BARH-L2 || SPAM

[cannulalingus]

[ O P E N ]

[ It's hard to do much of anything - breathing's the worst of it, though. Something so simple and she hears her own breath heaving and whistling with every inhale and exhale. She's propped upright by now, at least, shaky and shaken, but okay. Living. Alive. That's crazy. How is she alive?

The cannula's back in place, her sweater sleeves are pulled well and nervously over her hands, and she keeps constantly playing with her hair, adjusting herself, if she's not sleeping it off outright. She wishes she had some of the good stuff. She wishes she had a book, or something, while her limbs shook and shuddered too much to stand, but that was neither here nor there.

She can't blame Helena. Not when she knows the basics. She can't blame her any more than those poor pitbulls can be blamed for being whipped into fighting dogs. She was raised cruel, and she was raised a killer. That's not easy to shake. Logically, at least, she knows.

Consciously, it's kind of hard not to hold it against her.

It's not easy for her to lay on her side - physically, yeah, because she's sore as hell and all over, for that matter - but because she has a strange new temporary paranoia of pointing her back towards anything in particular (or rather away from anyone in particular. But she does anyway, curls on her side and faces the door for anyone who might be walking in. She doesn't expect many visitors, not when she's new here. ]

Comments

[orderfromchaos]

[A teenage boy with ungelled but inexplicably neat hair comes over when he hears her breathing shift.]

Hey. I'm super sorry about all this. Water?

[He has a plastic cup in hand, shoulder slanted in offering. Little things first.]

[cannulalingus]

[ Well, look at him. Combed hair and everything. Polite, and she pauses a moment before she reaches out for the water.

Definitely won't say no to that, though her fingers still shake when she takes the cup. She nearly spills some raising it in a fake toast, but it's worth the effort. ]

Super sorry is even one layer above 'sorry'. [ Her voice is gravelly and croaked when it comes out, ghost pain from the arm around her throat. She fights through it regardless. ] I might be flattered.

[orderfromchaos]

[He supports the cup as long as she lets him, but trusts her to take it when she tries. Their fingers do not touch.]

Yeah, well. I maybe could have stopped her if I weren't being self-absorbed and paranoid about the powers thing. So I feel a little responsible.

[Dillon has a lot of faults, but at least he owns up to them well.]

[cannulalingus]

[ She pauses with the cup, eyeing Dillon over the rim with a bit of confusion, but regarding him evenly. ]

How could you have? She got the jump on me. [ With a self-deprecating smile, she raises her other hand, vaguely. ] My bad.

I mean, unless you're precog or something -

[ are you precog or something ]

[orderfromchaos]

[He looks down and rubs his forehead.]

Or something. I can see - patterns, possibilities. I have a lot more blindspots on the barge, but I knew how she felt about, uh, the rest of you.

[Spam]

[maced_eggs]

[It takes Mason an ungodly amount of time to figure out where the infirmary is. He goes to Zero. He goes to the mess hall. He finds the pool table again, and three cabins that aren't his.

Finally, at last, he's somewhere he thinks may just be the infirmary, on account of all the hospital beds and such. And look: there's Cosima, facing him.

This is Mason's first time watching a death toll. He's heard about it, and declared it the most horrible thing he'd ever heard of. The whole point of being a grim reaper was to go around plucking out souls before someone died: that way, they were spared pain. And even on the Barge where the soul confusingly remained in the body before being remade, Mason was upset about why it had to stay in a tolling body. What was to stop him from reaching down and taking Cosima's soul for a week, letting her body rest and her spirit wander the halls as free as she'd like.

Well, what was stopping him was the cap on his powers, of course. But Mason had a habit of forgetting those minor details.

He walks over, dropping to his knees next to the bed to be more at eyelevel]

Hello, darling.

[Spam]

[cannulalingus]

[ Cosima lets out a slow huff of a laugh, inhaling deep through her nose to get some breath in her system before she can speak up. ]

There's Mr. Charming.

[ He doesn't get Prince status. Not quite yet. ]

What brings you 'round these parts? [ Her smile is just as slow as her laugh, tired. ] Can't just be for the view.

[Spam]

[maced_eggs]

[Mason doesn't mind it: Mason's as far from princely as anyone is likely to ever get.

He gives a sad, strained sort of smile, reaching out to tuck Cosima's hair back away from her face. It's incredibly presumptuous, but he's so used to imposing he hardly thinks about it.]

An' what if it was? Would that be wrong?

....Heard you died, love. Bucky let slip.

