#chatzy: queenie

[detectivedreameater]

Hospital Tripping || Queenie and Marley

TIMING: Beginning of the year PARTIES: @drqueenieking and @detectivedreameater SUMMARY: Queenie sneaks Marley into the hospital to run some overdue tests. Results are a mixed bag. CONTENT: Head Injury discussions (including symptoms and after effects) 

Marley hated hospitals. And not just because her blood was blue and her DNA wasn’t human-- but because of what they meant. Because of the atmosphere. Everything was painful. The bright, fluorescent lights, the depressed looks on everyone’s faces, the tired looking nurses and doctors shambling around as if they, too, were just part of the decor. Marley shivered as she followed close behind Queenie. At night, the halls were nearly empty and only far off noises of groaning patients and beeping heart monitors filled the silence. It was a veritable horror setting, if Marley was being honest. “Are we there yet?” she asked in a hushed voice, “I don’t like this place.” They turned down another hallway and a chill ran up her spine. She shuffled closer to Queenie. There was something so familiar about this hallway, a memory trying to grasp at the back of her eyes. She blinked and suddenly a gurney was being rushed by her. She froze, stepped out of the way, but when she looked back, there was nothing there. “I-- did you see that?” she asked, her voice wavering just a touch. She looked wide-eyed at Queenie-- not that she could see behind the glasses-- and swallowed. “Never mind...let’s just get this over with. I hate this place.”

Queenie wouldn’t claim that she knew much about Marley, but she knew that something was off about the way she was acting. The woman seemed almost paranoid while following Queenie down the halls of the hospital. It wasn’t as if any of the doctors or nurses could see the blue blood that she was so passionate about keeping secret. Not unless she managed to accidentally back into a scalpel or something highly improbable like that. So what was causing this hyperfocus and jumpy attitude? “Not much further. I wanted a room that didn’t see much passing activity.” Queenie explained, barely looking back at Marley as she led the way past the hospital staff “See what?” Queenie paused, turning back and glancing at Marley wearily. She craned her neck, looking in different directions to try to pick out what it might have been that had Marley so on edge. But she had been quick to brush it off, and Queenie was happy to oblige.” Fine. This won’t take too long. I made sure I had everything covered today so I wouldn’t be distracted.” Rounding one last corner, Queenie opened the door to make sure nobody else had taken her room. “What makes you hate hospitals so much anyway?” Queenie asked curiously as she motioned Marley inside the room and shut the door behind them. 

Queenie made her way through the hospital’s winding hallways, as if she owned the place-- but then again, she basically did. She had a commanding presence here that Marley had picked out in their first meeting, way back when. It was something Marley was thankful for in this moment, as she watched nurses and even other doctors move out of her way as if she were parting the sea. She slipped into the room behind her, glancing around once to make sure no one was watching, before pausing just in the doorway. There was a large machine in the middle, as well as some computers, and a side room, walled off. She started fidgeting slightly. “It’s personal,” she muttered, trying not to let the memories that made places like this feel like a prison cloud her mind. She shook them away. “What tests are you running, then? What uh-- what exactly are you looking for?” She was almost afraid to ask, but her curiosity got the better of her, as it usually did.

“Fair enough” Queenie answered simply, as a way of accepting that she wasn’t getting an answer and showing to Marley that she didn’t need one. Her disdain for hospitals was her own personal business. And while Queenie found herself in the middle of Marley’s personal life more by necessity than choice, she wasn’t on the level where she would concern herself with prying any further. “An MRI for starters. I want to get a look at the brain and to see if there is any permanent physical damage that we can’t see on the surface. I’ll need you to change into that hospital gown. Make sure you have no metal on you and then let me know when you’re ready. I’ll come in to get everything set up.” Queenie stayed on the other side of the glass, making sure the screens were set up and ready to begin just as she had requested. Perhaps it was out of place for her to ask for the room to herself for the test. But honestly, would anyone question her at this point? “Call me when you’re done.”

Marley looked down at the hospital gown she’d been handed in disdain, then back to Queenie, who was already retreating from the room. She hated everything about what was happening. Just being in the hospital alone made her skin crawl, but now she was around humming machines and a giant tube and suddenly the room was getting smaller and her throat was getting tighter. But the world snapped back into view when Queenie’s voice cut through her head and she looked over at her, nodding. She went to the corner where the screen was and changed quickly, going back out, arms folded tightly across her chest, hands tucked into armpits as she shivered slightly. “I’m done,” she called out, glancing around as a shiver went through her. In the corner of the room stood a ghostly, familiar figure. She blinked and he was gone. She’d seen him before, hadn’t she? But from where? Eyes so focused on the corner, on trying to remember the man, she didn’t notice Queenie come back in, jumping when her voice sounded again. 

Queenie kept herself busy in the room staring at the monitors to keep herself distracted while Marley changed.She didn’t head back into the room until she heard the woman call out, but by the time Queenie got back in, Marley seemed more distant than ever. She had known Marley for long enough now that she could tell that this was uncharacteristic of the woman. She had no interest in attempting to pry information from the police officer. Especially since she knew she wouldn’t get anywhere by asking. But whatever caused this disdain for hospitals that Marley singularly described as ‘personal’, seemed like quite the baggage. “Well then,” was all Queenie said in response to the woman jumping at the sound of Queenie’s voice. She let out a quick cough to stifle the awkward air of the room before pointing at the bed in the middle of the scanner. “It’s not a particularly pleasant experience, but it won’t be painful. It’s just uncomfortable.” Hopefully Marley responded to direction better than some of the children and adults she had on this machine. “You will need to stay as still as you can while I run the test. You can lay on this bed here and I’ll adjust it.” After getting everything set up from this room, Queenie pointed towards the window, “I’ll leave you in here while I go to start up the machine and run the test. I’ll be able to hear you from there, and vise versa.”

“Right,” Marley repeated slowly, “just uncomfortable.” She looked at the table, then back to Queenie, and swallowed. Being back in a hospital gown, laying on a table. Being shoved into a small space. Marley felt her heartbeat begin to pump quickly, loudly in her ears. She shivered once and wrapped her arms around herself as Queenie began to exit the room again. She suddenly didn’t want to be alone. Not in this cold, stark room that reminded her so much of the place that took so much from her as a child. She looked over at Queenie one last time before climbing onto the table. Swallowed hard and laid down. Her arms suddenly began shaking and she clenched them hard to make it stop. “Ready whenever you are doc,” she said, a shake to her voice. “Let’s get this over with as fast as possible, yeah?”

Queenie could hear Marley give the okay and quickly came over the speaker to the machine, “You got it. Quick and easy.” Admittedly, the machine did not move nearly quick enough for that, but Queenie understood the discomfort. Even for people that weren’t bothered by hospitals didn’t like MRI’s. The machine was loud, claustrophobic and something about being told not to move made every inch of the face itch like crazy. She couldn’t count the number of children and even adults she would have to yell at multiple times to remind them that they needed to stay as still as possible. Still, Queenie tried to move things as quickly as she could. She rushed through the initial scan, moving through to readjust from time to time and begin a new scan. In Queenie’s mind, this was the fastest MRI she had ever completed. It probably didn’t feel that way for Marley. When she was confident she had what she needed, she came back over the speaker to the machine, a smug indignation evident in her voice, “Okay. That should do it. I’m going to get the results. You can get up. Be right back.”

Luckily, only Marley’s head needed to be inside the machine. It whirred loudly and she flinched whenever it began, but eventually her raging heartbeat would drown out the noise. She could feel the panic rising in her throat again, clenching at her lungs, making it hard to breath. She hated this place. She really hated this place. And it dragged on for what seemed like hours, but surely was no more than half an hour. By the time Queenie came back over the speaker, Marley was sweating and shivering all at once, as she held in her want to panic. When she sat up, she felt dizzy and the world spun around her. For a moment, the world went black. She saw what looked like a river flash behind her eyes. Eerie looking trees. A gateway up ahead. A man leading her somewhere. Marley shook her head roughly and blinked the world back into existence. She glanced around her, then back over to the doorway Queenie had disappeared into. That place...she’d thought it was just in her imagination. But now she’d seen it again and it felt...like a memory. Like it was real. Marley perked up when Queenie came back in, her heart beat beginning to thrum loudly again as well. Whatever the results were, she wasn’t sure she wanted to know anymore. When she didn’t know, it was easier to think that one day, it would just go away. But Queenie’s face somehow told her that wasn’t the case. As stoic as the good doctor liked to pretend she was, Marley could tell what was on those scans wasn’t a good result.

Queenie had really been hoping for everything to be completely clear. Of course so that she could give Marley the all clear and perhaps neither of them would have to worry about giving the other headaches any longer. Though beyond that, Queenie could admit she didn’t hate the woman. They weren’t exactly friends, but they had developed a partnership together. She had hoped for the best either way. What the scans showed definitely were not the best case scenario. “I’ve got the results,” Queenie stated matter-of-factly. She led Marley back into the room she had booked, a place where the two could sit and look at the results. She put the scans against the wall, clipping them behind the light to help them be more visible. “I’m showing signs of some damage.” She wanted to avoid being too brash with the revelation without coddling the woman either. Queenie was no good at coddling, and Marley didn’t seem like the type that would want it anyhow. “Different lesions around the brain. It looks like the hippocampus, and the prefrontal cortex as well. See?” She pointed at each area as she described them. The wounds themselves weren’t fatal. Marley standing in front of her was proof enough of that. But they could certainly have additional effects that either hadn’t begun yet or that Marley didn’t even notice. “It’s not life ending, but it means that there could be further complications we weren’t originally aware of. Have you had any other symptoms recently post accidents that are new to you?

Marley stopped listening the moment Queenie told her there were signs of damage. The rest of the conversation was just droning in her ears. She was pointing at stuff on the image of Marley’s brain, but Marley couldn’t concentrate. Was that symptom or was that just her own brain tricking her? She couldn’t tell the difference anymore. The world snapped back to her when Queenie posed a question, and Marley looked at her with sullen eyes, a pain that ran so deep she wasn’t sure it would ever go away. “I, uh-- yeah. Concentrating and...losing track of time.” She paused, feeling her natural instinct to hide herself away and close off anyone who tried to get close, who tried to help. But Erin’s words rang in her head and she was reminded that, if she did not let people help, she was going to get herself killed. So she swallowed, and added on, “And I think I’ve been having seizures.”

It wasn’t hard for Queenie to deliver bad news to people. She never enjoyed it, even disliked doing it for a long time. She had never been especially talented at reading people. She rarely had any tact when speaking with patients. To top it off, it was simply uncomfortable to be standing in the same room as them once the news had been broken. But over time, she had learned to separate herself from it. She had practically mastered dissociating after reading the charts and could stand unmoving and completely solemn as the person or family worked through whatever emotions they needed to. Her apparent lack of empathy didn’t always make her popular with her patients. But she had never been in this to be popular. She couldn’t care less how they felt about her as long as they continued breathing once they left the hospital. But this one, for whatever reason, felt a bit more personal. “Those are both common. The injury was still relatively recent. With time you may see a decrease in those symptoms.” She wasn’t sure that Marley grasped much of what she had been saying at all, but she pulled the photos from the wall and stacked them together, sticking them in a file named after the detective. “I see.” Queenie spoke simply. Seizures were a bit more intense than losing track of time or being unfocused. It wasn’t what Queenie wanted to hear at all. “Well, that is something that we could look into as well. There is medication that could help with that. I’m glad you decided to tell me, actually. Getting in front of something like this is key to help future prevention.” That was the truth, even if it was a more positive approach than Queenie usually gave. “How are you feeling about this news?”

With time. That was always the answer, wasn’t it. It would feel better, with time. It will go away, with time. It will heal, with time. Marley blinked and looked over at Queenie, wondering what it was she could say to make any of this feel better, be better, because those words weren’t reassuring at all. For weeks, she’d been able to hide in her own ignorance and pretend like this wasn’t something permanent, like this wasn’t something real. But she couldn’t do that anymore, not with Queenie looking at her like that and saying those things. It was real, now, and she couldn’t run from it anymore. How was she feeling? Fuck, she had no idea. Marley looked over at Queenie and swallowed. “I don’t know,” she muttered. “I have no idea how I feel. How should I feel? I don’t know how to feel, I’ve never been through something like this.”

Queenie’s acquaintance took it about how she had expected her to. The news clearly bothered her though she remained more stoic than other patients would have given similar news. She was tougher than the average person, that was for sure. “I can’t tell you how to feel. They’re your emotions.” Folder still in her hand, she began pacing around the room. She would have to figure out how to get Maley medication without writing a prescription. Writing a prescription would leave a trail that she wasn’t sure Marley wanted left behind. “It’s not news that anybody wants to hear. But it’s not the worst case scenario. You can still work. You can still continue living your life. That doesn’t make the news any less unfortunate.”

The words sat in Marley’s head like a thick sludge. They’re your emotions. But that was the problem, wasn’t it? Marley didn’t know her own emotions. For so long all she’d let herself feel was anger and pleasure. Anything else was too risky. Too dangerous. Getting attached, expressing her feelings, letting herself believe she was something beyond a monster-- it was all too dangerous. But now, she’d let herself believe she was better. Could be better. Could feel and laugh and love. Like one of those cheesy signs wine moms put up in their houses. But this? She hadn’t prepared herself for this, in any scenario. She’d always figured if she got into a fight like that, she wouldn’t make it out. But she had, and now, there was an empty void where her thoughts and feelings should have been. She looked over at Queenie with a defeated glance. “I’m no doctor, doc,” she said flatly, “but I doubt they’re gonna let someone with brain damage carry a firearm. Or go in the field.” She could work, but her duties would change, wouldn’t they? Her job would change. “Unfortunate,” she repeated the word quietly, before reaching down to grab her clothes. “Yeah, that’s the word for it. Unfortunate.” She was quiet for a while, and then-- “Can I go now? Is there more we need to do?”

As far as conversations go, this one seemed just about over. Queenie wasn’t sure what else could be said at this point. They both seemed to know the implications of the news. Marley must be feeling it more than anyone, but Queenie thought that she could relate. If something happened to her that made it impossible to do her own job, she had no idea what she would possibly do. She had devoted her entire life to her career. If she didn’t have this, she had nothing. What would she do? Take up sewing? Absolutely not. “Not right away. But we may be able to get you there. Eventually.” She couldn’t exactly say that it was entirely unrealistic. She had seen things like it before. Some might describe it as miracles, but Queenie never believed in that. Good medical care and perseverance were key. Queenie knew that Marley had the former, but she had a feeling she had the latter as well. “Sure. No more tests today. I will be in touch regarding the medication.”

Eventually. Marley understood that most people used that word in a positive context, but whenever someone said it, it always seemed so...negative. Eventually the pain will go away. Eventually you’ll get better. Eventually you’ll be normal again. And to no one’s surprise, Marley was beginning to hate the word. She shrugged on her jacket and gave Queenie a hollow look. “Thanks,” she said quietly, the defeat evident in her voice. Even if one day she did get better and could get her full job back, that day wasn’t today. And she couldn’t help but let that heavy burden sit on her shoulders like a rock. It slouched her back and hung her head and she stopped in the doorway. “No more hospitals,” she muttered, before she pushed out the doors and started to make her way through the hallowed building once again, craving the fresh air and ready to wash the scent of sterility off of her. 

#chatzy #wickedswriting #chatzy: queenie #hospital tripping #queenie #tw head injury

[rocket-remmy]

Always Practice Good Ringside Manner||Queenie and Remmy

TIMING: Current (Last Night) PARTIES: @drqueenieking and @whatsin-yourhead SUMMARY: A zombie meets a human doctor. It goes about as well as you think it would. CONTENT: Non-con (forced fighting), Medical blood talk

“Sure brings back memories, eh?” 

Remmy turned at the voice next to them, in their ear, shrinking back when they saw it was Jax. He had that grin on his face again, hands on his hips, staring down at Remmy with those icy blue eyes that they hated. God, they hated them. They hated him. But more than that-- they feared him. And his sharp tongue and his daggers for teeth when he grinned. “Don’t worry, I made sure this one is more manageable than your last fight. Just,” he cooed, hands sliding over Remmy’s shoulders, making them tense even more if that were possible, “don’t disappoint me this time.” 

With that, he took his leave, and Remmy was alone in the backroom again. They shuddered, sat down, rocked themselves for a moment, counting to ten with each inhale and exhale. The breath did nothing for their lungs, but the action helped calm their jittering skin. The bell dinged and they jumped. “You’re up!” came the bouncer’s voice and Remmy scuttled out of the backroom, itching once more at the collar. The low hum of its electric buzz reminding them that they had no choice in this fight. This time, as they stepped into the ring, the critting on the other side hissed. It was no bigger than a raccoon, quills sharp, eyes wide. It looked just as afraid as Remmy, and when the bell dinged again, neither of them took pleasure in the scrapes exchanged.

So this was the ring? As far as underground, illegal fight clubs went it seemed a bit odder than Queenie had pictured. The people crowding the cage all seemed entirely too involved in whatever was going on, but Queenie was less focused on the fight happening inside of the cage and more so on the people surrounding it. While most looked like regular people, others were dressed up. Weird makeup and prop looking costumes adorned to their bodies, giving them the illusion of being some hybrid of species. It was a peculiar look, but Queenie had seen stranger things roaming the streets of New York right out in the open. She wasn’t particularly interested in them.

She only knew about the place because of Felix. The two had talked briefly since their former introductions. Queenie had originally been adamant about simply making acquaintance but staying out of it. But with her husband working later hours, there was only so much Queenie could do to keep herself entertained while she wasn’t working. That was how the Ring had been brought up. A place where she could come by to help out if needed. If things got too intense during a fight, they may need medical attention and a hospital was clearly not an option. Not a bad idea, though not one Queenie had ever been involved with. 

But she hadn’t accounted for the place being so… weird. She finally settled on the fight beginning within the cage. Inside of it stood the beginnings of a new match. A human and… was that a hedgehog?

It didn’t take long for Remmy to kill the thing, even with their hesitation. They lifted their fist one last time, quills jabbed through their arm, one in their chest, and swung down. It gave a sickening crack as it connected and pushed through and Remmy’s stomach lurched. They held in whatever was coming up their throat and stood, turning to face the door they usually exited, but it did not open. Jax simply nodded towards the back door, and Remmy slunk through it, heading into the rooms, skin vibrating where the quills were in their skin. They didn’t know proper procedure on how to remove them, maybe Jax was going to help, but he just brushed by them, counting his money, before saying they could go. Itching one, Remmy scuttled out quickly, not looking where they were going-- and running head long into someone, feeling the quill in their chest dig in deeper. “Fuck-- sorry! Sorry! I-I didn’t meant to-- I-I’m sorry.” 

The fight wasn’t easy to watch. When Felix had mentioned the place, Queenie wasn’t aware that things would actually be killed. At first glance, the thing had barely looked like a regular creature anyways. Queenie was ready to brush the place off as some live re-enactment of a WWE special. Fake and entertaining, while blurring the lines between reality. But the death of the creature would be hard to fake. And it made Queenie a bit less motivated to stay any longer. She began weaving through the crowd, unsure if she was heading for an exit or looking for the person that she was supposedly there to meet. She figured she would figure out once she got there. Queenie kept her head down, staring at the ground and their feet as she pushed through, not paying enough attention to stop herself from crashing directly into another witness. Wait. Not another witness. The fighter themselves. “It’s fine. That was certainly something.” Queenie narrowed her eyes, looking the fighter up and down. They certainly didn’t seem like a ruthless animal killer. Looks could be deceiving. Queenie wasn’t here to make conversation, so she was ready to pass by this person and continue on before taking notice that they had quills sticking out of them still, and looked roughed up enough for Queenie’s medical license to drag her back over. “Are you okay? You still have… those things poking inside of you.” Including one that seemed to be in their chest. “We should go take a seat. I can take a look at it.”

The woman Remmy had run into looked just as ready and panicked to get out of there as they did, but there was something sharper in her eyes than in Remmy’s. A disdain. They wished they could feel that, too. Remmy stumbled back, looked down at the quill in their chest, back up. “Oh, I-- i-it’s fine. I can just--” they started, but stopped. Just what? Ever since Jax had put this stupid collar on, they’d noticed everything hurt more. And they healed so much slower. Whatever this collar was doing to them, it was making the quills jabbed into their body feel so much worse. “I don’t know if I should remove them. They might be, um...poisonous or something. I-I don’t know.” They just wanted to go home. They didn’t want to be here anymore. They just wanted to go back to Lydia and be safe.

