Participants:
Featuring:
| Scene Title | Her Family |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Isis and Zachery stumble upon two women in mourning. |
| Date | March 13, 2019 |
Most people don't enjoy the thought of a morgue. Most avoid it like the plague, some would say it houses the plague. Some would say it's the last stop before the actual final train station stop. In the morgue at the bottom level of Elmhurst Hospital, comes the sound of crying. A young caramel complexion woman leans against the wall in a short black skirt and deep green top. Her knee high black boots cover shaking legs. Poppy can't remember the last time she stopped shaking since…
The double doors to the morgue open and out walks a dark haired woman with head bowed, her pale complexion almost glowing in the fluorescent light.
"Celeste.." Poppy reaches out instinctively but she keeps her eyes down to the floor much like Celeste. It's still too painful to look at her face.
"It's her." Celeste says softly more to herself in disbelief than to the other young woman. Poppy's eyes widen and she nods slowly, "Yea.. listen why don't we head back to your place. Have you spoken with Ande?"
Celeste doesn't answer instead she just walks, walks until she reaches the end of the hall and the shorter woman walks right out the exit door to the alley on the side of the hospital. "Celeste wait!" Poppy calls after her as she rushes to chase after.
In ranking thanatophobics’ favorite places not to visit, hospitals are right up there in the top three. So, it’s impressive that Isis has managed to make it within a block of the building housing needles, scalpels, all manner of contagions, and about a thousand other things in the killy category. Don’t try to logic her with that whole concept of hospital’s saving lives…
Tucked into the alley, her hot mess of a condition makes it unclear if she’s coming out of, or going into, the hospital. With her jeans-cradled rump against the wall, the redhead is bent over taking deep, but staggering and hiccuped breaths. The results is an awkward wheezing coming from beneath the falls of her untamed, crimson lock. Her hands are clasped tightly together in front of her sternum, a white bandage on one hand obvious against the gray wool of her coat.
The sound of the alley door slamming has Isis nearly jumping out of her skin - literally. She blinks confusedly at the way her psyche flutters - her ability groping out to try and pull her consciousness into the nearest warm body. Alas, it’s a fluke… or there’s no one close enough. Still perplexed, anxious, and now naustied, Isis tips her head back onto the wall and looks towards the door uncertainty.
Someone has come to work on his day off, today. Zachery's been employed here long enough to know that he isn't supposed to come in on Saturdays unless it's an egregiously busy day. All the same, he's making his way over.
Slowly. So slowly. And drawing attention from some of the people he manages to walk past on his way, though he does his utmost to ignore them. When Celeste exits into the side alley, he's only just dipped into it, clutching a hand to his face. He's looked better— he's found his shoes and he's pulled his dark pea coat on, but it looks… mismatched with his damp black pajama pants and a pale blue shirt that reads '2008 Harlem Soup Kitchen Helper Extraordinaire'. Said shirt is also damp, and blotted with browns and reds. He's holding one of his palms just above his left cheekbone, his fingers covered in splotches of dried, already flaking blood and weaved into the current mess of his hair. Blood's trickled down from his nostrils and down his jaw, which is tensed. Very much so. He may never ungrit his teeth ever again.
The alley provides a modicum of quiet for him to try and gather himself in, and he continues with the sluggish gait of a man trying to focus on just staying upright and moving forward, until he finds himself stumbling shoulder first into a wall and just… stopping for a moment. Barely seeming to notice those around him. He's had a day. And he needs to think of a story, any story, before going in.
The door to the alley bangs open as Celeste walks out, her eyes up to the sky as if she's searching for something. She finds nothing but the night sky.
The dark haired woman fails to notice Zachery and Isis at first. Instead she just walks while looking up, slowly towards the street as the door opens again to reveal Poppy racing after her friend, "Wait!" She calls again, she's been saying that word a lot. Was it fair to ask Celeste to wait? In the end the darker haired, pale woman does stop. Waiting for Poppy, as the blonde woman finds her jogging fast to keep up if she decides to leave, Poppy raises a hand to place on her shoulder. "Have you seen her?"
Celeste's voice is small and her shoulders shake as it's apparent she's crying. She doesn't make much noise though a whimper escapes her and Poppy can only grimace and slowly nod her head from behind tears glisten and fall from her deep red eyeshadow eyes, "I did, earlier. I'm sorry Celeste. I tried you have to under-" Suddenly Poppy's gaze focuses on the redhead not too far in front of them. "Oh, um hi." Said softly to Isis, Poppy grips Celeste's shoulder a little tighter trying to pull her back in the opposite direction but the woman is rooted to the spot. "Wait." The quieter girl whispers, she's not ready to move. Marigold's face plays across her mind's eye and her fingers twitch as fresh tears fall down her face from dark eyes. Poppy tries to move her again though and howls in pain as a reward for her effort.
Bright white sparks dance up Celeste's shoulder to pop and sizzle on Poppy's hand who recoils and bites back her scream with gritted teeth. "Please Celeste!"
Gruesome physical pain in the form of Zachery, and wrenching emotional pain in the form of Celeste and Poppy - Isis tries to curl up into herself and (for once) mind her own damn business, tucking her chin down and letting her crimson locks veil her porcelain visage in a gossamer-scarlet curtain. It doesn't keep her from watching the two grief-stricken women, though, and certainly does not help her case when Poppy catches her peeping.