[Spam]

[cannulalingus]

[ Super presumptuous, and Cosima gasps mockingly, raises a shaken and lazy hand as if to swat him away a bit too late. ]

I mean, I know the - know the nose tubes make me a real catch, but, uh.

[ She feels flustered by the compliment, if not just because she feels like utter shit. ]

Did he really? Ooooh. That rat bastard. [ She takes a deep breath again, clearing her throat. ] Gossiping on me.

[spam]

[routemistress]

[Iris was still laid up herself when it happened, resting the last of the muscle strain out of her legs and abdominal muscles. But she always bounces back swiftly, and by the time she learns about Cosima's arrival and swift death, she's up and about with all her accustomed perkiness.
So she comes by the infirmary with an insulated mug of what she's come to think of as Magic Soup. It was a gesture of love given her by someone unaccustomed to making them, and she treasures both the recipe and the recollection. Making it a Barge tradition seems like a good way to honour that gesture.]

'Ey, sweetheart. Well, that was one 'ell of a welcome wagon, eh? Could you fancy a bit of soup, at all?

[spam]

[cannulalingus]

[ She's older, and Cosima hasn't seen her before, not in any of her network conversations. Doesn't mean Cosima doesn't beam any less when she introduces herself, albeit very tiredly, and she doesn't push herself up just yet. ]

You made me soup. That's so sweet. [ With a deep, shaken breath, she leans up a bit on an elbow; her arms tremble just like her inhales. ] This always part of the welcome wagon or am I just a special case?

[ Surprisingly, she means the soup and not the whole - y'know, murder thing. ]

[spam]

[routemistress]

Spock and me once did a project trying to pin down owt we could do to alleviate the deathtoll. Didn't really get anywhere, I'm afraid. My working theory is that it's a kind of temporal dislocation and there's nowt you can do for that but let the timelines settle.

But some good soup 'elps.

[The soup is a rich yet light chicken-based concoction, laced with chillies, ginger, garlic, honey, lemon and whiskey. Iris has kept the fiercer ingredients lighter than she would have for herself, but there's enough to make it decidedly life-affirming.]

Someone I love made it for me after a really bad breach where I 'ad to kill a good friend of mine with a knife. I got more or less disintegrated by the palace defenses doing it and I felt like shite, and when I tasted it, I said to meself, this is worth coming back from the dead for.

After that I figured it were too good not to share. I didn't think Helena were the type to just go off at people.

[That's a question, for all Iris is doing her best to make it a tactful one.]

[spam]

[cannulalingus]

[ Spock? Like the Spock? Live long and prosper Spock? She would ask if it wasn't for the rest of Iris' story, heart-breaking in its own way and rough to hear. She's already learned some of the dangers of this place and what it can do to people, bring upon people. Hell, she's already dealt with some of it first hand.

She's never had to kill a friend. She's not sure she can imagine killing someone that close, especially with something so intimate like a knife. Seems like a nightmare. ]

That sounds absolutely - awful, I'm glad you could have that pick-me-up after the fact. I'm-I'm really glad.

[ She sighs and inhales deeply again, a rattle to her throat that she's ignoring for the time being. ]

Helena - has her reasons. [ Cosima's smile is tight but coy, as if she does know something else - she knows plenty - but she's not about to start letting it up. ] It's complicated. I guess our relationship's gonna be a bigger mess than I thought.

[ But - never mind Helena, she hesitates for a moment. ] I don't... know how much I'm gonna be able to keep down. Not gonna lie. It's been harsh, man.

[punched_hitler]

[Steve has spent plenty of time in bed, and he knows how boring it is - especially when you feel just good enough to be awake, but not good enough to get out of bed. He's also becoming pretty familiar with the library, so he stops by on the way to the infirmary to pick up a couple of books: he has no idea what Cosima likes to read, so it's a bit of a crap shoot: there's a Jules Verne novel, an H.G. Wells novel (she likes biology, has she read The Island of Dr. Moreau?), and something a little more "modern," like The Da Vinci Code because he liked that one.

Once he sees she's awake, he comes on over, holding up the books as a peace offering of sorts.] Hey. Buck said you'd still be in here. [He's still new, and this death toll idea is new, too.] I thought you might like something to do, if you're still stuck in bed.

[He won't ask her any invasive questions, but if she wants to talk, he'd listen.]

[cannulalingus]

Ayyyyy.

[ Captain America in the house. Bringing her books. If that's not magic at work, she doesn't know what is.

Besides the whole - being alive thing. That was kind of a crash course on the issue.

Her eyes catch onto the books instead of parsing over information she's already parsed over a bunch of times, and she definitely recognizes the titles, but - ]

You've got Dr. Moreau?