This person in front of Queenie seemed panicked. What was their deal? A once over didn’t give much away, though the collar was certainly a suspicious addition to the look. Her only guess would be that it added to the effect. Clearly, the Ring was into the theatrics. Was this fighter using some sort of persona in the ring? To garner more attention? “It’s a quill. They’re not poisonous.” Queenie assures, “Besides, getting them out of you would still be ideal. If they were poisonous we want as limited exposure to the toxins as possible.” She peered down at the quill, trying to get a better look at it. “You’re not bleeding?” She questioned, glancing back up at her apparent patient. Had the quill stopped the bleeding? “Come on.” She pulled them to the end of the crowd and found an open spot for them to have some breathing room and take a seat. “What is your name?”

Vibrating, Remmy didn’t know what to say to the woman. They wanted to tell her no. They wanted to go home and sink into their bed and maybe sit with Lydia on the couch. Hell, they’d even take lying awake in Luce’s bed while she slept next to them. But they wanted out of this place now, quills or no quills, and this woman was keeping them here. Was she part of the crew? They’d never seen her around before. She was already pulling them away from the crowd, sitting them on a bench in the back. Remmy looked up at her. “I mean, they could be. I-I don’t much about that creature.” But then she was asking they’re name, and pointing out that they weren’t bleeding. Did she not...did she not know? “Oh, I... I don’t really um-- bleed.” Looked up at her with tired eyes.

More than anything, they just looked tired. Queenie wasn’t sure that it was from the match at all. Either they were staying in character and just an impressively good actor or this person was close to passing out from exhaustion. “That creature was harmless. I still don’t understand the… I don’t get this place.” Queenie felt tongue tied, a sensation she hated. But she couldn’t explain this place. “What do you mean you don’t bleed?” Was this person in shock? Had they sustained a head injury that Queenie had not noticed. She pulled her phone free from her purse and flipped the flashlight on, reaching up to grab a hold of their face. “Don’t move. I’m checking you to see if you have a concussion.” The shined the lights in their eye, “My name is Queenie. I’m a doctor. And you seem to be popular here.”

“Oh, um...I mean, I-I don’t have like, blood, so I don’t really, bleed all that much?” Remmy shrugged, tensing when the woman grabbed their face and flashed a light in their eye. They stayed still, however, and let her check them. When she was done, they blinked away the light. “Um...I’m Remmy. I-- I guess so.” They glanced around. They used to love that attention, they used to love being loved. Now-- it just felt wrong. “I think they just like the violence.” Dropped their gaze after a moment, hands folded neatly into their lap as they waited patiently, like a good little soldier. 

The fighter - Remmy, had clearly lost their mind. It wasn’t possible for someone to just… not have blood. Queenie had truly found herself in the loony bin it seemed. At least Remmy would be comfortable with Regan. “Right. Of course you don’t.” She rolled her eyes. “Well, Remmy. Next up is to get this quill out. It may hurt, but the wound is small enough that it should be fairly easy to treat if required.” She positioned, bracing one hand around the quill and grabbing onto it. “On the count of three. 1…2…” She didn’t finish her count, tugging instead and pulling the quill free. She examined it afterwards finding that… there wasn’t any blood. What the hell? Clearly he had just not pierced deep enough to draw any blood. Or the fighter was wearing some kind of prosthetic skin. To give the illusion that this place was real. That had to be it right? “What the hell is this place?”

Remmy didn’t move when Queenie positioned herself. She was clearly some sort of doctor or nurse, her mannerism gave way for it. The way she talked reminded Remmy of the military doctors, and they sat patiently as she counted down, knowing she’d pull it before-- and still didn’t move. Didn’t even flinch. Though there was more pain involved now with the collar on, Remmy was used to pain. They looked down at the one she’d removed from their arm, then to the two others in their chest. “It’s a fighting ring,” they answered quietly, “for the supernatural.”

This didn’t make any sense. Queenie stood up, abandoning the quill on the ground and glancing around the place. What the hell did Remmy mean? The supernatural? The thought was so crazy that it almost made Queenie laugh. But Remmy seemed dead serious. Once again, Queenie was forced between deciding whether or not Remmy was in on this whole scam or if they were simply gullible, naive or insane. Perhaps all three. “That’s… absurd.” Queenie countered, though there was something in her voice that held it back. But why? Was it because Regan’s preposterous claims about her wings? Damn it, Queenie needed to get out of here. “Is this some sort of LARPing ring? Is the fighting even real?” She didn’t want to know the answer at this point. She just wanted to go. “Why do you fight here?”

“Well, I mean, I know it’s not the best--” Remmy started, but their misinterpretation of her words was made apparent by her next statement. “What? LARPing? No, it-- it’s real.” They held out their hands, still stained with the blood of the creature. “Is this not real enough for you?” Were their wounds not real enough for her? Wasn’t she the one pulling quills out of Remmy’s flesh? How could someone come here and not believe what was going on? “Because I ha--” Remmy started, their anger flaring, but instead of the rest of the words coming out, the taste of bile entered their throat and they had to hold themself back for a moment. “Because it’s...because I owe someone.”

Remmy got defensive at Queenie’s comment. Was it more acting? Staying in the role as long as they were still within the Ring. There were still a lot of people around to catch them break character. Either that or Remmy truly believed this world of the supernatural. It didn’t explain their insistence that they didn’t bleed. The human body could not function without blood, it was not humanly possible. “I believe that is real animal blood.” Queenie answered, a politically correct answer. She debated whether or not to answer the question at all. But Remmy seemed distressed enough, and Queenie had at least learned a few things about bedside manner while working in the hospital. She still wasn’t very good at it admittedly. “You owe somebody? Who owes somebody something like this? Is it gang related?” It wasn’t really Queenie’s business. She had learned from her time with the gangs in New York. It was better to not ask questions. “Actually, don’t answer that.” Queenie waved the original question away, “We should leave. You clearly have enough damage tonight. There’s no need to join another fight.”

“I-- what?” Remmy started, growing increasingly uncomfortable with each passing moment. This woman shouldn’t be here. She didn’t understand what this place was or what it took from people. And if she didn’t believe in the supernatural, she was only going to get herself-- or someone else-- hurt. “Gang?” They sputtered, glancing around. But after a moment, realized she wasn’t entirely wrong. Maybe it was, like, a gang in the normal sense, but Remmy wasn’t here because they wanted to be anymore. They were here because of the man who was staring them down from across the arena. Remmy shoved against Queenie, quickening their pace. “W-we gotta get outta here,” they said, “f-fast.” Didn’t stop until they were outside and around the corner and somewhere where Jax couldn’t get to them. Couldn’t hurt them. “Y-you shouldn’t come here anymore,” they told her, “this place is dangerous.”

Suddenly, Queenie was being shoved, which she did not appreciate for the record. Remmy practically forced Queenie across the floor and back out into the night. “I do not appreciate being manhandled” Queenie huffed, brushing herself off to regain her composure. “Why was it so important that we get out of those so quickly?” She questioned Remmy, crossing her arms as if refusing to move until she got answers. Because that place was confusing as hell. Was it fake or real? Obviously it wasn’t real, real. But was the fighting at least real? It certainly seemed that way. It was certainly intense LARPing. A term she only knew because every year she would see a few come through the hospital in New York where some play fight went wrong. “You’re one to talk. I think you’re the one that shouldn’t be returning to this place.” Though this Remmy person seemed convinced that they had to fight here for some reason. Whatever that reason, Queenie didn’t quite grasp. Eventually, Queenie sighed and dipped back into her purse, retrieving a notepad and pen. She scribbled down her name and phone number before ripping the page clear and handing it over to Remmy, “Here. This is my information. In case of some emergency here call me and I will drop by.”

“Sorry, sorry, I just--” Remmy started, but they didn’t know how to explain, so they simply stopped. “Sorry.” The look on her face told Remmy that she was still utterly confused, which meant she likely wasn’t any sort of supernatural, or one of the humans around here who did know about it. Either way, she was in danger being there. “I have to,” they answered quickly, immediately regretting it, “I-I don’t have a choice. B-but you do. So, please,” they argued quietly, their voice wavering, “don’t come back here. I-It’s not safe.” If they couldn’t save themself, then at least they could spare someone else the pain. They only wished they could’ve spared Skylar this pain, the pain of knowing this place. Of watching them get ripped in half. Remmy’s hands tightened. Suddenly, a card was being handed to them, and they took it tentatively. Her name was written in a neat scrawl, not unlike the handwriting of the medics back in the army. Remmy looked up at her. “Th-thanks. I-- thanks for helping me.”

There was something about this place. Queenie wasn’t convinced that the place was a ruse. She couldn’t explain what it was exactly, but she knew that there was more to it than she understood at this moment. It wouldn’t be underground if it was completely legal. And Remmy wouldn’t be so adamant about Queenie not coming back if it was safe. But there was too much disconnect. How could Queenie actually believe that Remmy was in danger when the rest of the place seemed so outlandishly unrealistic? She didn’t understand why Remmy seemed to claim that they had no choice but fight here. But again, none of these was any of Queenie’s business. Just as it was in New York, Queenie was there to stop the bleeding or stitch up a wound. She kept people alive. She didn’t question how they had gotten shot or what they had been doing. Queenie never liked admitting that ignorance was bliss, but it certainly kept her alive. “Yes well, my husband and I do date nights on Saturdays. Try not to be in some life threatening situation that night.” Queenie was leaving this place with far more questions than she had answers. She wasn’t sure that she liked that. Despite what Remmy was saying, Queenie hadn’t yet decided if this would be her last trip to the Ring or not. “Stay safe down there. Try not to get impaled by any other quill’s.”

#chatzy #chatzy: queenie #wickedswriting #queenie #always practice good ringside manner #tw medical blood

[malum-somnium]

Charmed, I’m Sure || Kevin & Her Dreamers

Timing: Recent Location: The Cave of Voices Participants: @zahneundklauen, @nicsalazar, @drqueenieking, and Kevin Summary: The dreamers reunite at the cave to discuss what happened. Kevin offers answers and asks for a favor. 

Days had passed in a blur since the last time Nicole stood outside the cave. The month gone had not provided any clarity on the events that transpired that night. All she had was a hazy memory and the sleepwalking issues to show for. The only proof it had all been real. As she slipped for a third time climbing the rocks to reach the cave, part of her wished she was still asleep. When the doctor had proposed for all three to meet she had been reluctant. It seemed pointless. She didn’t expect a real answer unless they managed to find Kevin. Her stomach twisted into a nervous knot that tightened at the uncertainty of what they would find out. She spotted the other two close to the entrance, picking up her pace to meet them. She couldn’t remember their faces, despite the time they had spent together. She didn’t expect them to remember her either. How odd it felt, to be connected by something yet not knowing anything about the other. She raised an eyebrow in acknowledgement, biting the inside of her cheek. Her eyes averted to the inside of the cave, which appeared flooded, unlike the last time. “This feels— it’s bizarre” her hands were deep in her jacket’s pockets, expecting someone else to take the lead. “Guess you’re Queenie and…” was it Alcher? No. She didn’t want to be called that. “Ada?”

Despite being in a state of unconsciousness, Queenie was surprised to learn that she could easily find the cave again. Being back at the entrance didn’t feel familiar in the slightest. Her memory had only started after she had been inside the cave and yet somehow she had been able to retrace her steps here as if she had strolled past the place yesterday. The whole thing should be increasingly concerning, and it certainly raised plenty of alarms. However, Queenie was so stubbornly fixated on gaining answers so she could make sense of the entire situation that she shoved aside any worries and instead focused on the facts. She had woken up with two others in a state of trance. A fourth person was there and had them complete odd tasks. After that they went home. It wasn’t much to go on, yet with the small lead she did have, the three had found each other and made their way back to the cave it had all happened at. That must mean something. “Yes, that’s me. So you’re Nicole and Ada then? Nice to meet you in person, or officially meet you I suppose. Before we head in, anybody remember anything post our online conversation that we should know?”

Facing the unknown was a part of life Alcher was not entirely prepared for. Her father had taught her how to prepare for any situation, but it seemed his knowledge of what could possibly happen didn’t extend to things like sleepwalking to a cave and resurrecting a faceless figure. And so, Alcher found she needed to go and figure this out on her own, and with a little help from the two others who had shared this experience. When she made it to the cave, Queenie had already been there, and they’d stood for a moment in silence until Nicole, the third, had shown up. Nicole smelled of something distinct that Alcher could not entirely place. But she knew the scent, and she knew her memory would provide her the answer soon enough. For now, they would focus on this. “I cannot say that I remember anything, whenever I try to talk to other people about what happened, I find the memory has...vanished,” she answered, glancing between the two.

“That’s my— yeah…” Nicole nodded in confirmation, relieved once the doctor spoke. Was it nice to meet them? The verdict was still out on that one. Out of the two, she was wary of the doctor's reaction if they were to find the truth. She seemed in denial when they had talked. She was bound to be shocked. When the other woman began to speak, Nicole’s eyes finally landed on her. Her double take lacked any subtlety. There was a scent, something not human. She had to be mistaken, right? Maybe it was the wind, carrying that from the beach. Or— She shook her head, concentrating. She couldn’t ask —not that she ever would have— there were more pressing matters at hands. She rolled back her shoulders to ease some tension, eyebrows knit together as she tried to tune her out. Eyes trained on the ground, she started thinking. Her memory had always been terrible, but now she had the added mental fog that prevented her from talking to others about that night. “I uh— I remember that person,” her name escaped her in that moment, “she was— she was nice, I think...or sounded it at least” nice was a strange way of describing someone who had manipulated them while unconscious. “We all came with...we were carrying shit, no?” she figured connecting every version of the story was a good place to start. They could recreate some of those actions when they entered the cave. 

“Funny, I’ve also had trouble remembering the details of that night. And yet when I spoke with you I could remember things a bit more clearly.” Queenie admitted the odd coincidence, though she wasn’t willing to acknowledge that it meant anything. It was true that people tended to remember things better in familiar environments to the one they experienced things in. Perhaps that had simply been the case while talking with Nicole and Ada. That seemed more likely than selective amnesia or something like that. “Kevin. That was the name.” Queenie had never been able to recall the name until talking with Ada. Even now, when she considered discussing the event with her husband the memories seemed to fog up again. That was concerning for obvious reasons. “Sure, if you consider guiding us through some weird cult ritual in a cave to be nice. I don’t.” Though Queenie vaguely remembered thinking the opposite that night. As far as Queenie had been concerned, she would have done anything to help Kevin achieve her goal that night. “Yes. I used the pen to… write nonsense on the three of us.”

“Kevin,” Alcher repeated, tilting her head as she said the name. It was all so clear now-- Kevin, and the sleepwalking, and the lightbulbs. They’d all come here with something different each and handed them to Kevin, who had been so happy, so excited for them to be there. To help her. Alcher stepped forward, the darkness of the cave blacking out her vision. But she didn’t need it. The other two were still talking things through, but Alcher trudged along, following the familiar scent. “This way,” she pointed, looking back over her shoulder at the other two, waiting for them to follow but not instructing them quite yet. She had patience, but she did have more curiosity. More of a need to know what had really happened that night and why they had left with marks upon them. Alcher rubbed the spot on her ribs where she’d been written upon. “Heart,” she answered, the word suddenly coming to her, “you wrote the word Heart on me. I...think.”

No, a cave ritual didn’t sound nice. Nicole shook her head, regretting her initial words. Kevin had been persuasive, if anything. They hadn’t had any chance but to do as told. There wasn’t any reason to suspect anything but good intentions. Kevin. As the other women repeated the name, she realized how familiar it was. That was it. Kevin had been so proud of them, she remembered.  Surprised to see Ada separate herself from them, her eyes followed. A moment later she called out, knowing where to go. After a curious glance at the doctor, she nudged ahead. Carefully, she walked inside. She offered her hand to Queenie, if she needed to steady herself before stepping into the large puddle at the entrance. Though tempting, she didn’t try to adjust her vision to the cave’s darkness. Her heart was at her throat. “Not sure what you wrote...but it was on my forehead”. If ‘heart’ was written on Ada’s ribs, maybe hers followed the same logic. “Something mind related, maybe” eventually she caught up with Ada. “Still doesn’t explain— the ritual. Don’t know about you...but I’ve never heard or done anything like it”.

Though nothing seemed familiar at the time, Ada reminding Queenie of the word heart jump started the memory. She had written something different for each of the three, Queenie’s own arms had said hands. What had possessed Queenie to write those things on people she hardly knew? Nothing about that night made sense. She wanted answers. But she was concerned that coming back to this cave was just going to leave her more confused than ever. Slowly making their way into the cave, Queenie accepted Nicole’s hand to climb through the area. “Can’t say I’ve ever been part of any ritual. Certainly not willingly.” That night in the cave had been no different, correct? Even if Queenie had been going along with Kevin’s commands, they still hadn’t been willing. Queenie in a normal state of mind would never entertain anything crazy like that. “I’m still suggesting that we were hypnotized or perhaps drugged in some way. Otherwise, nothing about this makes any sense.” As the three ventured further into the cave, Queenie was growing less and less patient, “What are the chances that we will even run into this Kevin person anyways? I hope we are not just wasting our time here.”

The cave had visitors once more, her dreamers had returned. Kevin could feel them, moving about, asking such wonderful questions. The ritual had been a success, but it was only one of many more to come. Her powers were returning, slowly, but surely. She rose from where she had been resting, feet quiet as they carried her into one of the larger caverns. “I’m here, my darlings,” she called. A flick of her hand to ease their way, to make the rocks less slick. It wouldn’t do for any harm to befall her dreamers. They must be protected. Another motion of her wrist and the cavern was filled with a soft, blue light. She would have to see their lovely faces properly. “You’ve come back to me. It is so lovely to see you once more. What can I do for you, my dears? You have already done so very much for me.” 

The voice reached Alcher’s ears before it reached her nose, which was odd for her. Very odd. Her sense of smell was greater than her hearing, than her eyesight-- and yet no scent filled the cave. But as sure as her ears could pick up the sound of Kevin’s voice, her eyes finally focused enough to lay on her form. The other two suddenly didn’t matter anymore, and Alcher moved swiftly over the rocks towards her, as if drawn in. “What-- what are you?” she asked automatically when Kevin opened the floor for them. Her golden eyes drank in the sight of her, trying to remember what she’d looked like the night they’d first found her and why she seemed so different now. “Why did you bring us here that night?”

Nicole let Queenie theorize as much as she wanted, even though she didn’t make any sense. She didn’t think the doctor was prepared to hear any supernatural possibility. Saying Kevin’s name seemed to have an immediate effect inside the cave, the ground turning easier to step in. “Fuck” came out in a hiss. She had not expected to hear that voice again. She breathed out, shuddering as Kevin announced her presence. On a second thought, she was fine not getting answers. She wanted out. Instead, she remained rooted to the spot, because her desires and her actions could never agree on something. Ada seemed to have her questions ready. She had to admire her decisiveness. On the other hand, her thoughts were all jumbled together. Only one thing stood out for her. She had to know if they had been randomly selected, or if there was something else, something deeper.  “Why...” she peeked behind the other woman’s figure, voice smaller. “Why did you choose us?” 

A light from inside the cave caught the three’s attention quickly. Despite all logic stating otherwise, the person that Queenie and the others were searching for was inside this cave. How long had they been here? The place hardly seemed sustainable for somebody to live in. Queenie had been hoping to run into this Kevin figure again, and yet the moment Kevin spoke and announced themselves, Queenie was left with even more questions. The two were quick to launch into questions. What are you? Queenie’s eyes darted toward Ada with an incredulous look flashing across her face. What sort of question was that? Both Ada and Nicole seemed dead set on this person standing in front of them being some type of supernatural, mythological figure with mind control powers or something equally outrageous. Instead, Queenie saw someone with an unassuming disposition and even more boring name taking advantage of the creepiness of the cave and her lowlighting to make this exchange seem more ominous than it needed to be. “I want to know how you managed to get the three of us here in the first place.” She wasn’t willing to accept that Kevin had somehow been responsible for the sleepwalking. But even that was too coincidental for Queenie to ignore completely.

So many questions, so many lovely questions. What thoughtful dreamers they were, so curious, so considerate. Kevin motioned them forward as she gracefully sank to the floor of the cave, sitting and stretching out her legs. “Join me, won’t you, my loves? I will tell you all you wish to know,” she said, with an open, earnest smile. “I am not so strange, my dear. I am… what you would call a caster, or I once was. I am something more now, though even I cannot say just what. Your question, Alcher, and yours, Nicole are one and the same. I could feel your dreams, your wandering minds calling to me. Each of you is a lovely little spark, so bright. I wished to see the light of you so close. And my darlings, believe me, you glow.” Her kind eyes turned to Queenie. Belief was difficult, Kevin knew that well, and faith was more complicated still. “I’ve always had a talent for it, darling, pulling at dreams. I touch something in there and it draws the dreamers to me. It was once a spell, but now it is easier than keeping my eyes open. Now, I have answered your questions, may I ask something of you, my loves?”

