Clarice is working with portals (lostinexile) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2014-03-04 21:41:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, clarice ferguson (blink), faiza hussain (excalibur), neena thurman (domino) |
Me and Doctors just… it’s a thing with me.
Who: Clarice, Neena and Faiza
What: Clarice comforts Neena and convinces her to get her bullet wounds looked at
When: 3/2/2014
Where: neena's place
Status: Complete
Rating: PG-13 for talks about violence and bad touches
The kind of weekend Neena was having was making her want to take that song from that Disney movie and change the words to ‘Fuck it all, fuck it all’. She really just wanted to fuck everything. But she couldn’t do that, because people were in danger and no one was listening to her.
She was grumpy and in pain and seriously pissed off at herself and the world. She also felt like maybe she shouldn’t have turned down that doctor on the internet because she was already feeling feverish. Screw her deal with Booker. Neena lit up a cigarette and went to curl up in her closet with a pistol. If anyone got that far she’d just shoot them.
Of course they’d know she was in there if they followed the smoke trail, but whatever.
There was a pink flash in the hallway, then a knock on her door. "Neena? It's me. Are you okay? I brought you pancakes." Because pancakes solved everything.
Shit, pancakes? Neena's stomach growled, betraying the fact that she really was behind that door that Clarice was knocking on. She hated when her stomach woke up and decided to want food.
But why the hell was Clarice here? Hadn't she pretty much told everyone in no uncertain terms to fuck off?
"Damn it, Clarice. Hold on."
There were some grunts in pain as Neena got herself up off her closet floor - what had she been thinking sitting down there anyway? - and then a few seconds later the lock clicked and Neena opened her bedroom door, "Thanks for the pancakes. Have a nice night."
Clarice was going to need more than that to get her to fuck off." She held up the bag and then tried to push herself in. "Pancakes come with talking. So you're going to talk while we eat pancakes."
Well, Neena definitely didn't want to talk. But she also definitely wanted pancakes. Or at least, they smelled good and her stomach made another growling noise. She looked down at it, in fact, as if it was betraying her somehow.
"Talking while you eat isn't good for your digestion," She protested. But Clarice was trying to push her way through the door, and Neena couldn't exactly stand against her if the other woman pushed hard enough.
She backed away from the door before Clarice ran her over, and took a seat on her bed.
Clarice looked Neena over, and sighed. She figured she couldn't talk her into going to the doctor yet, so instead served the pancakes. "You look like hell. What exactly happened?"
"You should see the other guy," Neena joked. Then she darted her eyes to the side and added, "There's not a scratch on her. But when I find her there will be."
Normally she'd have flipped out about eating things with butter and syrup in containers on top of her immaculate bedding, but today she just opened up her foam container and set it - gingerly - on her lap, "Met this gorgeous woman on the beach... my job was over so I thought I'd have a little fun. See if I was more than Clarice-sexual. I brought her over a drink, she let me taste test it by kissing her... went back to her room."
Neena started spreading butter evenly across her pancake stacks, "Set up a little seduction scene in her fancy hotel room with some wine. Still not sure if the drug was in the lipstick or the wine. I'm thinking the lipstick, though. It takes a little bit to kick in. And then I wake up handcuffed to the bed and she's screwing a silencer onto my own service weapon. She had questions and I didn't feel cooperative, so she shot me."
A pause, then, "Each shoulder, leg, and hand. I'm fine. Kitty removed the bullets and stapled me."
Clarice grimaced, and looked at the wounds. “You should still get those looked at by a professional. No telling if they’re infected, you could be laid up for weeks. No sex, and if you’re attacked again you’re really screwed.” She sat on the bed, giving Neena space. “Was she hot?”
Three very good points, none of which were lost on Neena. She'd go insane if she was laid up for weeks, especially if she couldn't have sex with anyone. But more important was the fact that she couldn't defend herself or anyone else.
Sure, she could pretend that she was capable of that, but she was having a hard time even holding a fork and eating pancakes. She sighed a bit and switched fork hands, "Yeah. She was. I didn't even recognize her until she mentioned chewing gum. Her and I have had a tete-a-tete before, years ago. Russians caught me on a job and held me for three weeks. This fourteen year old kid tortured me for information with bubble gum and toothpicks."
“Then it sounds like she would have gone after you whether or not she was interested in a lay. But … she’d have to be really painfully straight to not want you.” Clarice smiled helpfully. “I just can’t believe they’d use a kid.” Her smile faded at the thought.
