Post by The Madness Menagerie on Oct 22, 2020 11:49:02 GMT -5
Mia watches Mac disappear into the hospital’s brightly lit halls of piercing white light and little beeps and electronic whirs. She takes a puff as she squints into the interior waiting room, Mac pausing and looking to the receptionist… Whom had yet to meet Mac. Mia’s eyes widen with the realization as she rushes in, “LUCY! It’s cool. He’s with me and yes, I’ve always wanted to say that.”
She pauses, realizing that Lucy wasn’t going to make a big deal out of it and Mia only now realizes that Amber had only gone through the same process several moments before. Mia’s posture drops, like a balloon slowly deflating, as she gestures for Mac to follow her and Lucy buzzes them through. Belle sits with Amber, silently catching up and sharing that no new details have been received about Zephyr. Mac goes over with Amber and Belle, while Mia takes her post next to the door, ready to jump at a moments notice. Where and how far she jumped was anyone’s guess, but she was ready. For what felt like the umpteenth time, Zephyr’s doctor came out to check on another patient just by the waiting room doors, his face always wearing an expression of grim determination. This time however…
Belle looks up and her breath catches as she sees him make direct eye contact with her, his face now set with a deep sense of worry and possible detachment like all doctors have trained themselves to do. He comes up to the group in the waiting room and Belle stands, fear in her voice, “What… Is there an update?”
The doctor nods, a grim look crossing his face, his voice neutral and flat. “We’ve done everything we can think of to find the root cause of your sister’s pain…” He’s stopped by an infuriated look by Belle as Mia stays stationary on the wall.
“I am her GIRLFRIEND. THAT is her sister and the reason she is here in the first place. You want a cause, there it is. Now, what do you MEAN you’ve done everything?”
The doctor’s eyes go wide for a split moment before regaining composure, “I mean that we’ve done everything we can. Nothing we do has any kind of effect and if we try anything more, we run the risk of doing more harm than good to the body’s natural responses. There’s nothing we can do to help Zephyr, until she is at least consciousness to tell us where to focus our efforts…” Belle cuts the doctor off with a hand.
“So wake. Her. UP.”
Each word is punctured by emotion, sorrow, anger, confusion, it was all there. The doctor shuffles his feet and he stammers.
“That’s the uh, the thing. We can’t. We’ve tried to bring her back out of her coma and nothing works to wake her up. She’s alive, but she’s unresponsive to any and all outside stimulus.”
Belle reacts faster than she could imagine, almost as if her hand was acting of its own volition. The crowd in the room watch as her hand comes up, reaching toward the doctor to slap him across the face when Mia moves quicker than anyone could thought imaginable in her condition. She takes the chance and looks Belle in the eyes, “You don’t want to do this. At least not to the only guy that has been able to SEE Zephyr since she got here. Please Belle, calm…”
Mia doesn’t have a chance to finish as Belle uses her free arm to deliver a punch right to Mia’s unprotected gut. Mia releases Belle’s hand, taken by surprise of the attack. Belle isn’t done there as she delivers the sharp point of her elbow to the top of Mia’s injury, Mia swooning and seeing stars before collapsing on the ground. She scrambles back up to her feet, her face red and contorted with a mixture of pain, confusion, hurt, and acceptance. She opens her mouth to say something but stops, nothing coming out as she stumbles backward to the door, opening it.
“Yeah, my fault.” Mia’s words hang in the air as she leaves the waiting room and heads to the hall beyond, her destination the women’s room. Almost falling into the doorway, Mia quickly squats to see if any of the stalls are occupied, “Everything is my fault, it’s always been that way…” Satisfied, Mia mumbles as she opens a stall and sits, holding her head in her hands briefly and ignoring the stinging sensation of her head. Slowly the stinging began to burn, the burn spreading throughout her body. Trembling, her fingers trace along the way to where she stashes a black box filled with razor blades, taking one out out of habit. In a hypnotic gaze, Mia rolls up the only sleeve she has been known to wear year round, any of several black and tattered pieces of fabric that cover her arm from shoulder to wrist. Rolling it up to her elbow, her forearm shows years of scars built up, white lines intersecting with red, intersecting with faded crevices. She sighs, it had been too long, but that edge had been creeping up.