Tentatively, Alcher moved forward at Kevin’s request. Somehow, she knew not to fear her. Knew that Kevin would never harm her, or the others. It was an inherent instinct she supposed wasn’t part of the other two. They were both skeptical and wary, and though Alcher took note of Nicole hiding behind her, she did not acknowledge it yet. As she moved, she turned back to the younger woman and held out her hand. “She won’t hurt us,” she said, urging Nicole to join her-- and Kevin-- at the center and sit. She listened intently to Kevin’s answer. A spellcaster. Or, someone who used to be. Someone who was something more now. Alcher didn’t know much about magic, but she understood enough to know that whatever Kevin was now, it was far beyond human. She was one of them. At the request to ask something of them, Alcher glanced between the other two. “My answer is yes, but only if the other two agree,” she stated firmly.  

The pet name made her Nicole’s skin crawl. She was trying not to judge her unconscious self too hard, but how did Kevin make her feel at ease that night? She didn’t move, despite the invitation to join her. Despite Alcher’s assurance that it would be okay. She seemed more prepared than the rest. Apprehensive eyes fixed on her hand, her gut telling her to follow the woman. Instead, she shook her head. She wasn’t sure what a caster was, and it didn’t matter much to her, but she let Alcher satisfy her curiosity. “I haven’t called anyone” she scoffed, that didn’t answer her question fully. Why them? Why not other little sparks or whatever bullshit she was spewing. It wouldn’t mean much, but at least she could find some comfort if it was only them who could have fulfilled the tasks. That they didn’t risk their lives arbitrarily. She couldn’t bother with the rest. The dream pulling, it was all insane. She glanced tentatively at Queenie, who had to be struggling even harder to comprehend all of it. For once she thought she might be the voice of the reason. Alcher was expecting all of them to agree to more nonsense. “How do we know— how can we trust you— you kinda, you crossed a line already”. Did she really think one answer would be enough?

Perfect, so this Kevin person wasn’t a mastermind manipulating the three of them, Kevin was simply psychotic. A caster. Queenie had no idea what that was supposed to mean, but the casual mention was enough to elicit a small chuckle from Queenie. This had all been a coincidence. A wildly unrealistic but technically plausible coincidence. This person just happened to be around the cave and noticed the three sleepwalking. It had to be something like that. The laugh morphed into a scowl as she remembered that they had willingly come back to this cave just to be dicked around by Kevin again. But they were here, and Queenie was genuinely curious to see just how far they planned on taking this. And just how dumb her two colleagues were. “I’ll admit I’m curious though,” Queenie interjected, adding onto Nicole’s statement. Kevin had crossed a line. But she had peaked their interest, “I’d like to hear the question, personally.”

Sweet Alcher, so understanding. The other two were more distant, Kevin could feel it even now. That was alright. Not everyone took to it easily, they weren’t yet ready to see the truth, to truly wake. Still trapped in their own little dreams. She looked to Nicole, her smile soft. “My apologies, I meant no harm. I am unused to the way of things. I was asleep for so very long, it seems the world went right on spinning without me. But I mean you no harm, dear. If you do as I ask, I will grant whatever favor you wish in turn. Would that be a fair exchange?” She had that power, or she would, once she found what was hers, once her lovely dreamers returned it to her. “I’ve lost something, an amulet. It is very precious to me. I believe it is here, somewhere in this town. If you find it for me, I will give you anything you wish.”

Nicole’s hesitance felt strange to Alcher. She could tell Nicole was something beyond human, unlike the strange doctor who had written upon her ribs. Alcher’s hand went up to the spot where she had drawn upon her and she recalled the strange warmth it brought her. Why were the other two so opposed to this? Of course they had been chosen, they were all special. Alcher just hadn’t figured out how. She looked back at Kevin, giving a short nod. “Sounds fair to me,” she answered, frowning slightly. She looked back over at Nicole. “And what, may I ask, has she done to garner your distrust? Kevin has never hurt us, and she’s willingly answered our questions. What reason do we have to fear her?”

Queenie voicing her curiosity made her stomach twist. If the doctor was on board, then that didn’t leave her with a lot of options. Was she about to be peer pressured into doing some strange creature’s bidding again? Definitely. Nicole listened then, as Kevin explained her actions. Being asleep for long, the world spinning without her. Her throat felt heavy. Fuck it, why did that resonate with her? “I don’t… I don’t want anything. Whatever” she said weakly, turning her back to them to gather her thoughts. She hadn’t expected to be addressed by Alcher. The question was uncomfortable. Being put on the spot sent her heart racing. “The— she…” she huffed, pointing at Kevin. Were they not sent to sleepwalk around town in search of crazy items? How was that not dangerous? She woke up with somebody’s bones in her hands. She could’ve been arrested. Could’ve crashed her car. Her mouth opened and closed more times, as she scrambled for the words that refused to come out. “But…how can you— ” she clenched jaw, glaring at Alcher. She let out a sharp breath, shrugging. It was pointless. “We’re really gonna get this amulet...aren’t we?”. Maybe that was fine. Maybe Kevin would let them alone if they did. That would be her wish.

Now Kevin was offering favors? How provocative. Queenie rolled her eyes at the empty promises. She’d love to read the fine print on that verbal contract. And what exactly did Kevin mean by asleep for so very long? Had she been in a coma? Maybe that was why they seemed so disorienting and out of this time period. “So let me get this straight, you want us to find some mysterious amulet for you? And if we find it you’ll ‘owe us big time’?” Queenie gave air quotes around the phrase and crossed her arms. The obvious thing to do would be to scoff, insult Kevin followed by berating Ada for even considering the deal before dragging Nicole out of there so the two could laugh the entire scenario off over brunch. Queenie wasn’t going to claim that Nicole seemed completely sane, but her apprehension definitely gave a better look than her other two options. But yet, the idea had intrigued her. “I assume you have a lead for us then? The town isn’t huge, but we certainly need more to go on if we are expected to find an amulet.”

“Indeed, Queenie,” Kevin said, smile growing. Even though the doubt, the distrust rolled off them in waves, Nicole and Queenie were ever so dependable. She was so very lucky to have them. A brief frown passed over her face, even as she nodded. “I believe I do. It is… difficult. The amulet has been masked from me. If I could find it, I would not ask such a thing of you. But I believe it has been unearthed… or will be soon.” Time was so difficult. In dreams, it was fluid, the past winding around to meet the future, the present in all things. The waking world was rigid, full of hard lines, strict rules. “Here, if you will allow me, I will imprint it in your minds. You will know it the instant you see it. But you must be careful, there are others seeking it, they will try to keep you from it. The words I gave you before, they will protect you when you find the amulet, it will cast away those who have not been granted permission. Alcher, dear, if I may touch your hand?” 

Alcher’s patience for the doctor was beginning to wear. So human, so ignorant, enveloped in her denial. She’d met plenty of people like her, who stuck their heads in the sand , and it only ever ended in tragedy. If Kevin hadn’t taken a liking to her, Alcher would have probably eaten the doctor by now, despite their “civil” conversation. She, instead, turned her focus back to Nicole. “Yes, I think we are,” she answered, “plus, once we’re done, you can go on your way, no?” Again, she motioned for the younger girl to sit near her. Glanced to look back at Kevin, listening intently to her explanation. She could understand needing to find something lost, she’d searched so long for her own loss, after all. Held out her hand without hesitation. “I’ll find this amulet for you,” she said firmly, her eyes set and rigid. Even if the others did not help, this was something Alcher could do. This was something Alcher felt she must do.

Nicole didn’t like that the doctor was asking for more details on the amulet, but she was not about to object and risk being put on the spot again. She kept her mouth shut, hands on her hips as  Kevin offered more information. The more she learned, the harder it was for her to believe they were choosing to go along with it. That she was willing to go and fetch it for her. Maybe she was still connected to Kevin subconsciously. Maybe it wasn’t her fault. She never had a choice, as soon as Kevin had voiced her desire. It had to be. She mentioned they had to be careful, that others were seeking the same treasure— did that not raise any flags? Alcher called for her again. And her confusion grew. She ignored Kevin’s presence for once, eyes darting between the two older women. This was about the people she had experienced that night with. She worried more for them than she cared for mysterious amulets. She swallowed against the knot in her throat. So where did she sit? With Queenie’s blind disbelief or with Alcher’s unquestioning loyalty. “Uh—” Alcher was right. She would go her own way once it was all over. But at the moment, she couldn’t let the woman do it all by herself. “As long as I’m awake, I guess…” she mumbled, watching Alcher extend her hand to Kevin. 

This was all ridiculous. But how many times could Queenie remind herself that this was ridiculous? It all came down to a simple choice. Leave, or extend her hand in whatever crazy ass ritual Kevin had planned. Two options, where one was the obvious and objectively correct choice. And yet despite that, the three of them all seemed to be leaning towards the latter choice. It was the stupid choice for sure. Maybe the dangerous one as well. Queenie didn’t know if there was any truth to Kevin’s theory that others were looking for this mysterious amulet, but it had done exactly as Kevin probably intended - it peaked Queenie’s curiosity. Ada seemed entirely over the two being apprehensive, and Nicole didn’t seem anymore sure of their choice to continue their discussions with Kevin. Overall, it seemed like the three helpers couldn’t be any more different from each other. “Fine.” Queenie sighed, dropping her previously crossed arms and holding out her hand towards Kevin, “I’ll play along and join the little scavenger hunt. From the looks of it, the three of us could use some group building exercises anyways. I am curious about what makes this amulet so special after all.” 

“Thank you, Alcher.” Such an open mind, so welcoming, Kevin’s affection was warm and bleeding, thick enough to seep into the air. Her hands were still not as they should be, but her glamor was powerful, enough to hide them, to make it look, even feel as though they were everything they should be. She closed her eyes as her hand found Alcher’s. The amulet was so clear in her mind, bright and gleaming, a gem ensnared in a knot of petrified wood, as white and solid as bone. A slow breath passed from her lips, so too did she pass the image to Alcher. As her eyes opened once more, she smiled. “There, you have it now.” She reached next for Queenie. “It has power. I will lend you some, if you like, though be careful, I’ve been told it burns.” She let the image pass to Queenie next before her bright eyes turned to Nicole. So sweet, so unsure. “You will be awake, my dear. I will never force anything upon you that you do not wish. And you may leave whenever you like. But if you wish to join them, your hand, please.”

At least the doctor was on board with the crazy plan, Nicole sighed in relief. They would need her, surely. There was no way the hunt for a precious amulet would end with all of them sound and safe. She watched Kevin pass her vision to Alcher. Alcher who was completely sure of herself. She didn’t know much of her yet, but she admired that attitude. She let herself be curious. She tried to make sense of what Kevin was doing, how it worked. Magic? If the circumstances had been different, she would’ve died to learn more. To ask about the extent of Kevin’s powers. Queenie offered her hand next, and her eyebrows rose. She didn’t realize they were all supposed to do that, and it became clearer when Kevin spoke to her. She didn’t look at her. She didn't know what to make of her kindness. Sometimes it felt genuine. But then, she had to wonder if she was just very skilled at manipulating people. “Oh— my bad. I didn’t— I thought...” she pointed at Alcher. That should’ve sufficed. She pressed her lips tightly, before she could retort that Kevin had already forced something on them. She glanced at the other two women, who already had the amulet in their minds. It was okay, neither looked particularly affected. She raised her hand for Kevin to take before the doubts growing within her could push her to back down.  

It had to be a coincidence that Queenie did picture an amulet once Kevin grabbed onto her hand and completed whatever mind trick she was attempting. It made sense of course. Kevin had talked about this amulet. The idea had already been planted deeply within Queenie’s mind. It only made sense that once she had offered her hand to Kevin that Queenie’s idea of an amulet would appear in her head. It wasn’t as if this amulet - if it existed at all - would look like the one Queenie kept thinking of. “Uh, thanks.” She drew her hand back slowly from Kevin after she had finished. She glanced over at Ada. It didn’t seem like the two had much interest in the other, but Queenie wished she knew if a similar image had appeared in her head too. She shook off the feeling. Clearly she was playing along for kicks, because she wanted to see where this was all going. It wasn’t as if she actually believed in any of this crap. “Well, we have the image now. I guess there’s nothing left to do but scour some thrift shops or lost and founds. Maybe we’ll get lucky and come across this magic amulet that you’re looking for.” Queenie glanced at the other two women that had come with her to find Kevin, “Do we leave now, or?”

Kevin’s hand was smaller and softer than Alcher expected it to be. The vision that flashed through her mind gave her a clear picture of the amulet, but she found herself longing for more information. The others were both tense and on edge, but Alcher was almost completely relaxed. She had no reason to fear Kevin, as she’d mentioned before. Perhaps their sleepwalking and nightmares were part of this magic, but Kevin would help them if needed, wouldn’t she? She did not seem the devious type. She nodded at them and waited for them to start their depart before turning to Kevin. “May I...speak to you privately?” she asked, unable to sate her curiosity just yet.

Gently taking Nicole’s hand, Kevin closed her eyes once more, the image passing for a third, and final time. They would find it, she believed in them. Her dreamers would serve her well. “You may leave, if you wish. I do so appreciate you visiting me. It gets rather lonely at times. It was so lovely to see you all again.” She stayed in place, watching Nicole and Queenie head for the mouth of the cave. They didn’t yet trust, didn’t yet believe, but they didn’t need to. Trust was a delicate thing, it would take time, and Kevin had all the time in the world. Her smile turned to Alcher and she offered her hand again. “Of course, my dear. Perhaps we might go a bit deeper into the cave. I would so love to spend more time with you.”

#chatzy #wickedswriting #c: alcher #c: nicole #c: queenie #zahneundklauen #nicsalazar #drqueenieking #potw: the waking world

[chasseurdeloup-retired]

That’s How the Black and White Cookie Crumbles || Queenie and Kaden

TIMING: Current LOCATION: Kaden’s apartment PARTIES: @drqueenieking​ and @chasseurdeloup​ SUMMARY: Queenie comes to check on Kaden’s stitches when the 13th cookie arrives.

Kaden winced as he grabbed the leash, getting ready to take Abel for a walk. The bite from that fucking wolf that tore off a good portion of his arm throbbed every time he gripped anything with his right hand. Which was all the time, apparently. If only that hunter healing would kick in a little faster. But this was hardly the worst injury he’d endured. Not even the worst in White Crest. And he’d take a wolf bite over a mime stabbing any day. “Hold on, I have to tie my shoes,” he told Abel as there was a knock on the door. He groaned. Kaden knew what this was. It was the cookies. It was the fucking. Cookies. From the mimes. He knew it. And he was going to catch them in the fucking act this time. He ran to the door and swung it open. “AH-HA! I got--” Kaden paused, slack jawed. That was not a mime in his doorway. That was Queenie. Regan’s sometimes maybe not friend but definitely her friend Queenie. “Oh, uh, sorry. I thought-- What are you doing here?” Great, just great, Queenie already thought he was fucking insane, he was sure of it. This was likely not helping. Only, was he seeing what he thought he was? “Is… was it like this when you got here?” The whole hallway was striped. Everything was black and white. The floors, the walls, the stairwell. This was a fucking nightmare. In so many ways.

Queenie and Kaden always seemed to meet under questionable circumstances. Not only that, but Kaden being injured seemed to be a common occurrence as well. Regan had reached out to Queenie, much like last time, and asked her to check in on Kaden. She hadn’t gone into specifics on the injuries but had apparently been confident that Kaden didn’t need a hospital. By this point, Queenie needed to start charging people for house calls. She seemed to do them enough. It wasn’t until she arrived that she realized things were... off. The entire hallway leading to his apartment was striped. The black and white coloring wrapped around the floor, walls and ceiling. It was an odd choice for a decoration for sure, but hadn’t mimes been one of the strange sexual preferences that Kaden seemed so fixated on? Could he have convinced the other residents to decorate this way? Or maybe he lived around other like-minded Mimephilliacs. She knocked against the door, careful to use a tissue as to not risk getting any black or white on her. Kaden answered with an accusation, pausing only when he realized who it was. “Your girlfriend sent me.” Queenie answered simply, looking past Kaden and into the apartment. At least the interior wasn’t quite as black and white. “Yes. Does this mean it wasn’t like this the last time you opened your door?” This didn’t seem likely. Though the paint job looked fresh, it had already dried. Kaden must have left his house in the last day or so.

Kaden let out a sigh. “Of course she did. Come in,” he said, moving to the side and nudging Abel a bit away from the door. It was hardly surprising that Regan sent her. All because he refused to go to the hospital for a standard monster maiming. And it’s not like he could properly explain hunter healing even though he was sure she’d witnessed it by now, caught on at least a little bit. “You’re good with dogs, right?” he asked as he held Abel’s leash while the dog tried desperately to say hello to the new human in the apartment. “And no, this place wasn’t like that when I moved in. Or yesterday for that matter. I think it was brown or something. I don’t know, I never paid much attention. I just know it wasn’t that.” Abel pulled on his leash again and Kaden grit his teeth at the pain that shot through his arm. Time to switch leash hands. “I’m going to guess you’re here to examine my arm, right? It’s fine. But you’re welcome to look at it and tell Regan it’s still attached to me and everything.” Kaden gestured towards his kitchen table and took a seat, ready to get this over with as quickly as possible. No amount of doctors looking at his arm was going to make it hurt less.

Queenie made her way into the apartment, apprehensively eyeing the dog that Kaden took hold off. It seemed far too excited to have someone else coming into their living quarters. “They do not bother me.” Queenie said, not quite stating that she was good with them or that she liked that. She reached her arm out, keeping her body angled away from the beast and awkwardly patting the top of its head stiffly. Three pats and Queenie pulled away again, hoping to ignore the creature until it lost interest in her. “That must be some fast drying paint then.” Queenie noted, more to herself than as an entry into their conversation. That was the only thing that made sense. “Regan wouldn’t give me much information, however I am here to make sure you are taking care of your wounds.” She set her bag on the kitchen table that Kaden pointed out and was happy to see that he had already taken a seat, “You are much more compliant outside of a hospital. How ironic.” Queenie mused, grabbing for the arm in question and unwrapping the quick wrap job that had been done to it. “I’m impressed you took the time to wrap it. Did you do this yourself?” Queenie questioned, eyeing the wound once it was completely undone. Someone had stitched the wound close. The stitching was not entirely even or as tight as Queenie would have done, but clearly whoever had done it had done it before. Otherwise, although the wound did not look minor by any means, it at least wasn’t infected. “Whoever stitched this could use some practice. However, I’m surprised that you had it stitched at all. I’m going to clean around the wound and then wrap it in fresh gauze. Not too shabby, admittedly.” Unless Regan had done the stitches, in which case it was done horribly and Queenie couldn’t wait to message her following this and offer her private lessons to get her skills back on track. “This appears to be a common theme. You needing medical attention.”

Kaden relaxed his grip on the leash a tiny bit but called Abel back to sit by his side when it was more than clear Queenie was about as good with dogs as Regan was. Was it a doctor thing? Or just a them thing? Not worth asking while he sat with his arm out for her to examine. “I was out on patrol, got bit by a coyote.” He rolled his eyes at her comments. “Yeah well, I don’t like hospitals. And of course I wrapped it, do you think I’d leave that open?” He realized that was a mistake as soon as he said it. “Don’t answer that.” Still, he was shocked that she offered any sort of remote compliment on the stitches. “My uncle was around so he stitched it up. It seemed good enough for me so I skipped the hospital visit and all the fun bills. And look, I still got to see you anyway,” he said with a cheeky smile as she finished cleaning and rewrapping the wound. “I work in animal control. Bites and scratches are just part of the job. The mime stabbing was a weird exception.” He hoped. Actually, it sure seemed like a possibility given all the cookies and that mime at the restaurant. Putain, he hoped mime stabbing wasn’t a regular occurrence in his life. At that, he heard a knock on the door. His brow furrowed. “Hold on a second,” he said as he stood and opened the door. There was… nothing there? He peered out and looked from side to side. There, to the left, was a bag. A fucking paper bag. He was so sure what it was. The cookies. His eyes narrowed and he groaned at the sight. “We good here?” he called back to Queenie as he begrudgingly walked towards the bag. Time to see what horrors awaited him this time.

Before Queenie even got a chance to speak up, Kaden told her not to answer his apparently rhetorical question. She smirked. She was apprehensive to admit she had anything in common with Regan, but it was humorous to know that Kaden knew Queenie intended on answering him. For the danger he seemed to constantly be in, at least he knew how to take care of a wound. The animal control department in New York were idiots. They were frequent visitors to the ER with a myriad of bites and infections. Another knock distracted from their conversation shortly after Queenie had finished rewrapping Kaden’s wound. She glanced curiously at the door as Kaden opened it but didn’t notice anyone there. Instead, Kaden’s head glanced towards the ground. Maybe someone had left a package. Queenie began packing things back into her traveling medical kit. She had been here to check on Kaden’s arm. Not a social visit. “All good on my side.” Queenie answered, slinging the bag over her arm and making her way towards the door when the explosion happened. She didn’t know what had happened at first. All she knew was a loud sound and a burst of smoke. Moments later, Kaden turned around and was covered head to toe in black and white stripes. “What the…” Queenie trailed off, taking the entire scene in. How had it done that? A color explosion like that couldn’t have caused the stripes that now appeared on Kaden. “How did you do that?” She squinted her eyes and questioned him.

