InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "You're really weeeird"

Rapunzel (obscurityfalls) wrote in paxletalelogs,
@ 2011-09-03 22:18:00

Entry tags:

nephthys, tiamat

It's beginning to hurt
Who: Karin and Vanessa
What: Vanessa burns her hand
Where: Hospital
When: Thursday Sept 1st
Warnings: some language

The extent of Vanessa’s cooking abilities was boiling water, toast, and macaroni and cheese, or so she thought. She set out to make macaroni and cheese and put the water on to boil, looking up at the alarm, silently telling it not to go off. She followed the instructions to the letter, so when the timer went off, Vanessa got out the colander to strain the macaroni . When she dumped the macaroni into the colander, over the sink, steam shot up in her face and startled her. Somehow in the commotion, the hot water started pouring over her hand instead of being dumped safely in the sink. Cursing, Vanessa dropped everything into the sink, immediately turning the faucet to cold, setting her hand under the cold water. After soothing her hand under the cold water for quite some time, Vanessa gave up, turned the burner off, and had a bowl of cheerios.

What she didn’t know was that you never, ever put your hand under freezing cold water no matter how good it may feel. Instead of just having a red hand, Vanessa’s hand started to blister. DAMN. Normally this wouldn’t be a very big deal, but her hand still hurt, AND both of her jobs involved using her hand. So Vanessa headed off to the er, and waited patiently in the lobby. She was still dressed from work at the hair salon, and was wearing a simple little black dress with zebra print flats, her hair partially up in a clip.

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sheltering_sky
2011-09-04 03:34 pm UTC (link)

Karin heard Vanessa's name before she saw her, read off a roster of incoming patients by a tired nurse deep into her second shift. Her hand raised to the nurse's back as she passed behind him, plucking the clipboard from his slumping hand. "I'll get this one," she said, glancing over the hastily written chart. "I'll handle the intake paperwork if you find someone to see her." She looked down to the barely legible scrawl indicating what the patient had come in for. It looked to be a fairly simple case, one she might hand off to a young resident in need of a bit of practice. But until such a resident was found, Karin had every intention of taking the opportunity to meet another fellow tenant, particularly one apparently accident prone.

Clipboard in hand, she swept down the corridor to Vanessa's side, her own thick-soled, willfully unattractive shoes padding noiselessly down the hall. Her smile was soft as she drew up alongside the woman, her green eyes darting restlessly between the injury and her sort-of neighbor's striking face. "Vanessa?" she asked. "I'm Karin Shepherd." Her smile flashed brighter for an instant, every aspect of her body language seeking to put the woman at her ease. "Nice to meet a neighbor, although I wish it was under better circumstances. How are you feeling?"

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obscurityfalls
2011-09-04 04:18 pm UTC (link)

Another chance meeting of someone from Pax. She couldn't help but think of Audrey and how creepy she would find this chance encounter, poor Audrey would've freaked out, maybe it was best not to tell her. Vanessa smiled and reached out her good hand to shake Karin's hand. Thankfully she had burned her right hand, and she was a lefty, that was good news at least. "Always a pleasure to meet another neighbor." Vanessa reached out her burnt hand and showed to it to Karin with a disgusted face. Blisters were just so incredibly gross. "I'm a complete idiot, and burnt my hand making macaroni and cheese, how you do that I have NO idea. It's God's way of telling me to give up on cooking I suppose. It feels like the water is still being poured over my hand. I wouldn't come here for something so minor, but I'm a hairdresser and a bartender, so I at least need a good bandage."

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sheltering_sky
2011-09-05 05:01 pm UTC (link)

"You sure do," Karin said, shaking her offered hand. "But you're not an idiot, Vanessa. You'd be surprised how many injuries we get very similar to that. They say the place you're most likely to get injured is in your own home, and from what I've seen around here, I believe it."

When presented with the injury, Karin set her clipboard aside, and took the damaged hand with a feather light touch, careful to avoid any burned skin. The blister had risen fast and hard, and merely to look at it was a painful prospect. "You did well to come here," she said, eyes narrowing as she turned the wounded skin over, searching every part of it for signs of dire injury. "Some people try to slap Neosporin or even butter on it and call it a night, but this looks like a second degree burn." Her brow was still knitted together when she looked up to the woman, her expression equal parts concern and determination. "It's nothing we can't patch up, though, so don't you worry."

