herself down there. ]

Are you feeling okay, Veil?

[ She's very much not just talking about the whole poison business. ]

II

[morelikeisabeast]

[Isabel was quietly excited when she heard that they were going to watch a Rated-R movie, but this was...

This was dumb. She thought she was going to see forbidden grownup secrets.

She wasn't even sure what forbidden grownup secrets ARE, but if this is it the whole thing has been horribly misrepresented.]

Sick to my stomach. And not because of the hot sauce.

[phantasmagorial]

[ the forbidden grownup secret is that sometimes... movies for adults... are worse. ]

Oh, is it the gelatin brains that are doing it then?

[ Probably not, since they're flamingo pink and not in any way reminiscent of a brain. ]

She... really did a number on us, didn't she?

[morelikeisabeast]

I think I actually saw a box of strawberry jello mix on the table like two scenes ago.

[But no, that's not what she's talking about.]

She tried to kill us. Rekill us. Whatever. Just because we're a threat to her popularity with a bunch of mindless spectres.

[phantasmagorial]

... I know.

[ Rei just sighs. She's been turning the situation over in her head again and again but she still can't make it seem real. ]

I knew she didn't like us but going this far... I guess I underestimated her a lot. And I never even imagined we'd be able to get this sick from being poisoned. If you'd asked me two days ago, I definitely would've said it was pointless to even try.

[morelikeisabeast]

So are we gonna fight her?

[phantasmagorial]

[ Rei looks visibly uncomfortable. ]

I... don't think we should talk about that right now.

[ Not with certain listening ears in, well, earshot. ]

We have a plan to see if we can at least do something to give her a little less control over the city, but I guess it's on the back burner at least for now.

[morelikeisabeast]

[Isabel just kind of looked at her for a moment, before turning back to the movie, where the hero was currently saying some very inaccurate things about evolutionary theory and what kind of instincts they instill in you. She was fine with not talking about it for now. Fighting revenants was one thing but just busting into someone's home and beating them up was another entirely.]

...Alright.