Kaden took a deep breath and opened the bag. Without any fucking warning, crumbs and glitter exploded in his face, leaving him coughing and waving his arms to get it away from his face. “Putain de fucking merde!” he yelled as it seemed like it just kept pouring out of the bag in a cloud of black and white. He backed away and tried to wipe the crumbs away, make sure no glitter got in his eye. ���How did I do that? What the fuck, I didn’t do shit! I opened the bag!” He looked down at his arm. It was also black and white now. Not just the bandage. His arm. “No. No, no, no.” Kaden tried to wipe his uninjured arm clean, but it was still there. Stripes. Black and white stripes on his arm. That weren’t coming off. He felt his pulse racing. This couldn’t happen. He couldn’t be a mime. This was his worst nightmare.

Kaden’s eyes were only pulled away from the fucking stripes on his fucking arm to look over at the bag. Something was coming out of it. Something other than crumbs and glitter. The cookies were in pieces, but they were moving, pulling themselves together to form something. His eyes grew wide as he watched the pieces take shape. They smashed into place and there before him was a small version of the mime monster he’d fought with Jeff, the one he’d seen in the alley when they blew up the restaurant. It was only about five inches tall. A chill went down his spine, the familiar feeling of when a werewolf was nearby. Only this time he knew better. Kaden screamed and ran towards the thing to try and crush it, but it scuttled off out of sight, way too fast for him. It scaled the striped wall and crawled out the window on all fours. He lept at it and missed, falling face first on the floor. “Mother fucking mimes!”

Queenie crept closer to the doorway. Aside from Kaden’s appearance, it was hardly the most unexplainable thing happening at the moment. Outside of the door, Queenie stared at the ground in horror as crumbs began gravitating towards each other. Like there had been a vacuum or something just out of view. But the pieces continued together until they began taking form. This couldn’t be right. Queenie had inhaled too many fumes from the recently painted hallway outside. That had to be it. Otherwise, she would have to acknowledge that a small creature had formed from the crumbs and crawled away from Kaden’s leap. “What. The. Fuck.” Queenie repeated again, this time under her breath. None of this could be real. She stood away from Kaden, watching him with a horrified curiosity. “This must be some trick. How did you change clothes that quickly? How did you get that mime makeup on?”

“Putain de merde,” Kaden grumbled as he pushed himself to stand up, trying to brush the crumbs covering his hands and knees. “Fuck these fucking mimes,” he grumbled under his breath. He should really go after that thing, make sure it didn’t become bigger and start eating cats. Oh. Queenie was still here. “No fucking clue but this is seriously f-- Wait, what?” He felt his face and checked his hands. Nothing came off, no white paint, but his hands were striped. What, no. Nope. No. “Make up? I didn’t put on any makeup. And I didn’t change my clothes. Or my skin. Or my bandage! This isn’t my fault! I don’t want to--” Then it hit him. He was standing in front of Queenie. And he looked like a mime. This was horrifying. Humiliating. Not possible. He couldn’t stay here in the hallway. “Thanks-for-looking-at-my-arm-I-have-to-go-now goodbye!” Kaden shouted as quickly as he could, bolting for his apartment and slamming the door behind him. This had to come off with a shower or five, right? He couldn't be stuck like this. He couldn't be a mime. Putain de bordel de merde.

#wickedswriting #chatzy #that's how the black and white cookie crumbles #drqueenieking #queenie #writing

[cryxmercy]

Does HIPPA Still Apply If I Tell You I’m Immortal? || Mercy & Queenie

When: Current, early afternoon Where: White Crest Memorial Hospital Clinic Who: Mercy and Dr. King @drqueenieking

TW: hospitals, death mention, drowning mention, assault mention, injury mention, medical blood, non-con (r/t supernatural powers), mental health, PTSD

A Fury walks into a doctor’s office…  

This was stupid. 

She shouldn’t be here. She didn’t need this. She didn’t need a doctor. It was… ridiculous. 

The slight tremor of her hands - though it happened intermittently - said otherwise. As did the new onset sleepwalking. It had happened again last night. This time she’d ended up in the street, waking up to the blare of a car horn as it swerved to miss her. She would’ve been fine if it hadn’t. Wouldn’t she? It was just a small four-door sedan, after all, and not a semi. She’d had worse. The thought of waking up inside a morgue freezer turned her stomach, and her ire at Dr. Kavanagh, who still had her blocked online (the coward), made her frown.

But it wasn’t the near-miss VVP that had pushed Mercy to call the clinic - asking specifically for the seemingly competent doctor that had treated her in the ER back during the mime-madness - but the idea of not being in control of her body. She hadn’t lied when she’d told Blanche it had never been in issue before. Not in all her 1200 years. And she hadn’t been lying when she’d said she would tell Arthur if it happened again. She would. Later. Once she ruled out any lingering issues of the all too human variety. Still, Mercy didn’t like it here. With it’s antiseptic smell that didn’t hide the lingering miasma of sickness 

that saturated everything. From the stark white walls hung with cheap artwork, to the out of date magazines that begged to be put out of their misery in the nearest trash bin. 

So by the time she was called back, Mercy was damn near ready to scrap the whole thing. But if she ran now, she was no better than a coward. And Mercy was many things, but a coward wasn’t one of them. So she gave the young nurse a forced smile and followed her down the hallway where she was weighed, her vital signs taken, and asked a series of standard questions. Allergies? None. Meds? Nope. Drink? Daily. Smoke? Sometimes. Drugs? Medicinal. 

The nurse gave her a small side-eye, but made a few notes in the chart and left Mercy alone - with instructions to change into the little paper gown on the table - to wait on the doctor. Mercy waited anxiously, finding only mild satisfaction in tossing the ‘gown’ where it belonged: in the trash. She had once again decided this was a bad fucking idea after a solid twenty minutes passed and no doctor. She’d just made up her mind to leave - Fuck this… - when the door finally opened.

The day had been surprisingly slow. Without any near fatal car accidents or wild animal attacks which continued to be one of the most prominent emergency room visits that they received, Queenie had been keeping herself busy by making her rounds around the rooms, popping in with other doctors and requesting that they let her take on some of their work. After all, chances were high that the end result would be better off in Queenie’s hands anyways. Most of the doctor’s in the hospital knew this even if they weren’t willing to admit it. 

However, it turned out that someone had specifically asked for her. Since Queenie did not typically take appointments, this surprised her. The closest thing that she had to a monthly appointment was checking Blanche for a concussion or setting a bone that had come out of socket. And those instances were never scheduled officially, Queenie had just become used to them being a monthly occurrence. If not sooner. So when the nurse had told her, Queenie agreed to it and added it to her calendar, wondering who was coming in and why they specifically wanted to see her.

Queenie often lost track of time at the hospital, and today was no exception. She had been distracted when the nurse told her about the woman’s arrival and had instead been entirely too focused on reminding a fellow doctor that his diagnosis of a patient had been entirely off base and borderline negligent. It wasn’t until the doctor had angrily stormed off that Queenie remembered that she had a patient waiting for her. She jogged across the hospital floor until she found the room on the clipboard that the nurse had given to her and knocked on the door, pushing it open seconds later. “Good afternoon” Queenie began, only glancing at the woman while reading the clipboard. Finally, she looked back up, “You’re a familiar face.” She had been in a few months ago maybe, Queenie couldn’t be sure. “What brings you in today?”

Mercy froze when the door opened and the doctor she remembered from the ER walked in. Well, at least she was seeing the person she’d asked for. Not that this was any easier for Mercy. She hadn’t been to a doctor in… so long that she couldn’t remember. Probably during the Cold War. But this was hardly post-WWII Russia. It was a tiny room at White Crest Memorial. And Mercy wasn’t a spy. She was… tired. She was just… tired. 

It seemed the doctor recognized her too. A double gunshot wound - one of those to the neck - that hadn’t been DOA would probably have been memorable. Or maybe the woman was just being nice. Who knew. Either way, she got right down to business. Mercy appreciated that. 

She sat back on the table, and got right to the point. “I had an accident recently. I drowned. I almost died. I lost my vision for a month afterwards. Vitreous hemorrhage. Since my vision came back… a few weeks now… I’ve started having tremors. In my hands mostly. And I’ve been sleepwalking. I’ve never experienced either of those things before. Insomnia, yes. Nightmares, yes. But never anything quite so severe. So I guess I just wanted to make sure there was nothing… wrong.” She didn’t know what to ask for as far as tests or anything else. So she left it there for now. 

Emergency rooms never exactly gave the best first impression of a person. It was never easy to tell if someone was a friendly person or not when their life was at stake. This woman, Mercy, for instance had been in the emergency room before. She looked lethargic, annoyed even. But she couldn’t tell if these were simply faucets of her personality considering the last time she had seen the woman it had involved a gunshot wound. Most people weren’t exactly sociable after getting shot. 

“You almost drowned? How long ago was this?” Queenie moved toward the table, grabbing at the woman’s wrist and beginning to check her pulse. All seemed normal. “You lost your vision because of it?” That was interesting, and not at all a common side effect of drowning, even the ones with extended periods of exposure to water. “Tremors and sleepwalking… interesting. Have you experienced any shortness of breath? Extreme tiredness?” She glanced down at the patient’s hand she had been using to check the pulse and noticed her finger nails. No discoloration there, that was a good sign. “Where did you almost drown? A lake? The ocean? Your bathtub?” 

Mercy had never been accused of having the warmest personality. And when she was hurt or worried - she’d been both at the time - it only got worse. Usually, she was full of energy. Other than not being a morning person. But who was? And her annoyance came from having enough weird shit going on with her body and in her head that she felt like coming here was one of her last options. So she was thankful when the doctor didn’t dally. 

“A month? Six weeks maybe? Time sorta starts to run together after awhile.” Mercy let herself be examined, watching as the woman checked her pulse. “Yes.” It was either the drowning, or having spent too much time in the place she could only call limbo. A place of darkness and cold, between dying and coming back. “Tell me about it,” Mercy huffed. “Shortness of breath, no. Fatigue…” She frowned. How to explain the eternal weariness that came with being as old as she was? Without revealing how old she was. “Maybe a bit more tired than usual. But I don’t sleep well anyway. Never have.”

Then came the next question: where did she drown. “Dark Score Lake. I was…” Mercy hesitated, but eventually said fuck it. In for a penny and all that shit. “I was assaulted. And that person wrapped their hands around my throat, and held me under until-” The doctor could hopefully draw her own conclusion: until the bubbles stopped. “I was pronounced dead on scene by EMS. So… they took me to the morgue. Where even the medical examiner concluded that I was dead.” Mercy gave the doctor a wan smile. “I woke up in the observation room about four hours later when my friend came to ID my body.”  

So. There it was. 

A month and a half was a long time to continue exhibiting symptoms related to almost drowning. “Fatigue and shortness of breath are both common symptoms of Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome. Drowning victims that survive often experience this.” She nodded at Mercy’s words, making a note when she mentioned that has never slept well. “Have you ever considered that you may have sleep apnea or some form of insomnia?” Queenie was not entirely concerned about lack of sleep. Not as long as the person was still functioning. However, she knew how long periods of time without sleep could prove to be dangerous. She had too many examples of people falling asleep at the wheel in New York and ending up killing people or getting pretty damned close. “There are doctors that offer sleep studies here. I’m not one of those doctors. However you may consider looking into it.” 

Queenie’s arms dropped to her side as Mercy began explaining the full situation. Her clipboard hit against the railing of the hospital bed as it waved at her side. “You what?” Queenie pressed a finger to her forehead, considering this near impossibility that Mercy had just offered her. “Someone’s heart stopping for that long would risk severe brain damage.” She grabbed at Mercy’s hand again, checking her fingers. No sign that blood circulation had been cut off for an extended period of time. “There is no way you could have actually been dead that long. If I was even going to entertain the idea, I’d recommend a CT scan to make sure you haven’t experienced any brain damage. Honestly, even the thought just seems-” Queenie paused for a moment, noting another point Mercy had made. “You said someone assaulted you? Did they ever catch the person?”

“Insomnia and I are old friends.” Mercy tried to sound blaise, but it fell short. She just sounded... tired. “But no shortness of breath. Not after the first couple of days. And that was mostly because I was coughing so much.” She left out the part about the black oil, if only because she hadn’t seen it for herself. Mercy glanced up to the doctor’s face as she suggested a sleep study. That would probably be a terrible idea. No, it would be a terrible idea. “I’ll think about it,” Mercy nodded, even if she had no intentions whatsoever of letting a complete stranger - likely a human stranger - watch her sleep. 

When she explained the rest, the doctor’s reaction was… well, it wasn’t as bad as Mercy had anticipated. Honestly, she’d expected to be told - again - that it wasn’t possible. That there had been some mistake. Or some other excuse to make Mercy sound insane. “I’m aware,” she said with a note of long-suffering patience. She let the doctor examine her hands again. They looked like normal hands. Small and fine-boned, with neatly manicured nails. There was a tattoo on the underside of her right forearm, and what looked like an old burn scar shaped vaguely like a ‘P’ on the underside of her left wrist. Though she kept it covered with a watch or wrist-band of some sort. 

Mercy huffed when the doctor hit the proverbial nail right on the head. “Yeah.” But that was all she said about the medical examiner. She had her opinions, but she wasn’t here to talk about that. Instead, Mercy nodded in agreement that if she had actually been dead - truly dead - then she would likely not be sitting here now. But then again, Mercy wasn’t human.     

“Insane?” she said, finishing the doctor’s sentence for her. “Yeah. It does. But… there are conditions that mimic death to the point where even a doctor might be fooled. Catalepsy. The Lazarus Phenomenon. Fugu toxin. Even severe hypothermia.” Or being immortal. But it wasn’t as if Mercy could just come out and say that, could she? No matter how much the incident had affected her. 

Mercy hummed quietly, acknowledging the question about the assault. “Yeah. I was out by the lake. I walk at night when I can’t sleep,” she gave as an explanation, since ‘I was helping an exorcist and a supernatural bounty hunter kill and banish a squid-demon back to it’s own dimension’ would most certainly get her a psych workup. “This guy - I think he was drunk or on something - figured he could mug me. Didn’t expect me to fight back. He got the upper hand.” Mercy shrugged, as if it was no big deal. “Yeah, he’s... taken care of.” Not a lie, technically. But she wasn’t about to out Nic when it wasn’t his fault. 

“Why?”

“That sounds awful for you and your friend. I can’t imagine what that must have been like to wake up to.” Though Queenie was not entirely interested in the woman’s individual experience, she had to admit that it was fascinating to consider. How could someone have come back after that long without any permanent damage being done? 

The woman named off explanations for her sudden brush with dead and Queenie crossed her arms, “So you know a bit about medicine then? That’s quite impressive” Queenie didn’t use the term lightly, but liked to give credit where credit was due. Most of those were uncommon phenomena that rarely occurred and were even less frequently diagnosed as such. It was easy to pass things off as miracles or unexplainable. Lesser doctors were easily willing to except those explanations at times, whether it was because they were too incompetent to seek out the truth for themselves or because they enjoyed the idea of a miracle being associated with their name.

“I can’t imagine. Well, I am glad that he is taken care of. I do not drive, so I typically walk home from the hospital at all different hours of the day. I don’t like the idea of someone dangerous like that being on the loose.” Queenie explained. For what it was worth, all that time spent in New York and she had never so much as seen a mugger. From the stories she had heard in the ER, she supposed she could consider herself lucky. On the flipside, she had been in White Crest for only a couple of weeks before she had been attacked and her leg injured. Not that Queenie was willing to admit that Regan may have some backing to her baseless claim that animals were more violent here in White Crest. That must have just been an unlucky coincidence. 

“Well considering all the information that I’ve heard, I’m thinking your issue may not be physical at all.” Queenie crossed her arms, studying the clipboard again. “I am no psychologist, but you seem to be in good physical health. From what I’ve heard about your experience both with the mugger and then in the morgue it seems like you may be more aligned with some sort of PTSD. Though keep in mind that I am in no way qualified to diagnose that officially.” It was more of a hypothesis if anything, one that Queenie did not like to give formally unless necessary. However, from what Queenie had seen so far there didn’t seem to be any evidence that Mercy was suffering any visible defects following the attempted drowning. “I would be interested in running a CT scan, just to be sure. I’d be willing to do it myself, and can set up a time with you if interested.” Queenie tore a sticky note free and scribbled her information down on the pad and handed it off to her. 

Mercy had only tried to talk to Regan to explain that what the medical examiner had witnessed hadn’t been a medical oversight, but more an oversight of Mercy not being human. And only because Mercy knew Regan was fae. As the medical examiner, Regan needed to know - for her own safety as well as the safety of others - what she was dealing with when it came to the non-human residents of White Crest. But she hadn’t wanted to hear it. And Mercy wasn’t the type to beg someone to listen which is why she hadn’t gone over to the morgue and confronted Regan herself. It was only a matter of time before her denial would catch up with her. And that probably made Mercy more angry than anything. Because she’d seen the results of people turning a blind eye to one another. It never ended well.  

“It was… not the best,” Mercy said truthfully. “I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. But… we’re alright.” At least, she thought they were. Arthur tended to keep things close to the vest sometimes, not wanting to upset her. She couldn’t manage to be upset with him for that. 

Mercy smiled again at the compliment. “I try to stay informed.” Plus she’d had a long, long time to research certain things. One didn’t live for 1200 years without several periods of wondering how it all worked. Mercy had come to the conclusion that some things were simply unexplainable. At least in human terms. Miracles existed, but they were rare. Even more rare than Mercy herself.

Mercy nodded as the subject of her assailant passed, glad she wasn’t getting too many questions. It was dealt with. They moved on, and after Dr. King was done examining Mercy, she seemed to come to a tentative conclusion. One that didn’t surprise Mercy. Who didn’t like shrinks. At all. “Post-Traumatic Stress,” Mercy nodded as she took the information in. “I suppose that makes sense. I… I used to be a cop. Before I came here. Seattle. New York before that. We got…” She waved a hand towards her head. “- psych screens all the time. I always passed,” she assured the doctor. “But yeah. Okay. I’ll… look into it.” Mercy wouldn’t look into it. She knew what PTSD was. Had probably suffered from it for centuries. Only they didn’t have a name for it then. She was just glad to have checked out alright physically.

Dr. King mentioned a CT scan and handed Mercy a sticky note. “Thanks,” Mercy told Dr. King, tucking the note away in a pocket after she’d read over it. “I’ll think about it and let you know She’d talk to Arthur first, before she made any decisions. Who knew what the brain of a 1200 year old immortal would look like on a scan like that? It might invite more trouble than it was worth. 

“I would be interested in hearing about any further symptoms or experiences that you may have regarding this. Being legally dead that long is practically unheard of, even with the medical examples that Mercy had given. It could be valuable information to study. Not nearly as much of a medical marvel as someone with wings, but still fascinating stuff. If Queenie were a skeptic, she may even consider that Maine or White Crest truly did have something that caused it to be more susceptible to anomalies. If Queenie were willing to make an hypothesis based purely on a string of unrelated coincidences.

Based on the new information, PTSD seemed even more lucky. So Queenie nodded, “Between that and then your recent attack, I would say it’s not unlikely. It may be worth looking into at the very least.” Though Queenie herself had always considered psychology to be more medically adjacent than a study of medicine in itself, she at least acknowledged that sometimes symptoms were outside of her own physical control. Even if she thought that psychiatrists were glorified counselors that liked to play pharmacist. 

Though Queenie did not hold out much hope that Mercy would be returning for a CT scan anytime soon, she also had other things that she could be focusing on instead. She did not have much concern what Mercy did either way. “Well, you have my contact information. If any symptoms get worse please feel free to contact me. Apparently, I make house calls now.” Queenie stated sarcastically, adding in “At least the town seems to think so.” beneath her breath. “If there’s nothing else bothering you at the moment, then I’d guess that you’re good to go.”

The request to hear more about Mercy’s experience of being ‘legally dead’ for almost four hours wasn’t all that surprising. She could understand the curiosity from a medical standpoint - cheating death was what doctors did, wasn’t it? - and part of her even relished the idea that Dr. King was willing to discuss it. To learn. But Mercy wasn’t going to be a science experiment. She’d taken a risk revealing what she had. But Dr. King had been kind, and she’d listened seemingly without bias. So Mercy granted her one thing. “It’s very dark... and very cold,” she said of her experience with ‘death.’ “Wherever I was, I don’t ever wish to return.” She gave Dr. King a small, tight smile. 

