“I really think they mean to hurt us.” Who: Neena, Clarice, Booker, Laura What: Threatening Neena and Booker to go to the doctor. When: 3/31 Where: Neena's house, then the Doctor's office. Rating/Warnings: PG-13, Super mild medical stuff. Status: Complete!
So it had come to this. One woman with steak knives in her hands and another woman with Neena’s own gun pointed at her. Booker ran his hands through his hair. “Well, I guess we ain’t arguin’ much now are we. I don’t think violence is necessary.”
“Violence is necessary,” Clarice said, stubbornly. She waggled the gun at Neena. “You’re going to the doctor.”
This wasn't exactly the scenario Neena'd had in mind when Clarice told her she'd force her to go if she didn't handle things. Every time it'd come to her mind it'd been a little sexier and involved a lot less clothing. Also a lot less Booker and Laura.
She eyed the gun that Clarice was wagging at her and snorted, "You're not going to shoot me, Clarice. That's just ridiculous, come on."
From behind Clarice, the familiar sound of claws cutting through skin could be heard. Laura pointed a claw at Booker, and eyed Neena, "If she does not shoot you, I will cut you. Then you will be forced to see a doctor, just to save your life."
The safety came off the gun and Clarice gestured towards Neena’s thigh. “And she’s probably going to be less gentle about where she cuts you.” She smiled sweetly. “You’re both going. No arguments.”
Booker glanced at Neena. “I really think they mean to hurt us.”
“Out of love.”
“Out of love,” Booker repeated.
"I will not be gentle at all. Because I love you both." Laura commented, going along with the entire theme. Neena didn't really need to hear that, her brain was still processing the familiar click of the safety being toggled off. Clarice had been trained in the use of firearms by her, and the biggest rule was that someone didn't take the safety off their weapon unless they intended to use it.
She gulped a bit and backed towards the car, "Alright, let's not be crazy here guys. No one needs to get shot out of love. See? I'm heading towards the car. This is me, I'm getting in. Alright?"
And the door on the car was pulled open, though Neena didn't quite crawl in just yet. Maybe there were no bullets in the gun. Maybe Laura wouldn't cut her. She really, really didn't want to go to the doctor. If she did get shot she might be able to clean the wound herself...
Booker could see Neena hesitating, and he glanced at the other women before reaching over and shoving Neena into the car. “I’m doin’ this for both of us.” Then he climbed in after her.
Clarice let out a breath, flicking the safety off of the gun and unloading it. She checked the chamber then ported it back into the safe. “Okay, lets go.” Maybe she should have Laura cut them, just a little, because it shouldn’t be this hard! “Why do we love these people again?”
There was a tiny bit more threatening with claw as Laura made sure that they were both safely buckled up, then she slicked it back into her hand and shook her head at Clarice, "I do not know. Perhaps we are both gluttons for punishment. I have a way of keeping them quiet on the way to the doctor, this will be a nice way to punish them in return."
She pulled out two tiny little discs and smirked, "Widow's Bites."
From inside the car, Neena shouted, "HEY! We don't need to be electrocuted!" Jesus, the women in her life were all insane.
“The things love does.” Clarice laughed and climbed into the driver’s seat. And off to the doctor they went! It was someone that Kitty had found who was supposed to be pretty good at this sort of thing.
Booker folded his arms and looked out the window. He was actually a little scared. Not about going to the doctor, but about what they’d find.
Luckily, Laura never needed to put her widow's bites to use. Neena was also quiet the entire ride, jaw clenched so hard that it jutted out to each side. She's folded her hands together in her lap, twitchy over the lack of things to keep them busy, and she started tapping her foot about halfway through the ride. It was almost a relief when the car stopped moving.
For everyone. The foot tapping was annoying.
Laura got out of the passenger seat when they got there and opened the car door on Booker's side, "Out and into the office, now. We have an appointment."
Clarice wished she’d ported them, but she wanted Booker and Neena to think about it. She slid out to get the door for Neena.
“I’m comin’ I’m comin’!” Booker held up his hands in surrender. “You’re hot when you get like this.”
“Men,” Clarice muttered, then glared at Neena like that extended to women too.
Neena returned the look with the most innocent one she could muster, as if she had no idea what Clarice was talking about. Then she grinned nervously and got out of the car. There wasn't really any going back. Not with women around willing to threaten them with bodily harm.
And honestly, Clarice could just find her and port her right back there. Whether she liked it or not, she was going to have to see the doctor today. So she might as well try and pretend she was going in willingly. Mostly willingly. "One of you should have given me a valium."
"You cannot have drugs in your system. This is why we brought you before you could have coffee or alcohol," Laura said, while poking Booker into the building. She liked that he thought she was hot when she got all authoritative, but right now she needed to be all business. For herself as much as anyone else.
“They need to run tests,” Clarice pointed out. Her voice softened. “I’ll be there. I know how you are with needles. I’ll be there, okay?”
Booker nodded in Clarice’s direction. He had less issues with needles. And with being poked into a building. “I’m movin’, I’m movin’. Eesh.”
He did manage to get himself positioned behind Neena for the sign in, which meant Neena would go in first. He gave her a smirk when he sat down across from her in the waiting room. “At least the ladies are takin’ over the paperwork.”