[ Her voice croaks when she speaks but she smiles around it, starting to push herself - painstakingly - up further on the bed so that he can have her full attention. ]

I haven't read it in years, man, good pick.

[punched_hitler]

[Oh, come on. Not quite magic. Just experience.

Although he looks a little relieved when she recognizes at least one of the titles, not to mention seems pleased by it.

He's going to let her try to get up on her own - but if she really, really needs help, he will help her. But he does know what it's like to have someone reach over and give you a hand when you didn't need it, so he'll give her that chance first.] Yeah? I admit, I was kind of hoping... you know, biology. [So maybe she'd want to read it, whether she has or hasn't before.] Being stuck in bed gets pretty old pretty fast. And I'm betting it's not how you planned on spending your first couple of days here. But the library onboard is a good one, at least.

[Once she gets up, presumably on her own, he'll hand over the book; she can keep the other two, too, if she wants.]

[cannulalingus]

It was one of my favorites when I was a kid.

[ She smiles easily, reaching out for the book and holding her hands as steady as she can as she takes them into her hands. It's not as if they're heavy, it's just that she feels like her limbs weigh a good fifty pounds more than they ought to.

But she's thrilled with the books. She even cracks the cover of Moreau, pawing through a few random pages. ] Get old it does, my friend. Got a lot of practice with hospital beds, huh?

[ She glances up towards him and her jaw awkwardly unhinges a tick; her flush stands out against how pale she looks. ]

I guess of all people you would totally know.

[fireincarnate]

[Jean doesn't know Cosima, not really. And she knows that she shouldn't feel responsible, regardless of how much she's coming to care for Helena.

But really, her office is right there. It's not chore to slip over and see how she's doing.

Besides, she just happened to have a bowl of steaming chicken soup.]

Hey.

[cannulalingus]

[ People definitely pay more attention when you're dying, or when you've died or however this works. She's got a head full of thoughts and nowhere to put them, suddenly feeling very vulnerable here - if homesick, a little - but she doesn't mind the visitors so much.

Especially not when they bring soup. That is always a soupy bonus. ]

I think people are starting to, uh - [ She inhales deeply, eyeing Jean with a lopsided smile. ] Starting to think I don't eat enough. Did you make that?

[fireincarnate]

Yeah. [She steps closer, carefully balancing the bowl so the spoon doesn't fall out. That would be awkward.] It helps us recover from rough missions, sometimes.

[She knows there's nothing she can really do, to make the pain go away. Distraction is her only tool - and who doesn't like a good bowl of soup?]

I hope you like chicken and rice.

[cannulalingus]

Honestly? Rate I'm going? It's about all I can keep down.

[ It sounds nice and simple. Chicken and rice, nothing fancy, and she smiles warmly again, albeit a bit tiredly. ] It's good. It was really good of you, seriously. I can -

[ Her breath heaves in the slightest as she twists, trying to get a look around the room. ] There's gotta be a tray or something around, right?

[bodilesswarrior]

[There are a lot of bad things about being laid up in the infirmary. In Barbara's experience, however, boredom is the worst.

So she's grabbed some of the books from her personal library - metahuman genetics, evolution on various planets, hard scifi - and taken them on a trip.

Her smile is wry as she approaches.]

I'd ask how you're feeling, but I'm going to guess..."like shit".

[cannulalingus]

[ Cosima's own smile is wry and sarcastic, toothless, but she raises a shaky hair to throw up a pair of deuces. ]

Preach it, sister.

[ Her hand flops back a bit when she lets it back down, but everything right now is tiring, or at least difficult. Her throat's sore, she aches like she's so rarely felt before. Side effects of dying, one would think. Or side effects of living, depending on how you look at it. ]

I can - can sit up for more than two minutes without feeling dizzy. [ She sucks in a great breath and nods. ] Accomplishment.

[bodilesswarrior]

You've gotta take it inch by inch. [There's a weary sympathy in her voice.] The death toll is - there's nothing you can do except wait it out. The worst lasts a few days, but you won't feel like yourself until...about two weeks.

[She doesn't mention it's worse than it used to be, and it might possibly be her fault.]

[cannulalingus]

Two weeks? That, uh, physically or psychologically?

[ She gives Barbara a smile, but it's not without its own bit of edge to it, a rather irksome side that she doesn't want to get into, and mostly over regarding her recent death. ] Kinda not something you get over too quick, I guess.

[ Maybe some people. Cosima's pretty chill, considering. ]

I haven't felt like myself in - a pretty long time. [ She sighs thinly, smile still in place as she plays at her nose tube. ] I guess that's not too new for me, huh?