As for the rest. “I’ll give it some thought.” And she would. Not a lot, because she wasn’t about to let some human head doctor try and psychoanalyze her. It wouldn’t end well. For either party. Would Mercy be coming back for a head scan too? Also not likely. She’d checked out physically, so that was good enough for her. It might even satisfy Arthur’s insistence that she get herself checked over. Well, now she had. And she was fine. So when Dr. King started to wrap up, Mercy was quite ready to be on her way. She gave Dr. King a small smirk. “Be careful with that around here,” she said of the house calls. “You never know who you’ll run into.” Or what. “People’ll start to take advantage.”

After thanking the doctor for her time, Mercy agreed that if anything new or concerning came up, she’d be sure to call. Though Mercy’s definition of ‘concerning’ was likely far, far different than Dr. King’s. 

~

#wickedswriting #chatzy #p: queenie #p: does hippa still apply if I tell you I'm immortal? #medical blood tw #assault tw #mental health tw

[theskyeandsea]

Emergen-Sea Assistance || Queenie & Skylar

Timing: May 9th, 2020

Location: Vicker’s Beach

Tagging: @drqueenieking

Description: While out for a light walk on the beach, Queenie encounters a gravely injured Skylar. Takes place after this chatzy.

TW: Medical Blood

Skylar didn’t swim so much as she let the river’s current drag her far, far away, her injured fin jostled and leaving a trail of blood that streamed behind her as she forced herself away. She had to get away, she had to run. But, as she continued to be pulled away from land, she could feel the adrenaline that had once coursed through her body run dry. Its absence left her weary, cold, and aching all over. As her eyes began to struggle to stay open, Skylar’s bit into the side of her cheek, the sharp points of her teeth digging slightly into her flesh. She had to stay awake. She had to get to land. She couldn’t tell where she was, but something in her gut told her that she was no longer in the river. The water felt different, colder, harsher. More dangerous. 

Surfacing, Skylar blinked and looked around, trying to find land. But, all that stared back at her was the dark, endless expanse of sea. Swiveling around, it took her a long moment before she realized that she was in the ocean. Without even meaning to, she had been pulled out to sea. She forced back the sharp wave of panic that threatened to overwhelm her at the prospect of being out at sea. In the day, the ocean looked beautiful, welcoming almost-- when viewed from the safety of land. But here? Now? It seemed just as dark and as violent as the hunter who had attacked her only moments before. She needed to get to shore. Much to her surprise, swimming to shore wasn’t as difficult as she thought. The tides, they pushed her to the shore, as though the ocean was rejecting her as much as she rejected the water. The sand rubbed against her stomach and she forced herself to focus on that sensation, grounding her.

With a great heave of energy, Skylar forced herself from her skin and lay on the beach, panting. The wound on her newly human leg bled anew, the liquid puddling in the sand. Exhaustion filled her, so much so that Skylar was barely even aware of the footsteps approaching.

There was no reason for Queenie to be on the beach. She had the night off and her husband was at work. It had been her own idea to try to explore the area more, try to learn about the area he seemed to love so much. Queenie never cared much for the ocean, but her husband liked the water and so she decided to wait until later in the evening to explore it. That way she could avoid crowds of other people butting into her exploration. 

It seemed that was inevitable though, as she trailed the beach and noticed darkened figures crumpled near the water. Upon closer inspection she realized that one of those figures was a girl. “Shit.” Queenie groaned, picking up her pace to jog over to the victim to get a better look. “You better not be dead.” She commanded the body, dropping down to her knees and pulling her cell phone free to flick on the flashlight and get a better look. A girl, twenties maybe, in a bathing suit an just barely conscious. The most obvious wound was on her calf. The tide hadn’t helped the view, mixing water with blood and coating the entire leg. The wound seemed fresh, but it had been bleeding for a while. On first inspection it looked like some kind of puncture wound. “Hey, are you awake?” Queenie snapped at the girl, trying to gain her attention, “I’m calling 911.” She motioned, beginning to root through her purse for her phone.

Her vision was hazy, but through the fog, Skylar was able to tell that there was someone near her. Someone talking, saying things. Things she couldn’t hear. Without the help of her hearing aids, the world around her was muted, dulled. She couldn’t entirely make out what the words were, no matter how hard she tried. That is, until she heard the words “911.” Panic ran through Skylar’s exhausted body and she grabbed at the woman, her fingers weak as she gripped her wrist. “No. Please… I can’t. I can’t go to the hospital.” She said, shivering violently as she spoke. Her mouth, no longer filled with blood, was still full of her inhuman, seal teeth. And they shone in the moonlight as she stared, beseechingly up at the woman who was next to her. “I can’t… Please. I can’t.” She said, as she tried to crawl towards the seal skin that lay next to her on the beach. She needed it, she needed it to be with her. Maybe if she could just… curl up with her skin, the pain would go away.

The girl was unresponsive, possibly in shock. At least, that was Queenie’s theory, until the girl finally spoke up. No hospital? Of course it was suspicious, not wanting to go to a hospital. Especially when she was so clearly in pain. But it wasn’t Queenie’s first rodeo with people who couldn’t go to a hospital. They all had their reasons, and Queenie was never particularly interested in any of them. As long as they were alive once Queenie was done, she didn’t care where the treatment was administered. The most disappointing thing about it was that she performed impressively well under the pressure. She wished her peers had been around to witness some of her impromptu surgeries. After they had gotten over all the policy violations, they would have been impressed. Even Regan. Okay, maybe not Regan. 

“I need to get a better look at the wound then.” Queenie spoke, not so much a suggestion or a question as it was a warning to the girl before Queenie grabbed ahold of her leg and lifted it, shining her light closer to the wound. If she could contrast the blood soaking her leg from the actual wound she could get a better idea of how to stop the bleeding. It was clearly some sort of puncture wound. “Did you get stabbed? Or shot?” bullet wounds presented more unknown factors than a clean stab, but both were treatable. 

First thing first was to stop the bleeding. Luckily, ever since she had been attacked in the alleyway and saved by that alarmingly strong child, Queenie had decided to be a bit more prepared for situations like these. She pulled the bandana from her purse, using it to wrap around the girl’s leg and pull it tightly, not letting up until she heard a sign of pain from the girl. It needed to be tight. “I need to make sure the wound is clean. I can’t do that with sand everywhere. We’re going to have to move you to solid ground.” Another statement, Queenie was already climbing up, not giving the girl much of a choice in forcing herself up as well. She would be able to use Queenie as a support to get off of the beach. Plus, this would help to keep her conscious and could make her more responsive. She needed the girl to be responsive.

The woman was saying something, something about her wound..? Skylar’s head was spinning as she tried to focus on the words, but it was hard. It was so hard to make out the specifics. But, when the woman grabbed her leg, pulling it closer to her, she let out a cry of pain. Her leg was filled with burning, searing pain that jolted her awake, sent her heart pounding. The agony, sharp and intense, ran up her calf all the way to the top of her thigh. Gasping, Skylar sat up and grasped at her eyes. Her blue eyes stared at the woman, not entirely coherent or truly seeing the person who was helping her. “Shot. I was… He shot me.” She managed. The woman began to pull something out of her bag and Skylar leaned back down in the sand, what little energy the pain had summoned fading out of her body. She was just so… tired. So cold. She wanted to curl up under her skin and just… sleep. Maybe if she could just sleep it off, this would all be over. And she would wake up, the memory nothing more than a nightmare.

Another sharp wave of pain ran through her and she let out a small whimper of pain as the woman tied something around her leg. She felt herself being hauled to her feet, the woman moving her off the beach. Leaving her skin behind. Panic overwhelmed her-- she needed her skin, she had to have her skin. Even through the pain that wracked her, she had to keep it with her, she had to have it near. Because, without it, she may as well have let the hunter finish her off. “The pelt-- I need… it’s mine. I need it. I need it.” She begged, staring up at her rescuer with unfocused eyes. “I’ll… I don’t care what happens, but I need it.” Skylar heard herself say the words and realized, dimly, that she meant them. What… what did that mean? She couldn’t bare to think about that right now.

The girl was responsive, but hardly. Queenie supposed that it was better than nothing. At least she was conscious. And mostly able to move, though that may have been more from Queenie’s insistence more than the girl’s actual ability to get around. It couldn’t be that easy though, as the next moment the girl was whining about the… mass that was on the beach next to her when Queenie arrived. Queenie had assumed it was some kind of dead animal and left it alone, but apparently this girl was attached to that pile of animal blubber. “Fine, fine. Just stop freaking out.” Queenie groaned, rolling her eyes as she helped moved the girl across the sand, “You help me get you over to the boardwalk and I’ll come back and get it. She couldn’t carry both right now, not when she was already supporting most of the girl’s weight. The two were able to get onto the boardwalk and make it to a shower along the beach. Typically it was used to wash sand off of recent beach goers. Tonight, it was going to be their main source for cleaning the wound. Queenie flipped the water on and directed the girl, “Run your leg under this water, try to wash off as much of the blood as possible before I get back.” Then Queenie was off, making her way back across the beach against her better judgement and grabbing onto the… skin? It seemed like a seal or whale skin, but no matching body to go with it. Why the hell did this girl have that skin in the first place? Never mind explaining why she was so attached to it. She hadn’t wanted the police involved, maybe she was some kind of rare animal smuggler. But Queenie didn’t want to know all of that information. Instead she lifted the skin, it was heavier than it looked. She mostly dragged the skin back towards the boardwalk to get back to treating the girl.

Skylar wasn’t entirely sure what the woman was saying, the heavy cloud of silence weighed heavily on her and she could barely focus her thoughts. But, she seemed to be nodding? She couldn’t really question the woman’s gesture, or say much more, as she found herself being dragged up off the beach and towards one of the open air shower stalls. Slumping onto the concrete, Skylar shivered. Her whole body trembled as the water began to spray down on her and the sudden coldness made her sputter and gasp. Wiping water from her eyes, Skylar nodded and did her best to angle her leg under the stream. The water turned a bright red color as it pooled in the drain and she bit the inside of her cheek at the pain. Her calf looked as though someone had taken a neat scoop out of it, like someone had just… pulled part of her skin away. But, there was no hole. The bullet must have missed her? Dimly, Skylar realized the woman had walked up again and she held her hands out, too tired to ask. She needed the pelt. She needed it. Wanted it back around her shoulders, where at least it would be safe. “Th-thank you.” She managed.

Queenie couldn’t believe she had actually just drug some random animal pelt across the beach and into the arms of this gunshot wound victim. But here she was, dropping the pelt at the girls’ feet so that maybe she’ll calm the hell down so Queenie can examine the wound. Luckily, the girl had listened to Queenie’s instructions and washed the blood away from the wound. The bandana had helped to slow more blood from escaping, but hadn’t stopped it completely. However, Queenie was finally about to get a look at the wound itself. Up here in the spotlight she could see that it wasn’t a puncture wound. More like a laceration, where the bullet had not gone through the skin but nearly brushed passed it, taking a scoop from the girl’s leg. Admittedly, she was bleeding a lot for the size of the wounds. Thin blood apparently. Queenie dug into her purse and pulled out a small, single sized bottle of alcohol from her purse. She had learned after her attack that night to have something for sterilization readily available. “This will hurt.” Queenie warned after she had already begun pouring the alcohol onto the wound. She didn’t like giving a lot of warning, just made the buildup even worse. “Looks like the bullet missed, which is good. If the bullet had gone through the leg there was a chance that pieces of the bullet could have broken off inside of the leg, which would have been far more serious.” Queenie wasn’t much of a casual talker, but knew enough to know when someone needed distraction or needed something to focus on. So she talked as she cleaned the wound, knowing that the sensation would be uncomfortable. She was lucky that she had been in her bathing suit. Gunshot graze wounds were often made worse by outside materials like clothing fabric getting into the wound and infecting it. The most dangerous factor out here was the sand, that Queenie was working to make sure she leaned completely from the wound before she would begin wrapping up. “How did you end up here anyways? Did the shooter leave you here?”

Clutching the skin to her, Skylar draped it around her shoulders like a blanket. Just having it here made things… better. It hurt, everything hurt, and she was still shaking and everything was a rush of motion. But, having her skin helped. Tilting her head, Skylar stared at the woman in confusion before sharp, stinging pain lashed through her leg. A scream tore through her throat and fresh tears flowed down her face as she shuddered in agony, panting as the pain began to fade. Looking dimly at the woman, Skylar struggled to focus on her words, trying to read her lips through the haze of pain. But, it was dark and her mind was all over the place and all she could feel was pain. Pain and dread. When the woman looked at her expectantly, she tilted her head again, still trying to piece together the words that she’d said. Shooter… She could get that much. Here. Was the shooter here? “No, no.” She shook her head, her wet hair whipping limply back and forth. “I got away. The ocean. Swam in the ocean.” She said.

For these types of wounds, the best option was simply to wrap it and keep it clean until it started to heal. Queenie had cleaned the wounds until a microscope couldn’t find a grain of sand in them. It was some of her best work that she had ever done in the dark at a beach, never mind that this had been the first time she had worked at a beach. This was a weird girl. She kept an animal pelt wrapped around her like a fleece blanket. When she had screamed in pain, Queenie had noticed that her teeth were jagged and pointed. Kids these days and their weird fads. Now, she claimed that she had swam away in the ocean to get away from her attacker. “You swam? In the ocean? To get away?” Queenie questioned, shaking her head and getting back to work instead of pressing much further, “ Well, ignoring the obvious dangers I suppose it worked out since you’re here.” With the wounds cleaned, Queenie pulled some gauze from her purse and began unwrapping it. “Once I get this wrapped you should be good to go. Now that your bleeding has slowed I can let you in my car. Anywhere in particular you want to go? Assuming I can’t take you to the Emergency Room.”

Skylar’s head nodded, more out of exhaustion than anything else. What energy she had left was almost completely gone, and her eyelids were beginning to droop shut. As her chin brushed against the wet and sandy fur of her skin, Skylar forced herself to remain awake to answer the questions. “Mhm. Swam.” She said thickly, trying to push some of the stray strands of hair from her face so she could get a better look at the woman who was helping her. She was… so nice. So nice. Super prepared too… Lucky, lucky her. Not lucky to be shot, but… lucky to have found a nice lady on the beach. Looking at the woman with unfocused eyes, Skylar puzzled her way through the words. “Home. I need to go home.” She nodded, her head drooping back down for a moment as she tried to remember where she lived. Home. With Nic. And the alligators. And her bed. Her voice came out in little more than a mumble as she gave the woman her address. She wanted to sleep. She wanted nothing more than to sleep and rest and just… feel nothing at all.

It wasn’t easy, trying to get the girl who was almost certainly about to completely lose consciousness into Queenie’s car. She wasn’t thrilled about the idea of the girl’s slimy animal pelt into the car with them, but it seemed to be the only thing that kept her relatively calm at the moment like it was some gross weighted blanket. “I hope you have a roommate or someone that can help you.” Queenie mentioned to her as she shut the girl into the back seat and circled around to climb into her car and follow the directions she had pulled up on her phone. Her wound was not life threatening, lucky for her since she was so adamant against going to the hospital. As long as she kept the wound clean and covered it would heal nicely with only faint scarring. As she pulled up to the home which was admittedly large, she wasn’t surprised to find the girl out cold in her back seat. With a sigh, Queenie dug into her purse and pulled out her notepad. Scribbling a note, Make sure to clean the wound daily and rewrap gauze to keep it protected. If you notice any increased pain or infection you need to go to the hospital or call me. Queenie finished by signing her name and phone number and hopped out of the car, sticking it to the girl’s chest before making her way up to the front door to knock.

#wickedswriting #p: ea #p: queenie king #medical blood tw

[3starsquinn]

OOC Hiatus

Hey all!

So I have to go home for bit for some family stuff and as such I am not sure how active I will be able to be! I will be on a brief hiatus starting tomorrow 4/12 until Tuesday, 4/21. As such- my dash and para replies may be a bit slower. 

I will still be working on chatzies that I have going! 

For character purposes I’m going with:

Orion - On lockdown at his house for the week. Unreachable by most so he’s completely off the grid.

Queenie - Heading back to New York for the week to finish packing up her life in New York and move it to Maine.

Cece - Honestly I didn’t think this far ahead okay? She’s just testing urine and drinking at bars, cool? That sounds like Cece. Please just go with it.

LOVE YOU ALL and I will still be annoying you all via discord. Please message me if you have any plot ideas I’ll still be there to plot I promise.

#ooc #ooc hiatus #hiatus #abt cece #abt queenie #abt rio

[thefoxestalks]

𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬 𝐨𝐧! — seven minutes in heaven.

my longest “ oh boi ” ever para 𝐃𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐄 𝐘 𝐑𝐔𝐓𝐎. se trata de MICAH ( @micvhn ) y la mismísima QUEENIE ( @qvnnies ). ¡qué extraño! parece ser que la reina no está padeciendo en lo absoluto la ausencia de su rey NATHAN, pues lejos estuvo de sentarse a conversar con el de hebras doradas. en su lugar, escuché que exploraron sus cuerpos sin vergüenza alguna. esto es a lo que llaman reforzar la amistad, ¿cierto? me muero por ver qué pasa entre este par de mejores amigos después.

INFORMACIÓN OOC.

el juego finaliza cuando la luz del armario se enciende, y la información llega a los usuarios de 𝐍𝐄𝐑𝐕𝐄 como una actualización más.

tienen la libertad de rolear la reacción de sus personajes en el mismo chatzy, o sencillamente cerrarlo como un headcanon con su partner.

pueden utilizar lo anteriormente mencionado para el rol una vez que se acabe esta actividad.

#* seven minutes in heaven. #* micah. #* queenie.

[the-institute-rpg]

The following characters are on activity warning for up to a week of inactivity! If you need a hiatus or any help, please come talk to us! You have until the next activity check (Saturday 1/12) to become active again or you will be dropped and your face claim reopened.

ALE BOLIVAR- @alebolivarx ICARUS ELWOOD- @icarus-elwood NIK MENIOS- @nikmenios QUEENIE BELL- @queeniebell NORMAN SANDERS- @normanrphq STORY BIANCHI- @storybianchi LIBBY COOPER- @libbycooper​ TEAGAN MONTGOMERY- @trickyteagan ETHAN VALDEZ- @mrethanvaldez JANE HIRSCH- @janexdeer PETER DOUGAN- @lorddougan NOAH WRIGHT- @noahwrightx LIZETTE GREER- @slave-lizette-greer ANDI SAWYER- @andi-sawyer COLTON GRAVES- @drgravesphd PETER NOWAK- @run-from-peter BARRY BILSBY- @barrybilsby ARTHUR AUGUSTUS- @magicalman DAMIEN BLACK- @xdamienblackx BRIAR MILIONIS- @briar-milionis CASSIOPEIA ROSI- @cassiopeia-rosi EMMANUEL REYES- @emmanuelxreyes SCARLETT MCKNIGHT- @scarlettxmcknight ORION CAMPBELL- @enslavedhunter JAMES DONOVAN- @jamesdonovanxlust ALEXANDER BLACK- @alexanderblackxlust AUBREY PRESTON- @aubrey2-preston

Just a reminder that posting photos/interest/desires, posting completed Skype/Chatzy or text threads only, and answering memes/anons does not count as activity!

#activity warning #ale bolivar vicente sanchez #Icarus Elwood #Nik Menios #queenie bell #norman sanders #Story Bianchi #libby cooper #Teagan Montgomery #Ethan Valdez #jane hirsch #peter dougan #noah wright #lizette greer #andi sawyer #colton graves #peter nowak #barry bilsby #arthur augustus #damien black #briar milionis #cassiopeia rosi #emmanuel reyes #scarlett mcknight #orion campbell #james donovan #alexander black #aubrey preston

[detectivedreameater]

Doctor’s Note(d)||Queenie and Marley

TIMING: Before Marley and Agatha’s big bust PARTIES: @drqueenieking​ and @detectivedreameater​ SUMMARY: Marley is forced to go to the doctor’s to get a return to work note. Queenie is forced to work the walk-in clinic. They both find something more than they were looking for. CONTENT: Minor discussion of blood/injury, Medical talk

With Sarge gone-- no, with the current situation the way it was, Marley was itching to get back to work. But the Captain had ordered that she could only come back if she had her Physician’s permission, and the big problem with that was that Marley didn’t have a physician. Or a doctor. Or even health insurance. That was how she’d ended up in the outpatient section of the hospital, sitting in one of those cramped little rooms. She refused to get up on the actual patient bed, opting to sit in the little chair they provided in case someone was accompanying you. It smelled so sterile in the room, and as her eyes wandered, she couldn’t help but look at all the stupid motivational posters they had plastered up around the room. Was every room like this? Or had they purposefully given this one to her because of the dour look on her face? Scrunching her nose-- with minimal pain, but still some pain-- she sat back, arms folded, when she heard the knob on the door rattle and a little knock, announcing the doctor’s arrival. “About time,” she said, not moving. “We can keep this quick, I just need a note that clears me for work. No tests, no exam-- just the note, thanks.”