“Because you wouldn’t do it,” Clarice retorted.
"You don't want Booker filling that stuff out. Have you seen his handwriting? It's like chicken scratch. You'd have an easier time reading cuneiform," Neena quipped. She sounded a little on edge, and now that she was seated she'd returned to springing her foot up and down nervously. It was probably good that Clarice was taking over her own forms, because she couldn't even guarantee that she knew half the information they'd be asking for right now.
Laura grunted a bit in response to the quip. Her eyes were poring over the documents and each area was meticulously filled out. Which begged certain questions like how she knew things like his social security number and date of birth.
They weren’t actually things he’d shared, but Laura had friends and her own ways of getting information and if he were some other kind of person he’d actually be concerned. But he wasn’t. He leaned back rubbing his temple with two fingers. “At least mine don’t look like a twelve year old girl’s, Neena.”
Clarice made a coughing, snerk sound.
"The only reason you know anything about a 12 year old girl's handwriting is because you're good at making friends with them, Booker," Neena snarked in response, using air quotes around the word 'friends'. She got up from her chair and started pacing back and forth in the lobby, "Come ON just stick me with the needles and get it over with..."
Laura snorted, and finished up the last few sections on her paperwork, “Mine is done.”
Booker reached over and punched her in the arm when she walked back past him. “Not funny.”
“I’m done too.” Clarice lifted up her paperwork, then got up to bring it to the nurse. She came back, and put her arms around Neena. “I’ll go in there with you, if they let me. Okay?”
Booker wisely said nothing.
"You don't have to do that," Neena grumbled. She really wished that one of them had actually injured her, because the pain would have given her something to distract her. It didn't even help that she wasn't alone. Booker might have been there, too, but that just made it worse. Worrying about him wasn't the distraction that she needed.
Luckily she wasn't waiting for much longer. A nurse called her name and took her off into a room, did her vitals, and jotted them down. It wasn't long before she was speaking to a doctor, and then there'd be the needles.
Meanwhile, out in the waiting room, Laura was staring at the door that Neena had left through. Sitting perfectly still, and waiting. "It will not be long before it will be your turn."
Clarice was only allowed long enough for the blood drawing, before she ended up back in the waiting room, where she did more pacing than sitting. Booker eventually made her sit down. He was eyeing a possible escape route when the nurse called his name. Sighing, he disappeared into the bowels of the hospital, for his own blood tests and check ups.
“I’m sure everything will be okay,” Clarice said. She folded her arms, and sighed.
"It won't be," Laura replied. She was still sitting perfectly still, and her tone was solemn, like she was suddenly speaking in a church or some kind sacred space where it was more appropriate to whisper. "I can smell it. The sickness, though I cannot... say what it is. I never learned those smells, not the causes of them."
The teleporter grimaced. She crossed her legs and dug her nails into her skin. “Great. Just. Great.”
There wasn’t too much more left for Booker. Scheduling a catscan for after his vacation, and waiting on blood results, mostly. He came out, rubbing his arm, and gave them a smile. “All done for now. They said they’ll know more in a few days.”
There weren't too many more things to do on Neena's end. They'd talked through her history and tried to pinpoint causes for her symptoms. Gone over her daily routine. She walked into the waiting room a few minutes after Booker, and shrugged a shoulder. "They want all my medical records and a few more tests. My arm's going to turn into one big bruise. People are going to think I've got a drug habit."
But otherwise it was simple. Rest, rest, more rest. Vitamins. "Treat it like a cold or flu, they figure. Are we done here?"
"When can we expect the results?" Clarice's knuckles had turned white by now, and she'd even drawn a little blood on her thigh. She wiped it off and stood. "We can treat the symptoms for now, I guess."
She wanted answers and it frustrated her how slow this was going. She wished they'd actually gone weeks ago. Laura's pronouncement had set her on edge, and her exterior was starting to crack a little. She shored herself up. "Come on, lets get some Starbucks and really unhealthy food."
Really, Laura had forgotten that people in these kinds of situations didn't always want to be told the truth. Hearing herself say it made her feel better; A problem could only be confronted head on when its existence was validated. She gave Clarice an apologetic work before getting up.
"We'll have answers soon. We are on the right path now, which is better than it was before." Laura tried to sound encouraging. She went to the counter to pay off the co-pays, and then took Booker's hand. "Come on. Unhealthy food is supposed to be comforting."
As they headed for the door, Neena put an arm around Clarice and squeezed, "Hey, it's gonna be okay. It's ME. They can't even try to kill me, it doesn't work, and neither will this. Let's just get some coffee and try to act like none of this is happening. We're X-men, we're good at pretending things aren't happening."
Booker squeezed Laura's hand, one of the only obvious signs of his anxiety. Then he pulled her close and put his arm around her, kissing the side of her head. He was feeling unusually affectionate, shut up.
While Clarice never regretted marrying Neena, she sometimes wished life could be simpler. "We can't pretend this isn't happening. But we can put it aside until the phone call."
"Works for me," Neena agreed. She added, "When we get past this, I swear we're going on an honest to god vacation. Somewhere nice, with a beach. For a month. One whole month, yeah? Just one month where no one's dying, lost, or going insane."
It was probably too much to ask for, but anyone could dream, right?