Long Road Home (the_wolverine) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2018-08-10 04:32:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | !complete, logan howlett (wolverine), neena thurman (domino) |
We all know I'm a difficult patient
Who: Logan and Dom
What: Chatting
Where: Dom's recovery facility
When: early July
Status: Complete
Rating PG-13
Logan eyed the rehabilitation center. He hated it already. He hated the smell, he hated the look and the sounds. It wasn’t a bad place, but it reminded him too much of things he’d prefer to forget.
“I see they got you all fancied up in here,” he said, letting himself into her room. At least she was awake, at least she was alive. There were so few of them as it was, and so few of his friends still alive. He couldn’t take losing another.
He wasn't alone in hating everything about this place. The beginnings of Neena's lives had both started in similarly clinical spaces, and she'd cultivated a sizeable fear of hospitals ever since. It was a mark of some internal worry that she'd reached a level of not caring about anything that she actually didn't wake up in a panic every morning.
Of course, some of that probably had to do with the drugs they kept her on, too. Neena couldn't complain on that front. And they'd made an effort to make her room feel livable, too.
She waved a hand at him from where they'd parked her earlier, and managed a smile. It was always good to see a friend, especially Logan. "It's almost like I'm NOT turning into a grandma. Except just the other day I was like 'Mmm, I can't wait for dinner at 4:30'. By the time I get out of here I'm going to be crocheting afghans, I swear."
Logan wondered how much longer that would last, before Neena would try crawling out of the window. Probably long enough to work on her upper body strength, but she’d find a way.
“Right, I’ll send you some yarn.” He flashed a short grin, holding a bag just out of reach. “But for now I hope some goodies’ll help. If you can reach ‘em.”
The convenience store bag made a familiar crackling noise as Logan shook it. Neena squinted at it for a few seconds, trying to figure out if he actually knew about her Sno-ball habit or if he was just taunting her. It was worth a try either way. She hadn’t had anything as sugary as a sno-ball since… well… since everything.
Neena reached a hand out, stretching it as far as her arm would go, but her fingertips barely grazed the bag. Like someone trying to grab for the nearby remote without leaving the couch, she pushed herself up with one arm, trying to leverage just a bit more reach. The supporting arm shook while the other one flailed for the sweets, and then she flopped back into the chair with a sigh. "No amount of sno-balls is worth this," She grouched.
Logan laughed, a low belly laugh, though he wasn’t laughing at her. Much. He dropped the bag into her lap, careful of her wound, “You touched it, that’s close enough.” There wasn’t anywhere for him to sit that wouldn’t be awkward, so he stood there, also awkwardly, and wished there was something he could do.
"Damn straight that's close enough. If I'd fallen out of this chair trying to get those things you'd have been in biiiig trouble, pal." Neena joked. Her attention was on the bounty of sweets in her lap, and she immediately pulled one out and started ripping into it.
She was about halfway through the first cake when she looked up and realised he was standing there like a big awkward Canadian statue. Neena blinked. "So... do you maybe want to sit?"
There was a chair at the table they'd parked her at, and she pointed at it. "Just move me out of the way, I don't bite. Unless you ask me to. Or you could drive me around while I pretend I'm professor X. But we'll have to hide the contraband."
Fishing the chair, Logan pulled it over, “I’ll bring you a shower cap so you can be bald while I push you around.”
It sounded hilarious to him and it made him relax quite a bit. He never did know how to handle people who were injured, and Neena was pretty badly injured. “They really treating you right here?”
"To me, my X-Men!" Neena joked, flinging her arms out to either side. The movement made her wince slightly, but it was worth it to see Logan's expression cheer up. Her own hardened a bit though as he asked his question, and her nose screwed up just slightly.
"It's not... awful. I feel like I went to prison sometimes instead of a place to get better, though. You know? It's like there are days where they treat this all like it's somehow my fault I got shot." Maybe it was the peculiar skin 'defects', as they were calling them. She knew she was a mutant, but this world had no idea what those were. She couldn't really say that they were treating her differently over that.
"They keep me clean, they keep me fed, and they really are making me work my ass off. I just get a weird feeling sometimes. But you know me, I hate places like this."
“Sure it ain’t just cuz you’re a difficult patient?” Logan asked, almost knowingly. “Do you want me to dig into this place?”
Though he figured Nat probably already had. If she hadn’t found something, it was buried deep enough to be unfindable. Still, it paid to be wary. “Has any of the work paid off?”
"We all know I'm a difficult patient, I even came with a warning label. I just... I don't know." For all she knew, Logan was probably right. Neena didn't really feel like pressing the issue. And The Agency had to be keeping dibs on her, right?
So she shrugged a shoulder, slightly, and then snorted out her nose. "I can wheel myself four feet without having to take a nap. That's about the most progress we've had. I can't even..."
Neena sighed, and shook her head, "I literally can't move anything. And it's like... sometimes I feel shit. I guess they're saying the spinal cord isn't completely severed. But it's still bad enough that the nerve damage is fucking my shit all up."
“Give it time,” Logan murmured. In this county, with these kind of healers and technology, nearly anything was possible. Improbable sometimes, but not impossible. And hope was probably the most powerful thing of all. Giving up was not an option.
"Well, it's not like I don't have an abundance of that," Neena replied, her tone darker than she'd intended it to be. None of the people in her life needed to know all of the dark places her mind went when she was left alone in this place. They didn't need to be burdened with it, and Logan definitely had enough on his plate.
She made an effort to brighten her expression, and added, "After all, Satan must have spit me back. I figure I'm gonna be around here for a while."
Logan's eyes flashed, but somehow, he understood. As though that darkness had once swirled around him for so long and had gone so deep that he could sense it in others as a part of their scent. Especially when they were someone he knew well. Or thought he knew well.
But he said nothing, for Neena's sake and honestly for his own. "Good, because I can't raise hell without you."