 Queenie had better things to do than deal with a glorified physical. The patient had been passed off to her, the promise of a wound on her patient file being the only thing of interest that kept her from finding some other doctor to pawn this Marlena Stryder character off on. Perhaps, Doctor Harlow. The lives within the ER were in better hands with Queenie there and Harlow stuck doing a physical anyways. But she hadn’t been able to hunt him down before enough time had already passed. Queenie eventually gave in, studying the file as she headed towards the exam room. The woman seemed to work with the police department, so maybe that would add a hint of excitement to what seemed like an otherwise boring patient. When Queenie walked in, she immediately glanced towards the hospital bed, only to notice the place was empty. The patient, apparently taking a seat on the chair instead of the bed, was quick to jump in and suggest ending their session immediately. Queenie smirked, almost tempted by the offer to get this over with and back to a task that was actually worth her time. “I appreciate the eagerness to get moving. I have no interest in working through this exam either. However, I have no intentions of signing my expertise onto a paper without getting an idea of what I’m putting back onto the streets” Regan worked with the police department, and if Marley ended up hurt or dead from going back to the department and she learned that Queenie had been the one to sign those papers, she would never hear the end of it.  Fat chance. “My name is Dr. Lin-King. I can assure you that this will be quick and easy as long as you’re willing to cooperate. You can start by moving to the hospital bed.” Queenie used the pen in her hand to gesture towards the bed and then marked on her file, “You can start by telling me the reason you’re on leave in the first place.”

 The woman that walked in held an air about her that commanded the room. Marley didn’t often get intimidated by people, but something about this woman told her to just...do what she said. Besides, complying meant getting what she wanted, so it would be worth it, right? She scuttled over to the bed and sat down, arms still crossed. Watched her scribble some notes down and couldn’t help but wonder what they said, trying to peer at the papers as she came nearer. “I’m glad we’re on the same page. I really just need you to sign this--” she said, reaching to hand her the paper that she’d been given to release her from medical leave. But the woman was already asking a question and Marley paused, looking around. “Why I’m-- is it not obvious?” she asked, frowning, even if it hurt her face to do so. The bandage on the left side of her face furrowed with it, and she gestured to it. “I had a pretty unfun run in with a bear. But I’m totally fine now, so if you could just sign the papers and then we can both be on our way,” she tried again, holding out the slip. “How’s that sound?”

 The woman sure was dead set on getting that damned piece of paper signed. Queenie waved the thing away. She wasn’t about to risk her good name as a doctor by letting some woman with a bandage covering a portion of her face back into the field. If she wasn’t in tip top shape, then Queenie wasn’t about to let her get herself killed. That would look horrible on Queenie. “Of course, is this the only wound that I should have concern about?” Queenie questioned the office, knowing full well that she wouldn’t disclose any of that information to the doctor regardless. All that Marlene seemed to care about was getting that paper signed. “Fine. I will sign that paper of yours. Once I confirm that this facial wound of yours could not hinder your job performance. If you get yourself hurt because of a poorly maintained wound I’m not taking the fall for you. So, the quicker we can both get this over with the quicker you can leave. Let’s start by removing the bandage so I can get a look at it.”

 “Nope,” Marley said a little too quickly, “nothing else.” Her ankle gave a throb at the lie as if on purpose, but she held her poise and didn’t flinch. Whoever this doctor was, she seemed actually concerned about making sure Marley wasn’t going into the field unhindered. Dammit. She’d really been hoping for an underling who was either afraid of authority or easily persuaded. And here she was with neither. It would be so easy to just glare her down and make her do it, but Marley held back-- she didn’t want to be that person anymore. She had a purpose now, she wanted to use her abilities for that. No longer did she wanted to use her abilities simply because she could. Swallowing, she looked at the doctor. “Uh, take it off?” She prodded the crudely plastered bandage on her face, held in place with gauze and medical tape she’d bought from the corner store. She hadn’t checked it this morning enough to wipe away the crusted blue blood. She shied away. “It’s fine, really. I can see out of both eyes. Can’t I just do an eye test?”

 Queenie rolled her eyes. Of course this woman would claim to have nothing else wrong with her. That was barely any surprise. Something told Queenie that the officer could have a bullet wound to the gut and wouldn’t disclose the information if she didn’t have to. For Queenie’s sake, she would have to perform at least the basics of a physical to ensure that Queenie wasn’t putting someone on the streets completely incapable of performing their job. With a sigh, she was resigned to her fate. Despite this woman’s inability to cooperate, Queenie could at least admire her stubbornness. “Unfortunately, no. I need to make sure the wound isn’t infected and is showing signs of healing. Otherwise, it’s too dangerous to be out there with it.” Queenie wasn’t thrilled either, all she could consider was the different kinds of people coming into the Emergency Room that Dr. Harlow could be looking after right now. Those poor patients didn’t stand a chance. “Let me check out the wound or fail the exam. It’s that simple. I suppose we could try this again in a few weeks? Maybe you’ll get lucky and someone else will sign off on your papers.”

 God, it would be so easy to just fear gaze this woman right now and make her sign the papers just to get it to stop. But that wasn’t what Marley wanted to do anymore. Closing her eyes a moment, she drew in a breath. “Fine,” she said, going over the lie she’d rehearsed a million times. “You can look at it.” She shifted on the bed and turned her head, pulling her hair back so that it wouldn’t get in the way. Hopefully Erin’s stitches had done the trick and it was healing alright-- she’d taken them out the other day, but neither of them had really been sure it was really okay or healing right. That was the risk of not going to the hospital, but Marley didn’t have a choice. She was only here now because she needed to get back to work. Gods, why couldn’t she have just gotten an easy doctor? “Let’s just...get this over with, then,” she muttered.

 With a smirk, Queenie moved closer to get a look at the wound. It usually was quicker for patients to just work with Queenie and allow her to do her job. The job got done quicker with people’s cooperation. She was glad that Officer Stryder was finally willing to go along with Queenie’s instructions. With the woman’s hair out of the way, Queenie was finally able to remove the bandages and get a look at the wound. “Who stitched this?” The disgust in Queenie’s tone was obvious as Queenie studied the crude stitches. It definitely had not been a professional, and if it was that person should be fired immediately. She tilted her head, studying the wound to make sure that there were no signs of infection. Luckily, it looked as though the wound was at least cleaned, even if the poor stitching job almost guaranteed scarring. “I’d like to clean the wound and redress it. However, it does look as though it’s healing.” That was a good sign, one step closer to that sheet of paper Officer Stryder was so desperate for. “This may sting a bit as I clean,” Queenie was getting ready to clean when she noticed a slight discoloration towards the bottom of the wound. It was small, barely noticeable if someone were not specifically looking for it. “There’s something around the wound. It looks… blue?” Queenie leaned in closer, wiping at the spot and then examining her cloth to get another look at the smudge of blue. “What the hell?” It would have been easy to assume this was some kind of infection, but it was unlike any infection that Queenie had seen before. If she had to guess, it was most likely that this was simply a residue left over from the scene of the crime. 

 Marley winced as she removed the bandage. The skin was still raw and painful to the touch, but at least it didn’t hurt all the time anymore. And at least they weren’t infected. That was a good sign. She tried her best not to move her face as the doctor began cleaning it, rolling her eyes. “Does it matter as long as it’s not infected?” she would’ve turned to look at the doctor, watch her reaction, but her hands were still near her face, and Marley didn’t want to accidentally bump her and make the wound bleed. If she could just get out of this before the doctor noticed her blood, it would-- shit. Marley did turn to look this time, pausing. “It’s-- that’s normal. Don’t worry about it. It’s just blood. I have a rare blood disease,” she recited, as if reading from a card. It’s what Peter had taught her to say if people ever saw her blood. Normal people. Explaining her blue blood to people like Anita and Jane was easy. Erin, too, even if she’d been a little weirded out at first as well. “Just...do what you normally would do. Don’t mind it.”

 “Medically, I suppose not. Though poor stitching can lead to scarring.” Perhaps this woman would think that a scar was cool or rad. She certainly seemed the type to not worry about a few scars. If she was reckless enough to be itching to go back into the field despite the large facial wound, Queenie was willing to bet that she already had a few scars of her own around her persons. The fact was that scarring was not Queenie’s problem. And considering that this Marlene was still rushing the doctor, she did not seem to care about the scarring either. Queenie was ready to redress the wound when the officer said something truly perplexing. “A rare medical condition?” Queenie held the gauze in hand, stopping midway towards the woman’s face. “I’ll admit you have me a bit intrigued. I’ve heard of cyanosis before. It’s discolored skin, usually blue or purple that can be caused by a rare disease known as methemoglobinemia. However I have never heard of something like this causing blue blood.” Queenie reached to examine the smeared so-called blood on the old bandaging again and studied it further. The blue was rich in color, far too bright to be any dark blue or purple condition caused by heightened methemoglobin in the blood. “What is this rare blood disease? Should this be something that I should be worried about regarding your physical?” Honestly, Queenie thought of this woman as nothing short of crazy. Perhaps playing an bad joke on the doctor that held her career on the thin piece of paper she had yet to sign. Still, Regan’s own medical condition rang in the back of Queenie’s head. Regan had mentioned herself that she thought there was something about this town. Could this be further proof of that? More undiscovered medical conditions gathered within the same small town?

 Marley found herself only slightly offended on Erin’s behalf, but she’d know that when she’d gone to her. Erin wasn’t a doctor, and stitching up live flesh was much different than stitching up dead flesh. She shook her head of the thoughts and focused back on the woman. Uh oh. She was suddenly interested in Marley’s rare “condition”. Biting her lip, Marley shrugged, looking away. “I dunno what it’s called, I haven’t really had a diagnoses or whatever. Didn’t really feel like letting doctors poke and prod me and shit. I just know my blood lacks copper,” she explained, wondering how she could keep this away from the supernatural conversation. Doctors didn’t understand. God, she’d kill for a supernatural doctor to be in town. Was almost surprised there wasn’t one. The one Peter had taken them to was like them, though. One had to exist somewhere, but for now, this was what Marley had to work with. “It’s nothing to worry about, especially regarding my physical. Just get it done, please,” she said.

 “You haven’t gotten a diagnosis?” Queenie asked, mouth agape at the very thought. Had she never been injured as a kid and ended up at the hospital? Had doctors simply seen it and shrugged their shoulders as if it was no big deal? In all of Queenie’s years practicing medicine, she had never heard once of a condition such as this one. As far as Queenie knew, this was some sort of medical marvel. Against all logic, it seemed to be fairly common around here. “Admittedly, I am having a hard time just ignoring this. And typically I have no troubles minding my own business.” Queenie almost preferred it actually, unless it was someone that she was close to. As far as patient’s went, Queenie needed nothing more than the personal information and medical history needed to keep them alive and get them out of the emergency room. This was not exactly the case, though the idea of blue blood still didn’t seem particularly safe. “And this has been the case your entire life” Queenie found herself questioning again, the curiosity getting the better of her. “You’ve never had any prior health issues regarding this?” She found it hard to believe that the woman was able to function completely normal without any changes or medical attention. “I’m prepared to sign these papers, however I would recommend letting me get a sample. I could run a few tests, just in case.” Keeping her cool was harder than it normally was. She wasn’t sure if it was excitement or fear that kept her heart rate jumping, but she was certain that freaking out wouldn’t help. 

 “No,” Marley said quickly, almost jerking away from the doctor, “no tests! No health issues, no problems. No...nothing.” Mainly because it wasn’t real, but also because Marley would do anything to never have to be in a lab again. To be in a room, all alone, strapped to a bed. She swallowed, moving her arm away from the doctor and looking at her through narrow eyes. It was becoming more and more enticing to simply force her to sign the papers, but she couldn’t get past the curious look on the doctor’s face. It wasn’t filled with malice, like the others’ eyes had been. “Thanks for your concern, but no. I don’t need tests run. And it’s not your business. I’m only here because the precinct is making me come to a real doctor to be cleared for work, but obviously I’ve been fine up until now so I’m going to keep it that way. So just-- sign it and we can both go our separate ways and forget this ever happened.”

 Clearly this woman had no interest in discovering her own medical anomaly. Not only was it concerning, it was downright irresponsible. But what could Queenie accomplish in this situation? If she refused to sign the papers the woman would just go to another doctor. What if another doctor discovered the blue blood and decided to profit off of it for themselves. That would be immoral of course. But more importantly, they would get the credit for the discovery of whatever rare disease was causing this. Queenie would not have that. Perhaps she could get on this woman’s good side and eventually convince her to share some of her blood. Nothing too invasive. “Coming to me for a physical made it my business, actually.” Queenie stated matter of factly, “However, I see your point. Despite my concerns there is no evidence to suggest that it has affected your health in any negative way. At least not that I’m able to see based on this.” That didn’t mean it wasn’t fascinating. “As far as I am able to tell, there’s no reason for me to not sign these papers, I suppose.” She pulled a pen from her pocket and eyed the papers that she was supposed to sign. “I can’t say I’ll be forgetting about something this fascinating though. If you’d like to keep this private, perhaps you should contact me the next time you have any medical emergency. Discretion is a particular talent of mine.”

 “My medical health is actually no one’s business if I don’t want it to be,” Marley nearly growled, stepping off the patient bed as she turned to look at the doctor. “I know my rights, thanks.” But the doctor quickly relented and Marley felt herself unclenching, though she remained on edge, glaring at her. Her eyes narrowed a little. “Thanks…” she said cautiously, watching her pull out a pen to begin signing the papers. She looked back around the room before letting her gaze fall back onto the doctor, noting she hadn’t filled anything out yet. Her words rang in Marley’s head.. “You-- what?” And even though she rarely remembered to do it, she blinked, tilting her head. “Wouldn’t that be illegal? You do know I’m a police officer, right?” she asked, but she had no plans to arrest this doctor, as long as she just signed the goddamn papers. Tentatively, she moved towards her, though. Having a doctor that would keep her secret sounded pretty nice, actually. No more having to go to Erin or Jane for patchwork, or wondering if she needed to risk exposing herself. “What’s in it for you if I do?”

 Despite the refusal to cooperate with her, Queenie found herself not hating the officer. This had been a colossal waste of her time obviously. The only good to come out of it was the potential of learning about some new and rare medical disease. One that had to have been rare enough that Queenie hadn’t heard of it. But if she could manage to level with the woman then perhaps the two could strike a deal or partnership. “There’s nothing illegal about seeking private medical treatment. It may not be policy, but I am a licensed doctor. And you don’t seem to be concerned about following policy.” Queenie was unaware how often police officers were required to do this. If it were just after injuries, how often did that happen to this woman? Regardless, it may be nice of her to have a doctor on her side when she was itching to get back to work. “I’m a doctor. Shouldn't altruism be enough?” Queenie questioned, though both could tell this was obviously a lie. “Your medical condition has me intrigued. Learning more about it would more than make up for any personal time lost caring for your wounds.”

 Medical condition? Okay, this doctor clearly didn’t know anything about the supernatural. But...perhaps that was to Marley’s advantage. Free treatment from a certified doctor sounded really nice. No more home stitch sessions or trying to determine how much ibuprofen she could take, or worse-- going without pain meds. Setting bones and fixing dislocations had become routine by now to her. She glanced her over once more before making her decision. “Alright,” she finally relented, “but if you ever speak a word of my ‘condition’ to anyone, I will make sure you regret even thinking about it.” And as much as Doctor Lin-King tried to find out about her “medical condition” she would never find the truth through science, which meant Marley could keep going to her. It was a win-win for her, really. Satisfied, she held out her hand. “And I won’t speak a word about you helping me out. A mutual agreement.” 

 Even before Marley had finally accepted, Queenie could tell that they had a deal. She wouldn’t have even considered the option if she didn’t have some reason to need a personal doctor that kept things off the books. Either this woman was reckless and sustained constant injuries or her medical condition was more dangerous than she led on and needed to keep it private. The reasoning didn’t really matter to Queenie, in all honesty. All that mattered was learning more about this blue blood and how it functioned. Did she have blue blood cells instead of red? If so, did they function in the same capacity? The medical journals that Queenie could write and publish if given permission. All in due time. For now, she was sworn to secrecy. “Revealing your personal medical information would be a severe violation of HIPAA. I could lose my license, and I refuse to lose my license. Your secret is safe with me.” What was one more secret among the others? “Then we have a partnership I see.” Queenie shook the woman’s hand and then replaced her own hand with the signed paperwork, “Looks like both of us can get back to work then.”

#chatzy #wickedswriting #chatzy: queenie #doctor's note(d) #queenie

[detectivedreameater]

Hospital Blue || Queenie and Marley

TIMING: Current PARTIES: @drqueenieking and @detectivedreameater SUMMARY: Queenie makes a big decision. CONTENT: Medical Talk, Head Trauma

It hadn’t been a quiet night at the hospital. Things had stayed steady for most of the night, just how Queenie liked things. She couldn’t stand an uneventful night, it was when it became harder to ignore some of the needier patients that called for help. It was also harder to find reasons to not help those annoying patients when she didn’t have paperwork or someone injured there as an excuse to get away. Queenie had just wrapped with a patient, closing the door behind her and heading towards the front desk to check in with the nurses when she spotted a group of nurses rolling a patient from the lobby towards the door into the hospital space. The closer they got to the double doors, Queenie could finally make out the figure of the woman they were wheeling. More than that, she could see the wounds on her body, and that a blue liquid was visible in the place of blood. “Shit” was all Queenie said at first, dropping the clip board into the arms of a surprised nurse and beelining towards the door to cut the nurses off, “This is my patient.” She jumped in front of them and forced them to stop their frantic wheeling. 

 “We are supposed to take her to Dr. Harlow. It was already called in.” One of the nurses claimed, moving to go past Queenie, but Queenie followed the movement and cut her off again. She let out a short and hollow laugh, “Absolutely not. You want this woman to bleed to death? Never walk again? Did this woman do something to you to deserve such a cruel demise? Now move along,” Queenie instructed, leaving no more room for argument, “You go let Dr. Harlow know that this patient is mine. I’ll be sure to direct a child to him if they come in with a paper cut. I wouldn’t want to overwhelm his capabilities.. You,” Queenie had already waved one nurse off and turned towards the other, “Help me get her to my car.” At the incredulous look the nurse gave, Queenie motioned down, “This woman clearly needs a specialist. Unless you’d like to explain the wounds below? There’s a reason that she is my patient. Now before you consider arguing with me, realize that I am going to win at the end regardless. Now move.” Queenie needed to get Marley away from prying eyes with curiosity. Once they got through the parking lot and Marley had been loaded into the backseat, Queenie jumped into the front and dialed her husband, “Honey? I need you to clear out the guest bedroom. Lay down some plastic like when we painted the room. Quickly please. I have a guest coming over.” 

 The next day...

A ringing was the first thing that Marley registered. It was so damn loud, too. Where was it coming from? Was someone playing the noise? On a speak, maybe from the radio? It almost sounded as if it were coming from inside her head. The next thing she registered was the feel of something soft and smooth beneath her fingertips. She curled and uncurled her fingers several times, bunching up the cloth in her hand. Then, slowly, movement returned to her arm, her shoulder her neck, and finally, her eyes. They blinked open blearily and the world around her was too bright. She lifted her hand, blocking the light, wincing as she did so. Pain shot down her side to her chest and back up again and she wheezed with a strangled breath. She blinked heavily again, trying to dissipate the blurriness from her vision, but each attempt yielded the same results. Eventually, she gave up. Until she heard a movement somewhere off to her right. Marley jolted, her body stiffening at the sudden movement, more pain reminding her to stay still. She let out a long moan, before her eyes opened again and she was staring a blurry woman walking towards her. “Wh-where am I?” she asked, her mind trickling in little memories like a faucet left barely on, “What happened? Who are you?”

 Queenie didn’t pay much attention to how much time had passed. She had been too focused on making sure she could keep Marley alive. Once she was sure the woman was not going to bleed out, Queenie had left the room to let her sleep for a few hours. As much as she hadn’t wanted to admit it, the room unsettled her. Queenie had been a doctor for long enough to become comfortable with blood. She spent a lot of her day covered in the red liquid. Stepping in puddles of it on the floor and wiping it off onto rags. She had washed blood off of herself, helped clean it from operating theaters. It was normal to her. But her bedroom, covered in tarps and discarded gloves and towels had been soaked in a rich blue color. It didn’t have the same smell as iron blood had. Everything about the scene looked off. For once, Queenie was not confident in her procedure. For all she didn’t understand about the woman with blue blood, how could she be confident that there would be no further complications? That she wouldn’t have an adverse reaction to medication? There were too many unknowns. This was why Queenie desperately needed to learn more about it. 

