Dammit, Jim!

Participants:

huruma_icon.gif jim_icon.gif megan_icon.gif

Scene Title Dammit, Jim!
Synopsis Quit tempting the Fates, man! What's wrong with you??
Date December 4, 2018

A Cafe


With the introduction of new tech to the safezone, Elmhurst's cell tower has been breathing a sigh of relief at the ease of its burdens. Some of it. Huruma knows when Megan takes her day-shift breaks, and she meets her outside before they move off together. There's a bodega not far, and the faces at Elmhurst Hospital are commonplace there. Lunch is whatever they have around, usually, and if it means she can steal Megan for a little bit Huruma doesn't mind the lack of variety.

"- -and you said you had more people coming in for those flashes, so each day it gets closer to Christmas I feel more and more like a pulled piano string." They've taken up a bench outside the bodega, tucked under a patched awning.

Leaned forward a bit to take a bite out of the chicken salad sandwich that was today's special, Megan nods several times as she chews the bite, only answering once she's swallowed it. "Yeah, I can understand that. Most of what people describe is similar to yours… although no one else has commented on the person on the other side being aware." She grimaces a little. "I was thinking about asking Ben, but… it seems like the wrong thing to do. We had coffee last week and I mentioned it, but you know how he gets — a billion thoughts and few words." She rolls her blue eyes at Huruma with a smile. "Is he still all 'I can't talk about this' with the thing between you?"

Just what anyone wants to arrive to — female gossip! The redhead looks out toward the hospital and grins slightly. "Hey… that's the one I told you about. Real cool head on his shoulders." Jim's still far enough away to perhaps not realize he's the topic of discussion. But who knows? She could be talking about
his cuteness.

There's another hospital face coming toward the bodega, and it's a face that's familiar to Megan, at least. It's Jim, and he has his hands in the pockets of his jacket that's thrown over his scrubs, so he must just be getting off a shift. It's getting cold enough that scrubs alone aren't really the most weather appropriate choice, but when you've got on a pair of sweet Deadpool scrubs — which Jim does — you've gotta make sure everyone sees. Cuteness and all.

He seems as though he hasn't heard enough to figure out that Megan is talking about him, but it's hard to tell — in any case, he just smiles when he sees her, lifting a hand in greeting. "Hey," he says when he gets close enough to the table, "how's it going?" Huruma, then, gets a friendly nod, as he adds, "Afternoon." It might be by now!

"If he has seen anything troubling, he has not told me." Huruma has already finished the food, now nursing at the lid of an instant coffee, coat closed against the late autumn. "I have an idea of what he may see, if it's really… another us." Despite the smiling and good-natured ribbing, Megan earns a daring sort of look when she brings up the Thing.

"No, we've talked about it." Meg doesn't need to be an empath to understand the rest, at least; "We had our nights out and it was lovely, but we…" Huruma trails off long enough that she distracts herself by turning her head to where her friend looks. Yes, she remembers the mentions.

"…Hello." Huruma leans against the bench and slings one leg over the other, an elbow resting on the bench back. Staring at someone is usually rude, yet there's something about her that speaks more of observation than anything else.

Megan keeps certain things private, obviously, so even if she'd been intending to talk about it, she wouldn't now. She'll come back to the curiosity factor on what Ben might see if he sees anything later on.

"Hey Jim, just getting off?" Glancing at the time, she looks back up after confirming it's that time when the shift changes. "How are things up on the ward?" She's not sure which one he's working today, but she didn't see him in ER so she figures he's been up on a floor.

She waves her hand easily, "This is my friend Huruma. Huruma, Jim." She grins. "You're welcome to join us, if you like."

"Yep," Jim confirms as he comes to a stop. "It's pretty quiet right now, actually. Kind of makes you worried." He's got a sort of joking-not-joking tone that means it's probably a joke, but rooted in reality, as Megan would well know. "Just had a really gross broken leg set, though. I think I'm going to remember that for a while." Though he doesn't actually seem all that put out by it — hey, it wasn't his leg.

"Hi, Huruma," he continues, "nice to meet you." He extends a hand to her, though catches that slightly more scrutinizing look she trains on him. Whatever he thinks about it, though, he doesn't share, and instead just says, "Sure. Thank you." He takes a seat, settling back.

Huruma will undoubtedly let Megan in on things like her memories of a flooded world from Apollo when they have the time. At the time it wasn't quite… as real a possibility as it is now. It was hard to not call up her son in a paranoid rage.

The dark woman stores away errant thoughts into their seperate places, methodical; once she has cleared her attention all for the two people with her, Huruma's sprawling ability lazily circles in around Jim. Studying inside and out, quietly. Megan knows what she's doing even if Jim doesn't.

"James." Huruma greets, pale eyes shuttering slowly as she takes his hand when he offers it. "Likewise."