She flagged down an orderly, gesturing toward Vanessa's burn. He seemed to understand, moving off toward a nearby supply closet. As they waited for his return, Karin glanced around for an open seat; though the ER and its few rooms were always full, this at least was an injury they could attend here. She led Vanessa to a small alcove, where more comfortable seats awaited them both. "Have a seat," she said, waving vaguely toward the chair.

"So Pax Letale... small world, isn't it?" she laughed. "Steam burns aside, how are you liking the place?"

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obscurityfalls
2011-09-05 05:39 pm UTC (link)

"It didn't start out that bad, but it blew up like a balloon when I ran cold water over it. I'm guessing that was the mistake, pouring cold water on it." It did make sense now that she thought about it, cold on burning hot skin was not a good combination. She looked down at her hand and tried to imagine putting foils in hair with a disgusting blistered hand, who would pay for that? Great. However Karin said that she could patch her up, and she definitely believed her. Normally Vanessa became more uneasy in hospitals, but this woman's very presence seemed relaxing and soothing, she was definitely in the right profession. Vanessa sat down, pulling the hem of her dress down a bit as she did so.

"It's a very small world, and I keep on running into people from Pax, it's kind of crazy, but neat at the same time. There's something spooky about it." Why Vanessa found that highly interesting, while Audrey was freaked out by it, she didn't know. "I do like the place though, my apartment is great, and the people I've met so far are all very interesting."

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sheltering_sky
2011-09-05 05:49 pm UTC (link)

Karin drew a hissing breath through clenched teeth at the mention of Vanessa's attempt at first aid. It was not an unheard of practice, and it happened more often than Karin cared to contemplate. But a bad idea it most certainly was, and now the victim was paying quite dearly for it. She was grateful the wound wasn't worse than it was; she found herself saying a small prayer of thanks for that, glad her job of cleaning up would cause Vanessa less pain for it.

The orderly returned soon enough, pushing a small cart laden with sterile gauze pads, medical tape, and various ointments. It was clear that while he had not been entirely sure of the nature of the injury, he had seen and understood enough to come prepared. Karin thanked him as he left, making a mental note to praise him to his supervisor later.

She took a sterile wipe from the cart, taking Vanessa's hand as she slowly began cleaning on and around the wound. It was delicate work, so she tried to keep up a steady stream of conversation as she attended to it, hoping to distract her patient as best she could. "It's good you're settling in well," she said. "It can be a strange place at times. Were you there when the power went out?"

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obscurityfalls
2011-09-05 07:08 pm UTC (link)

Vanessa couldn't help but laugh when Karin drew a hissing breath through clenched teeth. Obviously her reaction to put cold water over her hand was the exact opposite of what she should've done. "Oh well, live and learn, right?"

Power went out all the time, but since Karin was mentioning it, she knew there must've been something slightly stranger about the scenario, and now she was curious. "No, I wasn't there when it went out, what happened?"

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sheltering_sky
2011-09-05 07:32 pm UTC (link)

"Hm." Karin pursed her lips together, uncertain how much to bring up. She was loath to set a new tenant ill at ease, especially when she was already dealing with a painful injury. But Karin felt certain that to be dishonest, or to withhold information that might prove useful to her, would be the greater disservice. She reached over to the cart, tossing the little wipe into a rubbish bowl. A single-serve packet of ointment was next in her hand, torn open as Karin drew it back toward them. "Nothing, really. That or nobody seems to know, so it's been dropped, you could say." For the most part. She thought of Elias' post to the forum, wondering what knowledge he might have that he'd be willing to share; for that reason as much as any other she had agreed to speak with him, though to date they hadn't set up a time. Curiosity nipped at the edges of her thoughts, distracting her somewhat.

Carefully she daubed the ointment along the wound, taking great pains not to injure her neighbor further. "The power did go out, but apparently there's no reason why. Someone fainted, too, and things went missing... One of our neighbors was asking about it on the forum, too, but I don't know what it is he saw."

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obscurityfalls
2011-09-05 08:46 pm UTC (link)

Vanessa remembered the post, but hadn't thought anything of it really, until now. Power didn't just go out for no reason, there was always a reason, whether it be a storm, a tree, whatever. This apartment building just got more and more interesting didn't it? "Well that's very interesting. What kind of things went missing, anything important? You know, the more you learn about Pax, the stranger things get. I'm not exactly moving out anytime soon, but it's definitely strange, so somehow it doesn't surprise me that there is something weird with a whole past power outage."