 It was by complete chance that Queenie had been in the room when Marley finally woke up. “Don’t freak out you’ll tear your stitches” Queenie immediately demanded, hoping that the woman got a handle on where she was quickly before she had a complete conniption. “It’s me, Queenie. You’re at my house.” Queenie had pushed down any of the unease or worry that she had held before. Marley and Queenie had a deal, this was simply part of that. Nothing more. “You’ll want to avoid moving too much for the time being. The pain medication may help, but it is not a fix-all.” Queenie moved closer to the bed, side stepping a heap of towels that had gathered on the floor. “Do you remember what happened to you? You were in rough shape when you were brought into the hospital.”

 More stitches. Great. Marley didn’t have enough breath in her at the moment to ask where she was, but she knew it wasn’t a hospital. Even with the IV in her arm. The familiar voice spoke again and Marley tried to focus through the haze long enough to recall who Queenie was. Doctor Lin-King. Right. The doctor who she’d agreed to meet up with when she needed medical attention. But how had she gotten here? Who had brought her? “Hospital?” she questioned, trying to sit up and finding a sharp jab of pain knocked her back down. She grabbed her stomach, crying out in pain. “What the-- what hap--” she cut herself off, looking over at Queenie. “I-- there was--” what did she remember? She tried to think as hard as possible, but she couldn’t find the right pieces. It was all jumbled. Windows shattering. A scream. Flying across the room. Bones snapping. “Attacked. I think we were...attacked. How did...how did I get here?”

 Attacked sounded about right. Queenie lacked the equipment needed to do as thorough of an exam as she wanted to, but it was obvious that Marley’s wounds were extensive and potentially fatal. “I brought you here.” Queenie stated simply, “You were dropped off at the hospital. I spotted you as they were wheeling you in and apprehended them. It didn’t seem like a good idea to let the other doctor’s see your wounds. Or specifically, your blood.” Queenie grabbed a bottle of water from the night stand and held it out for Marley. Queenie had an IV in her, but staying hydrated was important. “You have several broken ribs and from what I can tell a punctured lung. I’d like to run more tests once we can get you back into a hospital, but I won’t risk that with the wounds you currently have. I know you like to keep things lowkey.” Admittedly, keeping the blue blood quiet was just as important to Queenie. She didn’t need others interfering on her research. “Where were you attacked? Whatever it was did a lot of damage.”

 “Did they-- did anyone see?” Marley asked, her voice chalky and painful as she tried to speak more. She felt as if she’d been steam rolled and then crushed under a massive weight, like something was trying to press her until the smallest version of herself possible. Punctured lung and broken ribs explained that, as well as the pain every time she inhaled, and the difficulty with which it came. She drew in a wheezing breath and looked over at Queenie. “Who-- who brought me in? Where is--” Erin. Erin had been there with her, right? Marley blinked and for a moment, the world went black again. Her eyes dilated as the room around her unfocused. When she came back to herself, it was as if no time had passed, and she stared at Queenie again. “I can’t remember.”

 “A couple of nurses that I apprehended, but no one other than that.” Queenie explained, pulling her phone out to read the message she received, “From the file I had someone send me, you were resuscitated when you first got to the hospital. It must have been right before I got apprehended you. So clearly, your wounds are serious. I’m going to set up a few tests at the hospital. Once I’m sure that you have no risk of exposing your condition to anyone else we can sneak in through the back. I want to see if you have any other fractures or broken bones aside from what I could immediately assess.” Marley began asking a question, but before Queenie even had the chance to respond Marley seemingly lost consciousness again. Queenie moved over to check the woman’s pulse and relaxed when she found it. After that, Queenie waited patiently for a few more minutes until Marley seemed to come back around. “I don’t know who dropped you off. But if you remember, I can reach out to them for you. For now, it looks like you need to get some more rest.” 

 “Resusci--” Marley started, her breath heavy, so heavy in her chest. She gasped to get enough air. “That means I--” she swallowed the word down. She knew what it meant, Queenie knew what it meant. She didn’t need to say it. “Erin,” she said quickly, when her breath came back to her, “Erin, she-- where is she? She was-- and Felix--” tried to sit up again. She couldn’t remember quite what they were doing, but she knew they were with her. She knew she needed to get to them, to help them. “Where are they? I need to--” but something too painful glued her to the bed, she could barely lift her arms. It shook as she moved it with great effort, reaching for the edge of the bed. “It was Erin,” she said, “it was probably Erin. She was there, too. I think--” clenched her jaw as her head began to pound. Grabbed it with her other hand, pressing her palm firmly against her temple. “Please...my p-phone,” she said, hand clawing around for it. “Where is..” 

 Queenie nodded her head. They did both know what resuscitated implied. Though Queenie was quick to try to calm Marley as much as she could, “It’s not as uncommon as one may think, actually.” Queenie had never been an expert at soothing patients. She preferred honesty over kind words and she usually felt that her actions more than made up for any shortcomings she had when it came to pleasantries. “I don’t know an Erin or a Felix” Queenie shook her head as Marley wrestled against the bed, trying to move but too exhausted to do so. “What you need to do is relax. You won’t be able to get to them if you rip your stitches or puncture your other lung.” This behavior didn’t surprise her. If their first introduction hadn’t been clue enough, Marley seemed rather impatient. “Your phone is on the nightstand. Though I’d be happy to contact both of them for you. Just so they know that you’re alright. Would they be injured too?”

 “Punctured my--” Marley started, but then stopped. “Right, you...said that.” Sucking in another heavy breath, wheezing, she used the last of her energy to look at Queenie. “Erin, you have to-- tell her I’m okay,” she huffed out, before letting her body settle back on the bed. Her entire body deflated, as if the air were draining out of her, and she sank into the mattress and blankets, head on the pillow. Droopy eyes stared up at the ceiling. “I’m just...tired,” she mumbled, already feeling herself slipping from consciousness. “Can I just-- sleep for a bit more?” Just a little longer, she thought to herself. Just let her sleep a little longer. Whatever had happened, it was bad, she knew that. But the weight pressing down on her told her that, right now, there was nothing she could do. Powerless, she bent under the pressure and let the weariness take her.

 Queenie nodded, “Fine, fine. I’ll contact this Erin for you. I’ll let her know she can drop by too, if you want.” Marley was suddenly tired again, which was no surprise considering her injuries. Queenie was confident in her abilities. She did not worry that Marley was at any risk just from getting a few hours of sleep. In fact, a days worth of sleep may be best for her. “Yes well, my husband will be making dinner. And cookies, he really likes baking cookies. I will check back in to see if you’re awake and hungry later.” She had no idea how this duty had befallen her. When she made the deal with Marley, these were hardly the injuries that she was picturing. It didn’t take long for Marley to be unconscious again and with a sigh, Queenie left the room and shut the door quietly behind her.

#chatzy #chatzy: queenie #wickedswriting #queenie #tw head injury #hospital blue

[malum-somnium]

Sleep No More

Timing: Recent Location: The Cave of Voices Participants: @zahneundklauen, @drqueenieking, @nicsalazar and Kevin Summary: Kevin finally finds what she’s searching for. 

The night air was still, not even the usual whispers thought to break the silence of it. So strange for the Cave of Voices to be so quiet. Kevin wondered if it knew what was to come. There had been a few children poking about earlier, though none had seen her sitting in the dark of the cave. They had all gone off now. It was better that way. Tide was low. Perfect for her dreamers, it wouldn’t do for them to slip on the treacherous rock. Kevin sat in the middle of the cave, eyes shut, waiting. They were coming. Three lovely little souls walking in their dreams, following the path she had set before them. It wouldn’t be long now. They were bringing the elements to her, the things she had lost. Soon they would be whole again. She would be whole again. 

The first thing Alcher registered was the weight in her hands. As her blurry vision cleared in front of her, a dim glow could be seen between them. It blotted out most everything else around her as she squinted. The next thing was the cool touch of rock under her bare feet. She did not slip or falter as she walked along them. Her body carried itself until it came to a dark cave, lit mostly by the object in her hand. It felt soft and cool against her hands as well, much smoother than the rocks digging holes into the pads of her feet. She did not know where she was, only that there was someone already here, and more coming. Her body stood stiff as she came to a stop. She opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out. The figure in front of her swayed, blurry, in and out of her vision. Who are you? Her mouth begged to say. Where am I? Her eyes asked.

Nicole’s steps were determined as she entered the Cave of Voices. It hadn’t been easy, driving all the way to the docks. Then the climbing. Stepping in a few puddles inside the cave was nothing in comparison. But as she blinked back into consciousness, she felt the familiar jolt of fear in the pit of her stomach. Worried brown eyes scanned her surroundings as she blinked into consciousness. Confused, the bag she held in her hand almost dropped to her feet. Her grip tightened just before it could slip from her fingers. Disoriented and frozen on the spot, there was a sense of deja vu. It wasn’t the first time she had woken up in the middle of sleepwalking. It was the first time, however, where she was unable to panic. If the adrenaline running through her veins was any indication, the stakes were high. Her own feelings could wait. “What…” she opened her mouth to speak, all her thoughts vanishing before she could string more words. She turned to her side, to the person carrying the only source of light in the cave, then to the figure ahead of them. She couldn’t make out who it was.

Queenie shivered back to consciousness. Her foggy memory was only enhanced by the darkness of her surroundings. There was nothing more than dim lighting and the cold bit at her as she slowly started to realize that she thought that she should be in her home, but this was certainly not her home. Despite this, Queenie seemed too dazed for this realization to truly affect her. Although logically she knew that her mind should be racing with questions, she couldn’t help but think that she was exactly where she needed to be. Even if where she was still remained a mystery, and the people gathered around her were nothing more than complete strangers. On instinct, her hand went to the pocket of her sleeping shorts. She breathed a sigh of relief when she felt the outline of the pen through it. She had no idea what the pen was or why she immediately thought that it was so important, but she felt calmed just knowing that it was there. Finally, her body seemed to recognize the cold and she found herself huddling into a fetal position and hugging herself for warmth, “What is this place?” She managed to ask through chattering teeth.

“There you are, my loves.” Kevin smiled as she slowly stepped toward the light. The glow of it was soft, warm, just as she remembered. They had done it. Oh how wonderful! Her perfect dreamers! If only her hands could hold theirs properly. Not yet. But soon. She looked to each of them, her eyes warm. “I’m so glad to have you here with me. Please, may I know your names? I won’t take them from you, I’ve already found one. You may use it of course, please call me Kevin. Show me what you’ve brought me, dears.” Three perfect dreamers bringing the pieces together.If only she could banish the cold--actually, now that she thought of it. Some of her strength had returned, maybe it was enough. She lifted one of her warped limbs, muttering under her breath. A rush of warmth billowed from her fingerless hand, filling the cave, forcing out the chill of the waves. “There. I do hope you’re comfortable.”

Despite the new warmth surrounding them, Nicole shuddered, hair standing up on the back of her neck as the figure spoke. Eerie yet welcoming, she didn’t know what to make of that combination. It shouldn’t be possible. And why was the voice speaking to them like that? She shook her head curtly at the request. “N…” no she didn’t want to give her name. But part of her craved pleasing whoever was speaking to her. Kevin, what a friendly name. Kevin wanted her name and her bag. How could she deny it? Her initial defiance only lasted a moment, taking a tentative step forward. She opened the bag, looking inside with apprehension. Luckily, the bones were still there. “Is this…” had she obtained what Kevin needed from her? Despite feeling awake, her brain still was too foggy to work properly. Every word she tried to speak slipped away before reaching her mouth. And what about her name? Right, she was supposed to share that as well. “Nicole”. 

Alcher’s eyes steeled themselves as the figure in the center spoke. She’d been joined by two others, but there was still only three scents, including her own. Why did this center figure not have one? Who were they? A name told Alcher nothing. But despite the initial distrust, despite her years of paranoia and watching over her own shoulder, she found herself compelled to speak. “Alcher,” she said, and she didn’t even hesitate. Didn’t even try and give her fake name. Alcher clicked her jaw shut and tried to look around, but found her body stiff and unwilling to yield to her own demands. Her hands stayed out in front of her, cradling the bulb as if it were a child, a newborn bastion here to save the world. Or perhaps just this mysterious figure. She narrowed her eyes to convey her distrust instead, but did not move otherwise. “Why are we here?” she found herself able to ask.

Despite her brain knowing that logically something was amiss, Queenie grinned against the new warmth that enveloped around her. There was conflict. Not outwardly, but within herself. Battling against every bit of her that knew none of this made sense. Queenie was a doctor, a woman of science and logic. This figure, this… Kevin defied those things. But instead of fear or disbelief, Queenie felt triumphant. Because this was where she was supposed to be at this moment. As if Queenie had always known exactly what it was for, she reached into her pocket and pulled the pen free, setting it on the ground in front of her but keeping her hand cupped over it so that it couldn’t roll away. She needed to keep it safe. “My name is Dr. Queenie Lin-King.” She glanced over at the two nearest to her. They were like her, not like Kevin. Were they here for the same reason? Could they explain any of this to her? Did Queenie even need any of it explained? Everything felt so confusing but yet it all seemed to make sense. The dissonance was jarring enough to build a tension headache.

“So wonderful to meet you all.” Nicole, Alcher, and Queenie, what wonderful names. Kevin drew close to Nicole first, leaning close to inspect the bag. She sucked in a delighted gasp, bringing her hands together. If only she could clap properly. “You’ve done it, my love. You found him. Oh, I am so very proud of you. Here, lay him out carefully,” she said, stepping to the side, ushering Nicole forward. Perfect, so very perfect. Alcher next. “You’re here to help me, sweetling. You’ve already done so much, finding my things for me.” She took the lightbulb carefully. With a mutter under her breath, the glass fell away. The glow remained, a small, warm ball of light that she tucked back into Alcher’s hands. “When dear Nicole has him set out, put that in his chest, thank you, my darling.” She was so close, they were so close. Her sweet dreamers, they would all be handsomely rewarded. Smile wide, Kevin turned to Queenie, moving to crouch before her, inspecting the pen trapped beneath her fingers. “That’s it! A doctor, you said? So refined! Will you write for me? Here, let me show you.” She reached out, mangled hand gentle as it alighted on Queenie’s temple, giving her the words, where they ought to be on the bones, and the ones meant for each dreamer.

The joyful gasp should’ve soothed some of the doubts lingering in the back of Nicole’s mind. She had earned Kevin’s approval. That was all she wanted, right? But as the sound reached her ears, a shiver ran down her spine. Could she still back out? No, there was no time for that. She drew a nervous breath, kneeling as Kevin requested for the bones to be laid out. She set the bag on the ground carefully, memories of the night she had dug the grave flashing through her mind. Her stomach twisted unpleasantly when her hand touched the first piece. Never in her life she imagined she’d be putting together a human body, as if it were a puzzle. In hindsight, she really should’ve paid more attention in biology. Once she was confident enough with the job done, she dusted her hands off, shooting one last concerned look before stepping aside for Alcher. It was a good moment to look at the other two people there with her. She wondered how they felt. Desperately wanted to meet their eyes, search for any sign that they were doing the right thing. 

Alcher’s uncertainty didn’t matter in the moments after Kevin’s joy filled the cave. The approval sent a warmth through Alcher that she hadn’t felt in well over two decades. It matched the warmth in her hands, even as the mysterious figure took the light from her. She almost felt wrong without it, but then it was returned and instructions were given. She watched the woman named Nicole begin her task, setting out the bones. They had no smell and Alcher shivered. But she waited patiently for her to finish before she went over to the bones herself and kneeled. The light drizzled from her hands as if it were physical-- thick, heavy sand, sliding through her fingers as it dripped down onto the bones, and Alcher placed the light directly into the chest, whose ribs were all broken, collapsed in on themselves. Was she giving him life? Was this what Kevin wanted? When her task was done, she stood and backed away, hands empty, and looked to the last woman. Her task was perhaps the strangest, but somewhere deep down, Alcher knew she would complete it without question. Just like they had.

Everything made sense once Kevin had helped Queenie see. Before, the words would not come to her. It was all she could do to sit helplessly and silently against the cave floor and cradling the pen as if her very existence depended on it. She had questions, but no means to form the words to ask them. She had just waited for the opportunity, for Kevin to help her realize what it was that she needed to say. Once she knew, it seemed that she had never had any need to speak those words at all, but instead write them. It made sense, since she was carrying a pen after all. Queenie stood by, eagerly waiting for Nicole and Alcher to finish their pieces. Once that was done, Queenie crawled over and immediately got to work. It was as if the bones had been labelled for her and she was simply tracing over the lines. She slowly worked her way down the remains, filling in each spot before finishing up and turning towards the two that had woken up with her. She moved towards Nicole first, pressing against the woman’s forehead and writing across her, spanning its entirety. After she had finished she slid across the floor until she met with Alcher, motioning for the woman to lift her shirt and then proceeding to draw across the ribs, her pen rising and falling with Alcher’s breath. Then she finished with herself, scribbling up and down her arm before switching to her left hand to try to do the same to her either. After she was finished, she studied the work. She squinted her eyes as she tried to read them, but for some reason none of it seemed legible. Though it made perfect sense to her as she wrote it, now she couldn’t seem to make out any of the lettering. Giving up, Queenie slid back to her original spot and continued gripping the pen tightly.

“Wonderful, my loves,” Kevin said, positively beaming. They were all so wonderful, such good listeners! She could feel the energy coming off them in waves, so, so alive. But it wasn’t theirs that she needed. Still, they could give her strength. Breathing in deep, Kevin rounded the body, kneeling before the skull. She looked to her dreamers with an encouraging smile. “Sit with me, darlings. Nicole, at my left, I think. Alcher, if you would sit closest to the light, yes, just reach out and touch his ribs, be gentle, my dear. And dear doctor, if you would try to hold his hand--the right one, yes. We’re nearly done, I only need a bit more help, you will ground and guide me. Close your eyes and think of a dream.” She waited a moment, allowing them to take up their positions before she closed her eyes, a soft, even chant dripping from her lips, slow, like the water dripping gently from the roof of the cave. It would take a bit of doing, navigating to him. He had been so difficult, and that had been before he had been dead and buried for a few centuries, now he was likely to be an absolute nightmare. But as her chant went on, Kevin could feel him, a wisp of the wind flitting into the cave. She went on, her words, grabbing, tethering, pulling the ancient spirit back to the bones. “Now my dreamers, hold him tight, we have him. Don’t let him trick you.”

Nicole’s body stiffened, despite the gentle trace of the pen tickling against her skin. She wished to read what was being written, but as the woman— Queenie, reached for Alcher it became clear deciphering the words would be impossible. She observed in silence, brow slightly furrowed as the doctor completed her task. She waited for the next instructions, her hands balling into fists as Kevin asked her to sit with her. She did as she was told with no hesitation, she was past the point to rationalize what was happening inside the cave. With one cautious look at her companions, she closed her eyes at last. A dream. She could not think of any. She lowered her head, taking the foreign chant in. The repetition made her eyelids heavy, and as she began to think falling asleep wouldn’t be such a bad thing at all, a deep, chilling voice boomed in the cave disrupting the atmosphere. She jerked at the sound, shoulders rising to her ears almost expecting something to fall on them. Eyes opening wide, she turned to Kevin for answers. Her breath grew shallow as the cries continued to resonate against the walls. He wanted them to stop, he needed help. Were they not doing exactly that? What the fuck was she supposed to do?

Alcher stayed still as the doctor wrote upon her ribs, hands holding the tattered shirt she wore up so she had access to her ribs. As if she just knew where the writing was to go, and what it meant, and why it was there. But she did not. When the doctor moved on to herself, Alcher lowered her shirt and watched with curious eyes. When Kevin beckoned them to sit with her, Alcher obliged without hesitation. Though she was born and raised to be a family head, a leader, her body still understood how to follow. It still craved for the uniform movements of a pack. She sat and closed her eyes. A dream. A happy dream. Her brothers, her family. Mother and father watching as children played in the fields. Their laughter echoed in her ears and she smiled. It was interrupted by screaming. A man. Alcher’s eyes wrenched open but all she saw was the skeleton and its light and Kevin. Whoever this man was, he did not understand. They were helping her. They were giving her life. What could have been better than that? “Just let go,” she said to the man in her native tongue, “just stop fighting.” She could not fathom why she fought so hard for this Kevin, but everything inside of her told her that this was right-- that she was right. Alcher closed her eyes once again and pulled harder on her energies, keeping the man in place as best she could.

It seemed obvious that the other two dreamers as Kevin referred to them were in a situation much like Queenie. Confusion seemed to rest upon their faces just as it did on Queenie’s, but much like her they were readily complying. It should have raised so many red flags, but instead Queenie pushed any doubts aside because Kevin was there for them. She was going to take care of the three of them. All they needed to do was help her with this. Whatever this was. Through the fog, Queenie knew that something was amiss. This was something that Queenie would not participate in. Things that she did not believe in. Yet she sat eagerly with Alcher and Nicole and closed her eyes at Kevin’s commands. It was time to dream. But someone, or rather something, was trying to stop them. Another voice, different from any of the ones within the cave now permeated through Queenie’s thoughts. Begging all of them to stop. Queenie tried to ignore it, but the voice was constant and unsettling. If Queenie were completely insane she would almost call it inhuman. It had been enough to force Queenie to break into a cold sweat, but she ignored it and continued focusing on Kevin instead. She just needed to see this through.