"I can. The Russians are crazy. Have you seen the videos on youtube?" Neena shoved some pancake in her mouth and groaned at how good they were. The trouble to eat them was so worth it.
The food momentarily distracted her, in fact, and she finished off half of her pancakes before she spoke again, "It's not just her. Turns out plenty of people have only been interested in using me. If I look back on my life knowing what I know now, I'm actually wondering if it's God's idea of a joke."
“I try to avoid youtube,” she admitted. She reached over to pat Neena’s knee then thought better of it. “The only using I ever wanted out of you was of the mutual pleasure kind.”
"And that's completely okay. I never mind that." Neena set her pancakes off to the side and flopped back against her bed, then closed her eyes. The truth of the matter was she'd given up this entire lifestyle for a reason, and if there weren't people like Clarice and Rose in her life - if she didn't have a daughter - she'd probably have just eaten her own gun by now.
"She won't stop. She'll follow me here. She's already tracking my movements, and she would have noticed my ticket was round trip. If I'd flown back, I probably would have been detained at the airport. It's what I'd have done."
“First we need to get her description out to the others,” Clarice said, sounding fairly authoritative. “Have Kitty hack into some video feeds at airports and state checkpoints, see if we can figure out her trail.”
"Scott wrote me off in text messages and I'd like to keep Logan out of this, so it's pretty much the three of us. IF you want that kind of danger." Neena frowned, "She might torture YOU with gum and toothpicks next."
“I doubt Scott wrote you off,” Clarice replied. That just didn’t seem like him. Maybe he got a little irritated but he’d still show up at the drop of a hat if you needed him. “It would be really hard to keep me, you know. She’d have to find a way to disrupt my powers or have something too precious to me.”
"Well there is that."
As far as Neena was concerned Scott had written her off, and she couldn't really blame him. There were any number of unsavory thoughts she had for anyone who was male and a Summers, but Scott didn't deserve most of them. Just that she was very aware of where Nate had gotten a lot of his personality traits.
Her problems were her problems and trying to involve Scott was a mistake anyway, "I'm pretty sure I already gave Kitty the description. I pissed her off earlier though so I'm not sure she's in the mood to do me a favor."
“You don’t know her well enough. She’s a bit like me, we don’t turn our backs even when someone pisses us off.” Now Clarice put her hand on Neena’s leg. “I understand being paranoid and feeling like you’re backed into a corner and alienating everyone, but I think you’re also being too paranoid. You have friends. You have back up.”
"It's my daughter's life on the line, Clarice, I'm allowed to be paranoid. And yeah, I do have a few friends. I don't want any of them to get hurt. Especially not because I lead her to them, or she needed leverage, or..." Neena's voice went a bit hoarse and she sucked her lip into her mouth to keep from crying.
She moved one of her hands weakly in the direction of Clarice's, "I don't know how to trust people and none of this is helping."
“Start by trusting us in helping you heal up,” Clarice said. She felt a lump in her throat. Seeing Neena like this was affecting her in ways she wasn’t prepared for. It reminded her too much of people she’d lost and people she just didn’t have in this world.
The tone in Clarice’s voice made something in Neena’s insides twist. Clarice sounded worried, like Rose had sounded worried over text messages earlier. She couldn’t really fight both of them and Kitty…
“...fine. Alright. Call in the Doctor.”
Clarice grinned, then kissed her on the cheek. “I’ll let her drive over, if that’ll give you time to accept it.” And she wanted more alone time with Neena. She’d found herself caring hard for the woman, even if it was in a lusty platonic way.
“It might, but is she going to be safe if she drives here? What if someone tails her?” Neena chewed on her lip a bit. This was eating away at her insides. Nothing was safe, no one was safe, it wasn’t safe to leave the house. She should have gone to one of her safe houses but she couldn’t keep an eye on Hanna there.
She took a deep breath and let it out, “God Clarice, I feel like even breathing wrong will somehow fuck something up for someone somewhere.”
“Okay. I’ll pick her up then. Better than risking her life.” She kissed Neena again, then ported away. It was about two minutes before she returned with a brown-skinned woman in a rose colored hijab.
“That’s always handy,” the British doctor said.
“Hey, Doc,” Neena waved, from her position still flopped on the bed, “Sorry about earlier. Me and Doctors just… it’s a thing with me.”
“Perfectly understandable, I get that often from you lot,” Faiza replied. She stepped over and gave Neena a quick once over with her eyes. “This might feel strange.”