She felt it. She knew it was here and it wouldn’t be sated with logical thoughts to talk herself away. Everything happened in cycles and this was no different. Mia almost didn’t realize what was happening, didn’t feel any of it as her hand went along in a predetermined fashion. Slowly, her brain started to reboot, slowly she became aware, but not before it was too late to stop herself. Quickly grabbing enough toilet paper for a household, she does her best to put pressure on her wounds when she hears a soft knock outside.
"... Mia?"
Painfully aware of the consequences of the blame game, Amber had followed at a distance as Mia had left the room.
Sure, she understood Belle's outward frustrations however allowing emotion to override any semblance of logic did nothing to change the situation. Not usually one for sympathy or empathy alike, and perhaps only led by the familiar sense of self-implosion, Amber quietly slipped into the women's bathroom with footsteps echoing hopelessly loud in an overbearing silence punctuated by ragged breaths.
"Look, this situation is really shitty for everyone… Belle is, well, I'm sure she's probably acting as most people would in this situation."
Amber bit her tongue hard mid sentence, trying to tiptoe around the term irrationally like she had the first idea about how to relate to literally anyone it seemed.
"Whatever you think you're to blame for, you aren't. Fuck what anyone else thinks, they weren't in your shoes."
It was supposed to be uplifting and supportive, that motivational pep talk she's seen in overplayed daytime movies. In the movies they also had million dollar smiles, multi million dollar egos and enough silicone to keep the computer industry in service indefinitely- all Amber had was a slightly crooked nose, wounded pride and the best attempt at sounding anything out patronising she could muster.
"... We aren't close or anything, but Mac seems to think you're good people- and sometimes- against my better judgement, I trust his opinion.
Maybe you can trust mine…"
Mia pops open the stall, leaning against the wall, her sleeve once again pulled down but the tufts of toilet paper soaked in red still evident to a person looking.
“It’s… It’s been a ride Red… There’s a way forward, always has to be right? But… I’m sorry, please continue.” Mia gestures for Amber to finish her thought, suddenly realizing that her appearance was not meant for the casual observer. Standing upright, Mia moves, slowly and surely toward the sink to witness the damage. She registers Amber’s presence behind her but tries to focus on her head instead. The injury was bleeding again from where Belle had struck her and Mia grabs a couple paper towels to dose in cold water before pressing them to her head, covering them up with a few dry ones. She could feel the burning in her arm ebbing and waning like the tide. Shaking her head, she pulls her focus back.
"... Wish I had something important to add now."
Blood in a bathroom wasn't exactly foreign to the redhead- between being a carny, floating between less than savory jobs to fuel a burgeoning wrestling career and then making a name in ultraviolence- the possibilities were endless and in this moment… well, Mia certainly didn't need any further judgement regardless of where her concerns might lead.
"Low points only serve to make the road up seem a little more like an achievement. Can't appreciate the best without the worst- god, I sound like a fucking cliché… ugh."
Amber cringed hard in the mirror, capturing her own disgust in the glass. As if she couldn't feel any more awkward about the situation. Mia catches the look, registering it as one she had only known too well growing up. Guessing rather quickly what was happening, Mia turns to the sink in the guise of washing her hands, but in doing so, fixes her sleeve to cover everything. She sniffles after drying off her hands and turns, looking at Amber and meeting her gaze.
“Thank you. Clichés are like… Beacons to let us know that the past is alive and well. They’re good in the right doses, the right moments. This happened to be the serendipitous time for that particular one.”
She smiles. “‘Serendipitous’ is an amazingly fun word to say out loud sometime. You should try it some time.” She winks at Amber, pausing as she walks by. “And seriously, I… There aren’t many on the list of people I could count on walking into this situation and seeing what they saw and then walking out to find the nearest man with the white jacket that makes you give yourself a really tight hug…” She takes a deep breath and calms her nerves, “But… You’re just one of those people I feel like know how to handle these things. People like us? We’ve seen the cracking, the fractures, every version of being torn down possibly imaginable. It hurts, it tears, it borderline kills us and sometimes… Even makes us wish we were never around to make that decision in the first place; but…” She smiles at Amber, a genuine one that was rarely seen but by the most special of people; a criteria that only Mia knew, sometimes. “There’s always that one piece of us left to clean it all up and put us back together whole again. Maybe not in the same exact way as before, but always wiser, more experienced, better. We learn and we just… Keep going because there isn’t any other option.” She giggles softly, “How’s that for a cliché closer?”