“Don’t stop, my loves,” Kevin said, briefly pausing her chant. They were strong, all three of them. But so was he. Kevin glared at the darkness above the body. It was thick, heavy, the air almost seeming to as the spirit fought her pull. He wasn’t as strong as he once was. Kevin’s misshapen hands gripped the ancient skull as she resumed her chant. The wispy darkness spiraled and swirled before stilling for a moment. Then, with a jolt, it began to rush into the light. A faint shadow flickered over the bones as the spirit returned to them. The skull shifted in her hands, the ribs moving slightly, as if trying to take in air for lungs that had long since decayed. Sinking back, Kevin took in a few, long, slow breaths. There. He was trapped now. All that was left was to consume. But that was a task to do alone. She looked to her dreamers, tired, but almost glowing with her love. “You’ve done so well my darlings. We have him. I will finish alone, but know that I owe you a great debt. If you should ever need me, all you must do is call and I will be with you. Now, it’s time for you to go. Close your eyes and your dreams will carry you back home.”

#chatzy #potw #wickedswriting #zahneundklauen #nicsalazar #drqueenieking #alcher #nicole #queenie

[chasseurdeloup-retired]

Taco Bout Hospital Service || Queenie and Kaden

TIMING: The late night after the mime stabbing incident PARTIES: @drqueenieking and @chasseurdeloup SUMMARY: Queenie babysits Kaden in the hospital. There’s sass. 

Waking up in the hospital sucked. Kaden wasn’t getting used to this and he hoped to god he wasn’t going to, either. “Regan?” he said her name before he turned over to see if she was there. And, when he looked over, there was no one there. Fair enough. There was no reason she should be chained here just because he was, even if he sort of hoped she’d be there. That said, this might be the one time he had the chance to make a break for it. He did a quick look around. Seemed clear enough. He’d have to figure out where his clothes were, he wouldn’t make it far in just this hospital gown, but fuck if he was staying in this place any longer than he had to. Kaden reached over to yank the IVs out of his arm dramatically as fucking possible for the tenth time tonight. And then someone walked into the room. Putain, hopefully it wasn’t a medical professional. His hand shuffled quickly away and he sat up like nothing at all happened. Then his brow furrowed when he realized the woman in the doorway wasn’t at all a doctor. “Uh, can I help you? Who the hell are you?”

Sure, Queenie had missed date night for this. But despite the antagonistic relationship that she shared with Regan, she did consider her a friend. Plus, she knew how proud Regan was. It wouldn’t have been easy for her to ask Queenie to look after this man. Or to admit that she trusted her to keep him safe. Queenie wasn’t sure that she could have admitted it herself. Luckily, her husband had understood the situation. Queenie hadn’t had time to stop home before grabbing her stuff, so unfortunately she had come into the hospital in her jeans, converse and a hot sauce taco bell shirt that had “I may be hot, but he’s fire” written on it. She got more than a few odd looks as she rushed through the hospital to grab a lab coat and check on Kaden. Once she took a look at him and determined that he wasn’t going to bleed out, she had left him unconscious in the room for a few hours while she went to grab food from the cafeteria and call her husband. She lost the lab coat somewhere in this process, and walked back in with perfect timing. Just as Regan had warned, the man didn’t like hospitals. He perked up when she walked in, but it wasn’t hard to tell that he had been fiddling with the tubes sticking out of his arms. “You can help me by not messing with your Iv’s” She glared at him, closing the door behind her and making her way over to the counter. “I’m your doctor. Well, unofficially I’m your doctor. Trust me, you’re better off with me. My name’s Dr. Lin-King. Considering my attire, you can call me Queenie” She pulled some gloves free and pulled them on. “How are you feeling?”

Was this lady in a fucking orange t-shirt and jeans seriously trying to tell him that she was his doctor? “Unofficially? What the fuck does that mean?” Kaden asked. He was tempted to hit the nurse call button bullshit to see what was going on but the last thing he wanted was to have two medical professionals in his room. Or three, who knew. When she turned around and headed to the counter, that’s when he finally saw it. “I’m sorry, does that shirt say what I think it does? Are you actually a doctor, what the hell is going on here?” Oh great, and now she was putting on gloves. His eyes grew wide as his mind raced through what the fuck she planne on doing. Putain, he just wanted to get up and leave right then. Bolt. He could take her. Hell, he probably killed a guy earlier that night. This would be nothing. Even with the stab wounds and blood loss “I feel like I got stabbed, doc. But I’m fine. All sewed up, ready to be anywhere but here.”

Queenie sighed, Regan had given her a forewarning but hadn’t mentioned just how bad Kaden’s attitude would be. He was a real charmer, just like Regan. She understood why the two were so important to each other. “It means that Regan asked me to keep an eye on you.” She answered nonchalantly. Speaking of their mutual friend, she could only imagine how horrified Regan would be to know that Queenie was working without the proper dress attire. “Depends on if you can read or not, but I hope we’re reading the same thing.” She came over to Kaden’s bed and checked the screen for any changes in vitals. She ignored the clipboard, she had spent enough time staring at the thing and memorizing everything earlier in the night while Kaden was still passed out. “Sit still, you’re knocking your IV’s loose.” She warned him, grabbing at his arm to make sure that nothing had fallen out during his failed escape attempt. “Of course I’m a real doctor. Regan interrupted my date night.  She’ll be back, by the way. She just needed to take care of a few things. She was very adamant that you are taken care of. And that you listen to whatever I say.” He definitely wasn’t going to make this easy, was he? “Stating the obvious doesn’t help me. Try a scale. Pain, 1-10.”

So this was Regan’s doing. Suddenly it made a lot more sense. Kaden wasn’t any less annoyed, however. His mouth spread in a thin line across his face as he held out his arm for her while she poked and prodded. Every part of him wanted to yank his arm away from her. But he also wanted her to leave already and Regan was right that cooperating was the easiest way to do that. He really hated that. “Yeah well I’d feel bad but a mime with a knife interrupted mine. Wait, that’s what you wore to date night?” He grumbled as she made sure all the needles and whatnots were back in place and not going anywhere. “Did she say when she’d be back?” Fucking soon, he hoped. He sighed. Seemed he was stuck with this Queenie for the moment. Great. “A one. Can I leave now?” Her face said no pretty clear as day. “Fine. Six. Maybe 7. But I have a high pain tolerance. Animal control. I’ve survived worse than this. Do I really need to be here for days?”

“A mime with a knife? I knew they couldn’t be trusted. What a wasted career path.” Perhaps Queenie would be driven to madness and have stabbed somebody too, if she had become a mime. Though obviously Queenie never would have never chosen to become a mime. “Never mind my attire. I’m not the one in the hospital bed.” So it had been a date? Queenie had some theories, considering Regan’s state of mind when they met up at the hospital. “No, but I assume it will be soon. She didn’t want to leave you alone for too long.” She didn’t bother gracing Kaden with a response. Clearly he was lying. She didn’t care how badass he thought he was. Bumping into a wall was a one, stab wounds were at minimum a five. “You can leave as soon as you’re healed up. However long that takes.” She did feel bad for the man. Being stabbed could not have been fun. And being stabbed by a mime just added insult to the injury. “We stitched you back up when they brought you in last night. You had some internal bleeding, but with some rest and these IV’s you’ll be good as new. Maybe a couple new scars. I need to check the wounds, sit still for me.” She made ready to peel it back the bandages to get a better look, but she wasn’t going to waste her time alone with Kaden without some questions. “How long have you and Regan been seeing each other?”

Kaden was oddly relieved to hear her distaste of mimes. At least they could agree on one thing. He was less thrilled about her attitude at the moment. It seemed like Regan had the better bedside manner, who knew. Still, didn’t like her answer to how long he was stuck there. However long that takes. Well, shit. That was going to be less than they anticipated. Kaden wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. “Well hopefully it doesn’t take long,” he grumbled. Kaden already wanted to squirm away from her as she went to look at his wounds; her questions only made it worse. He could run, right? Just roll right off of the bed and bolt out of this place. That’d be fine. It could work. No one would stop him. “Depends.” He sighed and lay still as he could fucking manage while she checked his wounds. He might as well cooperate. Not like he was going anywhere anytime soon. And he had a feeling she was the type to demand answers eventually. Might as well get it over with. “A few months. Why are you asking? How do you know her anyway?”

“Technically by law I’m not allowed to hold you here. We could be charged with false imprisonment.” Queenie felt obligated to tell the man, whose mumbling and grumbling certainly made Queenie wish that he would refuse their services and stumble out of the hospital so she could get home and go to sleep. But she really didn’t need him bleeding out and Regan holding that against her. “But we’d both have to put up with Regan then. So pick your battles.” Not to mention Queenie wasn't especially good at following the rules anyways. “I can see why the two of you get along. You’re both stubborn as hell.” She rolled her eyes, peeling back the first bandage to get a better look. No sign of infection, which was a plus. But more than that, the wound looked surprisingly good for being less than a day old. It was still there, but the length of it had shortened, as if some of it had already begun healing. A puzzled look on her face, Queenie pushed at the some of the areas around the wound, “Do you feel any pain when I do this?” When she was done with the first, she swapped the bandage out for a clean one and moved onto the next stab wound. Same thing there as well. “Either I must be better at this than even I thought, or you have an extraordinary amount of red blood cells. This wound is healing surprisingly fast.” She explained absentmindedly, rebandaging the second wound and pulling her gloves off of her hands and discarding them in the trash. “We went to med school together. Haven’t had a lot of contact until I moved to Maine a few weeks ago, so I’m very curious about her life now. You’re an animal control officer? Does that mean you partner with the police department?” If so, very curious that Regan would find herself in a relationship with what could be construed as a coworker.

“Point made.” Kaden was sure even if he left, Regan would drag him back kicking and screaming. He didn’t know how, but he trusted she’d find a way. His heartbeat picked up as she looked at the first wound. This might have been the first time he wished that he didn’t heal quite so fast. Maybe she wouldn’t notice. Merde. The look on her face said otherwise. She definitely noticed alright. Kaden winced at her touch, but it honestly wasn’t that bad. He tried to exaggerate it a bit. “Oh, yeah, it hurts, alright. I just got stabbed in the chest.” He fixed his gaze to the speckled shitty ceiling tiles as she moved on to the next one. He knew it wasn’t going to be any better. Fuck. This is exactly why he hated hospitals. Shit like this. Having to explain it and hoping no one noticed. “Red blood cells, yeah. Must be that. Guess that means I’ll be out of here sooner than you think. Can’t wait.” Thank god she was covering them back up, he didn’t need her prolonging this any longer. If only that meant she’d leave and stop asking him fucking questions. “Med school, huh? You know you could just ask her instead of grilling your patient.” He had to wonder how the two of them got along back in the day. Something about the way Queenie worked seemed diametrically opposed to how seriously Regan took every little rule.  “I am, yeah. Technically have a badge and everything. So yeah, I partner with them but I’m not exactly knee deep in murder investigations or shit like that. Mostly it’s just a lot of actual shit.”

A promise was a promise. From the looks of it, Kaden was going to be just fine, but Queenie wasn’t going to leave his side until Regan was back. Hopefully that was sooner rather than later. Kaden clearly didn’t want Queenie there any more than she wanted to be there herself. But she wasn’t exactly mad at the opportunity to question someone so personal to Regan. Regan had always been so stoic, she wondered if that translated into her romantic life as well. Kaden seemed very shocked that his wounds had started healing so quickly, but perhaps the relief at the idea of getting out of the hospital was enough that Kaden didn’t actually care. Still, it was peculiar. But Queenie was just here to make sure that Kaden survived and left the hospital, the rest didn’t matter as much to her. “Well, I’m sure you know how Regan can be. It’s much easier to pry this information from a friend that has nowhere else to go right now.” Queenie grabbed the chair from the other side of the room and dragged it over closer to Kaden’s bed. She still kept her distance, they weren’t friends or anything, but she figured since the two were stuck they may as well talk. “Fascinating. A couple of people asked Regan out back in school. She never wanted to mix business with pleasure.” She reached into one of the drawers and pulled out a stack of magazines, flipping through them until she found one that interested her and she fell back into the chair, haphazardly glancing at the pictures as she flipped through. It was peculiar. He must have been someone special for her to break her own rule. “So what’d you do to piss that mime off?”

“Right. Pretty sure I’m a little more than a friend but sure. I do. Still trying to figure out why you care.” Kaden sort of wondered if he should really be telling this woman all this about Regan. Then again, she had asked her to watch him. She must trust her well enough, right. “What kind of friends were in school anyway? Didn’t even keep contact?” Part of him wanted to ask more about what she’d been like in school, find out how much had changed since then. He figured he’d have to play along a bit longer til he got to ask the fucking questions. If he could last that long talking to the doctor. “Good to know that’s a long standing thing with her.” Was she fucking settling in? Shit. Regan really had put her on babysitting duty. And she had magazines? For fuck’s sake. He was finding it harder and harder to believe the two of them had ever been close. Still, had to admit he was a little jealous she had something to occupy herself with. He’d take anything at this point. A coin to flip, paper clip to bend, rubber band to fucking snap, anything he could do with his hands beyond fiddle with the edge of a sheet. Or contemplate trying one more time for the IV. Sitting still with nothing to do was going to fucking kill him soonere than any stab wounds. He turned and shot her a look while she continued to flip through her magazine. “I’m sorry am I fucking boring you?” He sighed and went back to counting dots on the ceiling tiles. “And yeah, trust me, she told me all about how she doesn’t make friends at work. Let alone date colleagues. She’s also said she doesn’t consider our jobs to have enough overlap for her to worry too much. Considering I don’t normally deal with human death and cant’ even make arrests, she’s probably right,” he said with a small shrug. He wasn’t sure how much of that he really believed but at the same time, it was hard for him to think he was some sort of exception. There was no way Regan would break her self imposed rules for the likes of him, right? He turned back to Queenie at her question, eyes narrowed and face scrunched in incredulous confusion. “Putain, really?” He groaned. “I did not piss off a mime, he barged in the restaurant and attacked me out of nowhere. The hell kind of doctor are you anyway? Asking shit like that.”

More than a friend? This was even better than Queenie had imagined. To think, Regan had neglected to mention this when the two were reconnecting. She would just have to ask her about this Kaden fellow. Maybe invite them over for a double date night. After Kaden was released, obviously. Though she wasn’t sure how well her husband would fare against Regan and Kaden. Regan didn’t have much of a funny bone in her body, and Kaden didn’t seem particularly chipper. And that was coming from Queenie, who had often been described as a mixture of both of those same qualities. “Yes, well the two of us were more focused on the educational aspects of Med School. We wanted to be the best. In a way, that kept us from making a lot of friends. And also made us… unique friends ourselves.” Any of their classmates may have assumed that the two hated each other or at the very least competed with each other for top spot. That was true, but throughout that they also developed a sort of kinship. Queenie was flipping through her magazine when Kaden asked if he was boring her. “Well you certainly aren’t the friendliest conversation. But I’m multitasking.” She shrugged, reaching over to hold up the stack of magazines, “You want one too?” He probably was going a little stir crazy in the bed, though considering the look of the wounds he would probably be here for another day or two max. All things considered, for two stab wounds to the chest that was a short trip. “Right, of course.” Queenie didn’t believe it and she didn’t think Kaden did either. But Regan was fantastic at rationalizing things to herself. Of course she would find a workaround in her own logic to date Kaden. “Hey, I’m here off duty. Usually I couldn’t care what brought someone into the hospital unless it pertains to the operation. We’re stuck here until Regan gets back, figured I’d ask some questions. We can sit here in complete silence if you’d rather have it that way.”

“Guess that doesn’t surprise me. With how seriously she takes work and all,” Kaden responded. He was still curious what kind of friends that made the two women if they were always competing against each other for the top spot. “I’d ask who ended up being the best in your class, you or her, but I have a feeling you’re not going to give me the unbiased take.” Not that it mattered much to him either way, he just wanted to see what kind of response he’d get; what else he could dig out of her. He still didn’t like how quickly she'd settled in over there; “Yeah well Regan asked you to be here, not me." He raised a brow as she handed him a stack of random magazines. He didn’t really want to read a single one but he was desperate. "Fine," he said as he reached out and took one off the stack and started rolling it into a tube in his hands. Less reading material, more fidget device at the moment. It felt better already just having something to do with his hands. Didn't do a whole lot to lessen how much he wanted to get up and run out of there, but it was something at least. “Again, I didn’t ask for a babysitter.” He sighed and the room was quiet for a moment, nothing but the hum of the fluorescent lights and the occasional drip from the bag of fluids. She may have had a point. “Fine. Anything else you want to you know?”

Queenie nodded in agreement. Of the two, Regan would most likely win that battle. Both took their jobs seriously, but Queenie had always been more open to more rule bending than Regan was. In that sense, Regan was about as serious as they came. “That doesn’t matter.” Queenie shot a look over at Kaden. At the end of the day, how the two fared in med school didn’t matter at all. Because neither of them had ended up at the top. Dr. Chonksky had swooped in under their noses and stolen that from the two of them. And look how she had ended up. What a wasted career. “Another doctor ended up at the top of the class. Shame what happened to her.” She shook her head and flipped another page in her magazine. Kaden messing with the pages of the magazine was slightly irritating, but Queenie relented. Queenie didn’t reply to Kaden, just sat in silence for a while until he finally spoke again, a knowing smirk crossing her face. Just as she had figured. “I’ve covered my bases. I won’t hound you too much for information. I’ll leave some of my interrogating for Regan herself. You got anything for me? It’s only fair.”

Kaden’s brows furrowed. “Uh, what happened to her?” Not that he sincerely cared but the way she said it, it was hard not to be even a little bit curious. He drummed his fingers on the magazine before flipping through to see if there was anything remotely worth looking at. Couldn't say he was impressed. He turned to her at her question. “I mean, you covered a lot.” He paused to think if there was anything more he wanted to know. Then he caught a flash of orange. “That’s right. I need to know. You really went out in public in that shirt?”

Queenie shook her head at Kaden’s question, deeply sighing before answering him. “She became a plastic surgeon.” There was a hint of disgust and disappointment in her voice. Perhaps her tone had made him believe she had died or something. But some things were worse than dead. Queenie was still bitter that she had wasted all of her talent to become a plastic surgeon. What a tragedy. “I’m thorough” Queenie grinned, proud of herself. She had to admit that Regan fascinated her. Though it seemed that much had stayed the same with her, so much had changed as well. Of course, that was to be expected with anyone over time. But Regan had always seemed so opposed to change that Queenie honestly thought the woman might never age through sheer stubbornness. “Of course I did” Queenie glanced down at her shirt, wondering what could be wrong with it. “Oh, you must be confused because there’s no fire, like the joke implies. My husband was wearing the fire shirt. Make more sense?”

Kaden’s face scrunched up and his eyes narrowed. Plastic surgery? Was… was that supposed to mean something? “Oh. Yeah. Of course. Plastic surgery. What a failure.” At least it was nice to learn that all doctors were weird and intense and not just Regan. He wasn’t sure if that was comforting or not. Or that he really needed two people like that in his life. Granted, at the moment, it seemed like he didn’t have a choice, Just when he thought he couldn't be more confused, she explained the shirt. Well, she tried to explain it at least. His head tilted as he looked over her outfit again. “Yeah I got that much. More confused why you both wore matching shirts in the first place. Is that a thing? That you do?” Oh god, did couples do that? That sounded awful. Maybe a death curse was preferable to that. Mimes, maybe not.

Queenie nodded as if this was completely common knowledge, “I’m glad you agree with me. No wonder Regan likes you.” There were a lot of reasons that Queenie could see the two together. Ironically, there were also a lot of reasons why she was still seemingly unable to shove the two of their puzzle pieces together. She was still having a hard time processing the professional and personal mixing of the two. Definitely something worth discussing with Regan at a later date. Once her boyfriend was out of the hospital. “How are others supposed to know that we’re w- a couple if we aren’t wearing matching shirts?” She had almost said winning but changed her mind at the last moment. She needed to calm herself down, she didn’t actually know this man. “Every date night we usually wear something coordinated. It’s like our thing.” She added as if this was the most common thing in the world. “Okay, fine. Admittedly I thought it was a bit weird at first too. But after a while it really starts to grow on you. Just wait until the four of us go on a double date and we all wear Taco Bell shirts. You and Regan can be mild.”

#wickedswriting #writing #chatzy #drqueenieking #queenie #Taco bout hospital service #YES I CHANGED THE TITLE DON'T JUDGE ME