"Damnit, Jim, haven't you learned anything yet," the redhead laughs. "What you just did there? it's like taunting the universe or something — now I'm gonna spend the rest of my lunch waiting for the other show to drop." Megan is only partly kidding. It's kinda what happens!

"I hope you don't mind if I finish eating. Please don't let us keep you from coffee and lunch either, though!" Megan pops a chip in her mouth and says around it, "I had told Huruma about you and your ER bedside manner. she and I …" the redhead pauses and looks at her friend, tipping her head slightly. and then she smiles. "Well, we saw a lot of shit together, that's for certain. I was going to say we served together, but… that rather implies there was a chain of command to serve."

Jim's eyebrows raise at the formality, but he certainly doesn't get annoyed — he just chuckles. "No one's called me that in a while," he admits, though without correcting, so he must not mind. Perhaps he's chalked the scrutinizing up to whatever has her calling him by his given name.

Megan's words, though, get a louder laugh, and he shrugs, spreading his hands out in a very mea culpa sort of gesture. "At least you'll never be bored," he says as the laugh fades, but just to a grin. That too shifts, though, at the rest of Megan's words, and he nods, looking suitably impressed. "Oh yeah?" he says as he looks from one to the other.

It's just how she is, the judging and all. Her eyes still shine a little when he sits, and the redhead gets a small laugh, lips curving in a smile. "The only rule was that there were no rules." Served, saw shit, whatever works. "'Oh yeah'." Huruma parrots, "We had a grand time during the war. Ferrymen had us all over. Sometimes literally, much to her dislike…"

Megan blinks her blue eyes at both of them. A single copper brow quirks upward. "I didn't mind the travel," she objects in a tone that says they've had this conversation before, "I minded the fact that you had a bullet fetish and wanted to collect one from each battlefield… the hard way." She sticks her tongue out at Huruma and grins cheekily.

"And you," she tells Jim with a grin, "will you please quit invoking all of the phrases guaranteed to make sure the ER explodes this afternoon. I mean, really — you're not a green recruit. You know as soon as you say the words Q-U-I-E-T and B-O-R-E-D, all hell breaks loose."

Rolling her eyes theatrically, Megan polishes off the last bite of her sandwich and leans back in her seat to savor it.

Jim has to laugh, and he just shakes his head. “Sorry,” he says, though he doesn’t actually sound all that contrite. A little contrite, but mostly joking, even though what she says does usually seem to be true. “I can’t help myself sometimes.”

He looks from her to Huruma then, continuing, “That’s a dangerous habit. I hope you kept them all, though. I’d imagine a bullet collection would be a good conversation piece, especially when they were all removed at one point or another.

Huruma snorts in response to Megan, issuing a squint and a “Bullet fetish?”

“Unfortunately, I did not keep a collection. After a while they all begin to look the same.” The tall woman rolls her shoulders in a shrug, the gesture exaggerated. “I do not need help creating conversation pieces, thankfully. I make do without showing off buckshot Megan dug out of me at one point or another.” Huruma’s hand briefly cradles around the other side of Megan to pull her in for a squeeze, a chin-bonk to her head. See, she is very thankful. “If work does explode later, I take requests for vengeance.” She asides to the redhead, plain for Jim to hear. It’s a joke. Probably.

Maybe?

Megan gahs and gets Huruma'd on the head. It's kind of like a cat scent-marking, but well… It's being Huruma'd. She laughs outright, a genuine, full laugh of someone whose best friend is a big badass. "I will keep it in mind," she chuckles, once she's released, winking at Jim.

Picking up her coffee, she asks him, "You said you did a lot of traveling yourself during those years. Are you liking being at Elmhurst now?" She rolls her eyes. "Not quite what working in a hospital was like before that… unless you were working deep in the inner cities of places like Detroit, maybe."

“Probably for the best,” Jim admits, of the not keeping the bullets. Still, though. It would be an interesting collection, you have to admit. And whether the last is a joke or not, he does laugh! So he must have taken it as one. Again, probably.

“I like it,” he replies as he looks back to Megan. “It’s been a good thing. Putting down roots, staying in one place for a while. I’m more of a homebody at heart, so it’s nice to be able to settle down as much as I can. Plus, you meet interesting people.” He gestures widely enough to encompass both of them — case in point.

Huruma seems satisfied with ‘keeping it in mind’, and gives Jim a pursed sort of smile over Megan’s head. Don’t you go jinxing people, now.

“Aw, I’m an interesting people.” She relinquishes the last of her squeezing there, smile growing enough to show the edge of teeth, hands returning to her lap. “Tried the homebody thing, it didn’t work out. We don’t talk much anymore.”