Holding the door open, the two women exit the bathroom, letting the door shut behind them and the scene fade to darkness.
She pauses, realizing that Lucy wasn’t going to make a big deal out of it and Mia only now realizes that Amber had only gone through the same process several moments before. Mia’s posture drops, like a balloon slowly deflating, as she gestures for Mac to follow her and Lucy buzzes them through. Belle sits with Amber, silently catching up and sharing that no new details have been received about Zephyr. Mac goes over with Amber and Belle, while Mia takes her post next to the door, ready to jump at a moments notice. Where and how far she jumped was anyone’s guess, but she was ready. For what felt like the umpteenth time, Zephyr’s doctor came out to check on another patient just by the waiting room doors, his face always wearing an expression of grim determination. This time however…
Belle looks up and her breath catches as she sees him make direct eye contact with her, his face now set with a deep sense of worry and possible detachment like all doctors have trained themselves to do. He comes up to the group in the waiting room and Belle stands, fear in her voice, “What… Is there an update?”
The doctor nods, a grim look crossing his face, his voice neutral and flat. “We’ve done everything we can think of to find the root cause of your sister’s pain…” He’s stopped by an infuriated look by Belle as Mia stays stationary on the wall.
“I am her GIRLFRIEND. THAT is her sister and the reason she is here in the first place. You want a cause, there it is. Now, what do you MEAN you’ve done everything?”
The doctor’s eyes go wide for a split moment before regaining composure, “I mean that we’ve done everything we can. Nothing we do has any kind of effect and if we try anything more, we run the risk of doing more harm than good to the body’s natural responses. There’s nothing we can do to help Zephyr, until she is at least consciousness to tell us where to focus our efforts…” Belle cuts the doctor off with a hand.
“So wake. Her. UP.”
Each word is punctured by emotion, sorrow, anger, confusion, it was all there. The doctor shuffles his feet and he stammers.
“That’s the uh, the thing. We can’t. We’ve tried to bring her back out of her coma and nothing works to wake her up. She’s alive, but she’s unresponsive to any and all outside stimulus.”
Belle reacts faster than she could imagine, almost as if her hand was acting of its own volition. The crowd in the room watch as her hand comes up, reaching toward the doctor to slap him across the face when Mia moves quicker than anyone could thought imaginable in her condition. She takes the chance and looks Belle in the eyes, “You don’t want to do this. At least not to the only guy that has been able to SEE Zephyr since she got here. Please Belle, calm…”
Mia doesn’t have a chance to finish as Belle uses her free arm to deliver a punch right to Mia’s unprotected gut. Mia releases Belle’s hand, taken by surprise of the attack. Belle isn’t done there as she delivers the sharp point of her elbow to the top of Mia’s injury, Mia swooning and seeing stars before collapsing on the ground. She scrambles back up to her feet, her face red and contorted with a mixture of pain, confusion, hurt, and acceptance. She opens her mouth to say something but stops, nothing coming out as she stumbles backward to the door, opening it.
“Yeah, my fault.” Mia’s words hang in the air as she leaves the waiting room and heads to the hall beyond, her destination the women’s room. Almost falling into the doorway, Mia quickly squats to see if any of the stalls are occupied, “Everything is my fault, it’s always been that way…” Satisfied, Mia mumbles as she opens a stall and sits, holding her head in her hands briefly and ignoring the stinging sensation of her head. Slowly the stinging began to burn, the burn spreading throughout her body. Trembling, her fingers trace along the way to where she stashes a black box filled with razor blades, taking one out out of habit. In a hypnotic gaze, Mia rolls up the only sleeve she has been known to wear year round, any of several black and tattered pieces of fabric that cover her arm from shoulder to wrist. Rolling it up to her elbow, her forearm shows years of scars built up, white lines intersecting with red, intersecting with faded crevices. She sighs, it had been too long, but that edge had been creeping up.
She felt it. She knew it was here and it wouldn’t be sated with logical thoughts to talk herself away. Everything happened in cycles and this was no different. Mia almost didn’t realize what was happening, didn’t feel any of it as her hand went along in a predetermined fashion. Slowly, her brain started to reboot, slowly she became aware, but not before it was too late to stop herself. Quickly grabbing enough toilet paper for a household, she does her best to put pressure on her wounds when she hears a soft knock outside.