She pulled the woman apart and started to knit up the worst of her wounds. As always, she did a cancer check.
Might feel weird was an understatement. Neena watched as she was taken apart and wondered why it was that anyone ever want to this doctor for anything, ever. And why it was that people weren't offered a sedative before all of this.
Various wounds were knitted up, though, and while she felt faintly nauseous all taken apart like that, she was also relieved.
"Check for lung cancer while you're in there..." It was a joke, but Neena thought the doctor would probably take her seriously anyway.
“Already on that. They’re pretty charred up, duck. I’m going to take care of the worse but I want your body to heal up on it’s own.”
Clarice watched this with some fascination. It looked like something was missing but she didn’t want to point that out.
"Yeah, and don't... tinker around too much in there, I didn't ask you here to fix me. Not all of me, just the... can we concentrate on the bullet holes and call it a night?" The more time the doctor spent, the more nervous Neena got about the idea. She was used to her body and its old wounds and its reflexes and the way it felt and moved. She'd made her peace with all of that, she didn't need it all erased immediately.
There were definitely some things missing, too, and Neena didn't want any miracles, "Leave the missing stuff missing, while we're at it. Just... the holes. OKay maybe the lungs and the holes."
“Of course. I can’t really replace what’s not there for me to work with, you know. But I can give you a few extra years, your lungs and liver are rubbish.” She was a wee bit blunt about that. Faiza started to pull Neena back together, after giving her liver and kidneys a once over. “You’ll breathe easier now. Literally. I didn’t see anything of concern beyond that. Nothing cancerous. I closed up the worse gunshot wounds, but it’ll still be tender, I’d rather your body finish up healing on it’s own.”
A few extra years. Neena wondered how many more of those she really needed, but she didn't comment on it. Breathing easier would at least be a boon, and it was immediately noticeable as Faiza put her back together.
It almost made her rethink the quitting smoking thing again. Almost.
She flexed her hand and shoulders. There were still twitches of pain but it was all about ninety-nine percent more manageable than it had been, previously, and her leg would heal up without a lingering limp, she thought. Her eyebrows raised a bit, "You've shaved at least a year off the recovery time for some of these, if I'm honest. I guess I'm going to have to be glad I let Clarice call you up. That's some impressive - if really disconcerting - skill you've got there. You really should warn people before you unravel the fabric of their existence like that, though."
“Your left shoulder would have never recovered without me. The damage was too extensive,” Faiza said, fixing her head scarf. “And I’ve found warnings never really work. If there’s nothing else?”
“I think that’s it. Thanks Faiza.” Clarice ported her away, then sat on the bed. “See? Worth it.”
At least it wasn't her right shoulder, but that was still a pretty heavy piece of information. Even years ago when she'd been extremely messed up - enough to put her in the hospital for nearly six months - no one had ever said she would never have recovered. Neena had to wonder what kind of crazy good medical knowledge they'd had at Cerberus. If she'd been working for anyone else, would she even be as okay as she was?
She let out a very long, tired sigh, and pressed her hand against her shoulder, "Shit..."
Clarice waited a moment, then put her arm around Neena. “Breathe. Or don’t if you need to break down. I’m not gonna judge.”
Neena's hands started to shake, then her whole body did, but she didn't give in enough to let herself cry. Now wasn't the time to fall apart. The last time she'd felt like this, the breakdown had been epic and she was certain one night of crying - even in arms as safe and pretty as Clarice's - wouldn't be enough.
"I can't. I can't break down yet, because we still have to win. I'll never forgive myself if I fall apart now, and if I let myself go I won't be able to stop."
She did lean against Clarice, though, and let herself take comfort, "But I can think of a few ways we could let off a little steam..."
Clarice’s lips smiled against Neena’s forehead as she kissed her there. Then she moved to her cheek, then blew in her ear and purred, “If you think you can handle me right now.”
What she understood was something that was probably common to people like them; there could be no crying, no breakdown. The hits were going to keep coming and coming and Clarice was reminded of one of the reasons she’d left. Despite that, she was glad to be back. She had a gift, and she had friends that needed her, including this pale woman who was barely hanging on by a thread.
Barely hanging by a thread was more accurate than Neena would ever admit. She wasn't willing to admit a whole lot of anything to anyone, when it came right down to it. Her feelings for Booker (or budding feelings for Clarice for that matter), her fears, her regrets, or the fact that this brush with injury made her feel older than anything in the world.
So she put on her most devilish grin, and pulled Clarice closer, "Oh I can handle you alright."