Megan snickers at Huruma. Interesting people, indeed. "Yeah… I get what you mean," she replies to Jim. "I spent 20 years traveling before I landed in New York… and then another fair few traveling my own country doing things I never imagined. Having a place that's… a little more peaceful… is really nice."

The emotions behind those words are conflicted — things are happening to threaten her hard-earned peace and she knows it. But that's not something Jim needs to hear about. "Insofar as the emergency room is ever peaceful," she adds drily, and then scoffs on a chuckle, "A friend asked me if I was ever going to retire and I couldn't think what the hell I'd do if I did."

“In a good way,” Jim assures, “not in the ‘may you live in interesting times’ kind of way.” Just in case you were wondering, Huruma. Nowadays especially that probably needs clarifying. He leans forward, resting his forearms on the table comfortably as he continues, “I just like having all my things in one place. Moving around got old after the tenth or so time I had to get new deodorant.”

Megan’s words get a wider smile, though, and he nods. “It would be a big change to stop now,” he agrees. “Sometimes I wonder what’s going to happen to me when I can’t keep up anymore, but hopefully that won’t be for a while. I guess there’s always picking up a hobby, though.” His tone suggests, however, that he doesn’t think that’s going to cut it.

“‘Retirement. Pff. The more I think about it the more I dread it. I’m going to be ninety and in the back of a jeep with an assault rifle.” The way that Huruma says this sounds like she means it. Or at least believes it. “Or maybe Scott can teach me to pilot the Tlanuwa.”

“I’ve been reading more than I have in a long time. I suppose that is a hobby. Slogging my way through Wolves of Valhalla at the moment… God knows I know how it ends…” Ha. She tips her head in thought, pale eyes settling on Jim for another moment of study. “Are you like her, getting off of shifts and going to work at clinics? Because there is a line between not wanting to retire and obsessive resistance.” Hint.

Megan laughs outright at the image Huruma paints, and then shakes her head at the idea of Scott teaching the other woman to fly. "I dunno… he might." She sounds a little skeptical at the idea that Scott would teach Hooms to fly, but maybe only because she wonders whether he'd tell her she's a better gunner. "You might be too tall, though," she observes practically. There are height limits on most aircraft, as Megan has some reason to know.

A single copper brow quirks upward. "You're actually reading that thing? Didn't we fucking live enough of it?" Megan grimaces a little. "I've thought about reading it. I just… don't think I want to really delve that far into all of it, honestly. The results of everything is more than enough." She lightly elbows Huruma and says, "I'm not obsessively resisting anything! Just… treating those who need treating!"

The redhead pauses. And then admits, perhaps for the first time, "I'm … probably going to have to stop, though. It's starting to get to be too much." Too much strain on her body, too many people drawing on her mental reserves. Although she's not quite 50 years old, there are a rather high number of very hard years in the woman's body. That she has only a sprinkling of silver throughout her copper-red hair along with the one very dramatic pure white streak over her left eye is … actually probably something that can be put to good genes. And there are days when she hurts. Taking a bullet or five, some other damage… it really does take its toll physically even as the number of years she spent in war zones takes its toll mentally. No wonder she's never quite managed to quit smoking.

Huruma’s question gets a smile, but it’s wry, and more than a little self-deprecating. “Well,” Jim begins, and he draws out the word a little bit, before glancing at Megan as though they are partners in crime who have been caught in the act.

“I used to,” he admits after a moment. “Now I’m doing a couple days a week at Winslow Crawford as the school nurse. I like the kids, and if I’m being honest I thought it would be a break. But it doesn’t seem like as much of one as I originally assumed.” He shoots a sympathetic glance at Megan, and while he doesn’t glean everything from just those words, his own experience gives him enough context to get plenty. “It’s tough to stop.”

She catches them both in the net, and can't help but laugh. Huruma raises a brow to Megan, “Yes, I am reading it. I want to make sure she got my good side in the Apollo chapters anyway.” There's a small look towards Jim and she is looking to Megan again. “Hear that…? It's not as easy as he imagined. But- - I expect it is far less taxing than long shifts at the emergency wing.”

“You certainly have the resume for it.” Huruma lifts her chin and bobs the leg crossed over her knee. Just in case she didn't get the hint the first time.

“Those kids could use the fear of God, hm?”

Megan looks curious. She's aware of the school and what the head of it is trying to build. She asks Jim, "How is it not as simple as you expected?" she asks curiously. Yes, Huruma, she's actually taking the hint for once. That maybe it's time for her to slow down just a little. Or she seems to at least be … considering… the possibility.

“Definitely less taxing than that,” Jim concedes to Huruma’s point. “Less the fear of God put into them, I think, and more taken out of them. I forgot what it was like to manifest for the first time, but it’s no picnic.”

He looks from Huruma to Megan then, “Some of them are right around that age. It happened the other day, and it made me think about how it felt when it happened to me for the first time. I was older, though, so I don’t think it was as bad for me. It’s hard to see a young kid being so scared, especially when there isn’t a whole lot you can do but let things run their course.”