"... Mia?"
Painfully aware of the consequences of the blame game, Amber had followed at a distance as Mia had left the room.
Sure, she understood Belle's outward frustrations however allowing emotion to override any semblance of logic did nothing to change the situation. Not usually one for sympathy or empathy alike, and perhaps only led by the familiar sense of self-implosion, Amber quietly slipped into the women's bathroom with footsteps echoing hopelessly loud in an overbearing silence punctuated by ragged breaths.
"Look, this situation is really shitty for everyone… Belle is, well, I'm sure she's probably acting as most people would in this situation."
Amber bit her tongue hard mid sentence, trying to tiptoe around the term irrationally like she had the first idea about how to relate to literally anyone it seemed.
"Whatever you think you're to blame for, you aren't. Fuck what anyone else thinks, they weren't in your shoes."
It was supposed to be uplifting and supportive, that motivational pep talk she's seen in overplayed daytime movies. In the movies they also had million dollar smiles, multi million dollar egos and enough silicone to keep the computer industry in service indefinitely- all Amber had was a slightly crooked nose, wounded pride and the best attempt at sounding anything out patronising she could muster.
"... We aren't close or anything, but Mac seems to think you're good people- and sometimes- against my better judgement, I trust his opinion.
Maybe you can trust mine…"
Mia pops open the stall, leaning against the wall, her sleeve once again pulled down but the tufts of toilet paper soaked in red still evident to a person looking.
“It’s… It’s been a ride Red… There’s a way forward, always has to be right? But… I’m sorry, please continue.” Mia gestures for Amber to finish her thought, suddenly realizing that her appearance was not meant for the casual observer. Standing upright, Mia moves, slowly and surely toward the sink to witness the damage. She registers Amber’s presence behind her but tries to focus on her head instead. The injury was bleeding again from where Belle had struck her and Mia grabs a couple paper towels to dose in cold water before pressing them to her head, covering them up with a few dry ones. She could feel the burning in her arm ebbing and waning like the tide. Shaking her head, she pulls her focus back.
"... Wish I had something important to add now."
Blood in a bathroom wasn't exactly foreign to the redhead- between being a carny, floating between less than savory jobs to fuel a burgeoning wrestling career and then making a name in ultraviolence- the possibilities were endless and in this moment… well, Mia certainly didn't need any further judgement regardless of where her concerns might lead.
"Low points only serve to make the road up seem a little more like an achievement. Can't appreciate the best without the worst- god, I sound like a fucking cliché… ugh."
Amber cringed hard in the mirror, capturing her own disgust in the glass. As if she couldn't feel any more awkward about the situation. Mia catches the look, registering it as one she had only known too well growing up. Guessing rather quickly what was happening, Mia turns to the sink in the guise of washing her hands, but in doing so, fixes her sleeve to cover everything. She sniffles after drying off her hands and turns, looking at Amber and meeting her gaze.
“Thank you. Clichés are like… Beacons to let us know that the past is alive and well. They’re good in the right doses, the right moments. This happened to be the serendipitous time for that particular one.”
She smiles. “‘Serendipitous’ is an amazingly fun word to say out loud sometime. You should try it some time.” She winks at Amber, pausing as she walks by. “And seriously, I… There aren’t many on the list of people I could count on walking into this situation and seeing what they saw and then walking out to find the nearest man with the white jacket that makes you give yourself a really tight hug…” She takes a deep breath and calms her nerves, “But… You’re just one of those people I feel like know how to handle these things. People like us? We’ve seen the cracking, the fractures, every version of being torn down possibly imaginable. It hurts, it tears, it borderline kills us and sometimes… Even makes us wish we were never around to make that decision in the first place; but…” She smiles at Amber, a genuine one that was rarely seen but by the most special of people; a criteria that only Mia knew, sometimes. “There’s always that one piece of us left to clean it all up and put us back together whole again. Maybe not in the same exact way as before, but always wiser, more experienced, better. We learn and we just… Keep going because there isn’t any other option.” She giggles softly, “How’s that for a cliché closer?”
Holding the door open, the two women exit the bathroom, letting the door shut behind them and the scene fade to darkness.