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sheltering_sky
2011-09-05 11:45 pm UTC (link)

"Some personal effects, I think," she said. "Nothing major." The pad of her index finger drifted soft but firm over the worst of the wound. The flesh was discolored and puckered a bit, but thankfully no worse; in her time in trauma, Karin had seen a number of terrible third degree burns, often so terrible even skin grafts were limited in their usefulness. "Nothing of mine," she added, chuckling quietly. "I thought I heard something odd, is all. Maybe I heard whoever it was that came in and took those things. I guess I'll never know."

She shrugged, shaking her head. Into the rubbish bowl she tossed the ointment packet, now spent. She then retrieved fresh gauze and tape, and set to bandaging the wound. "It's a wonder we don't have on-site security, the rate things have been going."

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obscurityfalls
2011-09-06 12:08 am UTC (link)

Well, that didn't sound too bad, just some things missing here and there, but there was still something strange about it, and why did someone faint? "Yeah, I guess you'll never know, unless someone saw something out of the ordinary. I'm surprised they didn't add security after that incident to be honest. Are there cameras or anything in the lobby?" Putting cameras in would probably be cheaper than having people doing security, and Vanessa couldn't recall if she had ever seen any or not.

She looked down at her bandaged hand, mentally noting how Karin had dressed her wound. She could just visualize various color hair dyes getting on it by the end of a shift and having absolutely no clue how to change it.

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sheltering_sky
2011-09-06 12:17 am UTC (link)

"Not that I'm aware," she answered earnestly. She wondered if it were perhaps a good suggestion to make to the concierge; to whom he might pass that along she wasn't sure, but knowing there was some kind of additional protection would go a long way to easing her concerns on her sister's behalf. Karin was sure she wouldn't be the only one to feel so. "Maybe we should turn that suggestion in with our next month's rent," she added, chuckling at her not-quite-joke.

She bound the gauze with the last bit of necessary tape, then pulled from the cart the last thing she would need: a small plastic bag, containing all the items Vanessa would need to clean and bandage the wound again. "There's a little diagram on the gauze that'll show you what to do to clean it," she said. "Try not to get that bandage wet for a day or two. Tylenol should be all you need to keep the pain to a minimum, and it's so hard to overdose on that stuff, take as much as you need. But do call your GP if it starts looking or feeling weird, or if you need the bandage changed, okay?"

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obscurityfalls
2011-09-06 12:30 am UTC (link)

"Actually, that's a pretty good idea. Besides, the worst they could do is say no. How much could one or two cameras cost? Even if it only makes people feel better and no one watches the tapes, it would be nice to have." Vanessa nodded, and mentally went over her schedule in her head. She would have to take a night or two off from the bar, but she could avoid getting it wet at the hair salon, she would just have to have the assistant hair dresser do all of the hair washing. "Thanks for your help, and for making me not feel like such an idiot for having this happen to me."

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sheltering_sky
2011-09-06 01:34 am UTC (link)

Karin nodded, filing the idea away for future reference. Seemingly silly or not, it seemed like a solid plan, particularly if more than one tenant were to make the suggestion. And from her own reading (and entirely too much watching of true crime television, if Karin were honest) she knew that often enough the mere presence of security cameras could act as a deterrent to crime. But then Vanessa spoke again, breaking Karin's rabbit trail of a thought, and Karin found herself smiling and shaking her head in answer.

"You're not an idiot," she said, sincerely. "One time I stubbed my toe on my own coffee table leg, not drunk or walking in the dark or anything. I mean I stubbed it hard enough to split the toenail. So don't you worry about that. I'm glad I could help."

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obscurityfalls
2011-09-06 03:25 am UTC (link)

"OUCH, that sounds like something I would do, definitely." Vanessa smiled and looked at her hand once again. "I'm just lucky it's not my good hand, I'd be in serious financial trouble if it was my good hand and I had a hard time cutting hair." Vanessa stood up and offered to shake Karin's hand, extremely and ridiculously grateful for her. "Thank you, really. It was great meeting you."

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	sheltering_sky 2011-09-06 03:41 am UTC (link)
	"You too," she said, rising with Vanessa. Happily she took her hand, giving it a firm shake. "Stop by my apartment any time if you need anything. One-oh-seven, okay?" Smiling warmly, she tucked a stray lock of hair behind one ear. "You take care, Vanessa. I'll see you around." (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	obscurityfalls 2011-09-06 03:43 am UTC (link)
	"I'm apartment 205. If you ever, ever need anything just knock!" Vanessa waved with her freshly bandaged hand and headed out of the hospital. (Reply to this) (Parent)