Thinking about Megan finding a quieter job that still satisfies the tickling need to do Good- - that’s something Huruma cradles warmly in her head. Her friend deserves some peace but she still loves to give to those who need it. Huruma angles a slanted look to Jim as he mentions manifesting, lips pursing for a moment.

“That it is not.” Picnics aside, she listens in on his telling Megan about the kids. “I have give to officially instruct, but sometimes that is not what they need.”

"Wow. Yeah, that's a tough spot. When I was with the Ferry, I was working with a lot of kids." Megan stops and then smiles slightly at Huruma. "I see what you're doing there. We don't even know if something like that place would want a fulltime nurse or anything. And that'd be taking away Jim's job!"

Jim nods, leaning back in his chair again, just enough so that the front two legs come off the ground an inch or so, though not enough to fall. Hopefully. “It’s good to have people who can do the guiding, too,” he replies to Huruma. “I can’t do that except just the obvious. Try to stay calm, breathe, imagine yourself in control.” Which works for many things, really.

He grins then, though, looking from Huruma to Megan. “I’m only there two days a week,” he says. “I’m not sure if Peyton has someone for the other three days, but it might be something to look into. Besides being less crazy, it’s nice to have some variety. Keeps you sharp, you know what I mean? And even if they do, maybe you could find something similar. I got a nice hug the other day.”

Being called out on her shenanigans doesn’t seem to phase Huruma much; she gives Megan one of those slow cat-blinks, expression stony.

See? He’s only a part timer. There are five more days in the week, and three in the school week. Huruma is sure that Peyton’s administration has their hands full with all the different students- - especially because of the students. The school seems a popular enough place, to boot. Doing good things comes with catches.

“We had plenty of children around,” Huruma talks past Megan at Jim as if she weren’t there, pointedly acting like that and stifling a smirk. “She is very good with stubborn patients.”

That makes Megan laugh outright. "Ha!" she cackles. "That's the understatement of the century." Between Harkness and then Ryans and Huruma herself, Megan has had some of the most stubborn people on the planet as her patients, in her opinion. "But I can't jab the kids in the ass with needles when they piss me off and rip stitches out," she snickers at her friend.

Jim lets out a laugh of his own as his gaze moves between the two women, and while it may be mostly silent, he can glean enough to know that he will be staying mostly on the sidelines for this one — though he can still be amused at the exchange.

“I’ve only seen her in action a little bit,” he says, “but enough to know that’s true. The under-18 crowd are probably some of the more stubborn ones, so that’s helpful. But yeah, they do frown on coming after them with the hypodermic. Or, so they wrote down in the employee handbook.”

“I was her least terrible patient, I think.” Huruma thinks very highly of herself, as always. She didn’t resist quite as much as Ben did, in the long run. “Hm, no, yes, the needles are frowned upon. But if it’s for their own good…” There’s a deep shrug, high shouldered and exaggerated. It goes unsaid that she would absolutely stab a child with a needle.

Meg reaches over and shoves her friend's shoulder — gently enough but still with a roll of her eyes. "Quit that!" she laughs. Winking at Jim, because he clearly has a similar enough sense of humor to get along well in this little group, she teases, "The employee handbook has to say that, to cover their asses — but if you read between the lines, I'm sure there's a dispensation somewhere." She makes a thoughtful face and taps her chin with a fingertip. "Usually it's hidden somewhere in the disciplinary actions section, I'm sure."

“I’m sure that’s a very high distinction,” Jim says, of Huruma being Megan’s least terrible patient. While he sounds serious, there’s a touch of amusement in his expression that would probably indicate that he’s joking.

And yes, he also appreciates Megan’s joke; at least, he laughs, and it’s pretty genuine. “I’ll have to look into it more,” he says once the laugh fades. “But you’re right, there’s always a loophole.”

He stands up then, “I’m going to grab lunch, and then I should take care of some things. Really nice to meet you, Huruma. Megan, always good to see you.” He smiles, lifting a hand to them before he starts inside the bodega.

“Discipline through syringes. Sounds sketchy.” Huruma doesn’t seem to notice the nudging she’s getting— or is purposefully not paying it mind, more likely. So pushy. “But worth a look. If you need the school’s number, I’ve got it.” She finally looks down at Megan with a smile on her lips.

“A pleasure.” Huruma answers Jim as he stands to seek out his own food, giving Megan a small elbow when he’s gone. She huffs out a laugh, “‘Cool head on his shoulders’, hm?”

"See ya later, Jim!" She waits only long enough for him to be out of earshot. "Whaaaaaat?" the nurse retorts, laughing at the elbow. "What else am I supposed to say??" Megan's amusement rolls off her in silent waves.


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