Isis cradles her bandaged hand closer to her collar in a whole body cringe that is both guilty and apologetic. "Hi," its the quiet but instinctive response, followed quickly by, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean t-Hey!" The white sparks draw the last as a hissed warning from the redhead. She straightens up, still holding her hand, and glances back over her shoulder as she approaches the women…
For Isis, abilities on public display is not a common occurrence. In such a populated area, she fears for the grieving women's safety - projecting her worries of exposure onto them… it's better than focusing on her current problem. Her over the shoulder glance pivots, a squint up and down Zachery's form given before she addresses the two women in a hushed, alto tone. "Careful now. I'm sorry - oh trust me, I'm sorry - for whatever it is you are going through. Let's try to be careful, though, okay?" A quick glance to Poppy with a lifted brow - somehow the grabbing has been deemed more at fault then the shocking defense mechanism that was set off. "Is there… anything I can do?" If you're going to tell people to calm their shit, you better be willing to help, right?
Whatever's going on here doesn't seem to be any of Zachery's business, and he's not treating it as such. The hospital is always full of this sort of affair, though admittedly, usually he's in scrubs when he's trying to ignore it.
The sparks, though, that's new. His whole body currently feeling like it's a wayward collection of rubber bands about to snap means that his head turning in Celeste and Poppy's direction is about as abrupt as it comes, more in reflex than anything else. His one visible eye, underneath bloodied brow, focuses on the pair, then briefly on Isis, before his attention drifts absently to somewhere in between as his form slumps a little closer to the wall. Not, however, without a laboured breath that sounds suspiciously much like a bitter chuckle that he just can't help from having squeezed out of his lungs. Figures he'd be treated to a freak show here and now.
Poppy's eyes take in Isis and her caring nature while Celeste continues to look on the ground, she doesn't say sorry though she feels it. Poppy doesn't seem to be angry at Isis' intervention, "She's right, you have to be careful." It feels like they've done this before, someone's had to tell Celeste this but not in a very long time.
"I stopped the meds." Awhile ago but that's evident at least Celeste thinks it should be. Finally she lifts her dark eyes to look towards Isis but her attention is grabbed by Zachery. His situation makes her eyes widen and she takes a step forward leaving Poppy behind with Isis though the blonde woman gives a pained expression and follows after her friend.
Celeste's pale face peers in. She opens her mouth to speak but no words come out. "Shouldn't you be.. uh… inside the hospital?" Poppy says over the darker haired woman's shoulder who flinches and another round of sparks lift off of her, sprinkling over the wall that Zachery leans against though they fizzle out before they reach him. A buzz emits from the woman.
"Sorry." Celeste says but she looks down at the ground her whole body trembling. Obviously replaying something in her mind, thinking on a painful memory.
Isis catches Poppy's eye and gives an understanding little nod. At Celeste's mentions of stopping any medication, the redhead flinches visibly - not in fear, but in empathetic pain. She continues to cradle her hand to her sternum, as much to keep pressure on her bandage as to keep herself from reaching out Celeste.
The redhead lofts a brow as Celeste and Poppy move towards Zachery. She's uncertain if they move out of morbid curiosity or concern, but she follows regardless. Behind the women, her gaze upon the man is much less gawking and more scrutinizing - it takes a certain level of grit… or madness to manage even a phantom chuckle in such a maimed condition. The subtle narrow of her gaze is both curious and warning.
"It's okay," comes Isis's automatic and hushed response when Celeste is apologizing yet again. "You don't have to apologize for how you feel - emotionally or physically." Subtext:You don't have to say sorry for your tears or your ability. If only someone had told Isis that a long time ago.
"I… mh-" Zachery starts, when he's asked a question, but between attempts to keep his breathing under control and ignore intense amounts of pain, he just doesn't have enough time before that rain of spark flies overhead. He doesn't SEE much of it, courtesy of only one of his eyes being available for said seeing, but the flash of light still causes him to shrink back a little more strongly than he might have liked. The shift in weight causes him to lose his balance, his free hand reaching to find purchase on the wall but failing, forcing the hand previously clutching his face down in order to catch himself as he falls, awkwardly, to a knee.
His unsteadiness denying him the option of covering up his face again, he… wheezes out a laugh? It's weak but unmistakable. Where his left eye should be, there's just sort of… a still bleeding lack of one. Red trickles out of his left sleeve where it had collected while he was walking, before he manages to put enough weight on his leg to turn that smeared hand, palm forward, fingers trembling as he strains to motion for anyone nearby not to be. "— Getting there." He just needs a breather. Just a moment.
"The fuck?!" Poppy rears backward bumping into Isis with a cry of shock, it's not like she hadn't just seen a dead body. Her best friend's dead body. Why should this freak her out? Celeste remains quiet though she stares into that eye like it has all the answers in the world for her to glean if she just looked hard enough. Poppy on the other hand grabs the back of Celeste's jacket to pull hard, "Come on we've gotta go. You need rest Celeste. Marigold wou-"
A sharp crack of a sound fills the air as more sparks jitter and jump from Celeste's form to Poppy's. This time the darker young woman is glaring and rising her shoulders up, unafraid of the woman. She knew her. "You gonna be like that?! We're all we have left!" It's a desperate plea and for some reason that hadn't been apparent to Poppy until she yelled it. There's a look of horror on her face as her hand rises to her mouth. "I- I-" Usually in a movie scenario, Celeste would turn around tears in her eyes and reach for the woman she knows so well but almost not at all. Distance had always been safer and so it goes nothing like that at all.
"Stop dragging me around." Celeste's retort is harsh not unlike her but she rarely leans into it really. Staying out of sight was almost always better. Something was yanking Celeste out of her shell and ripping the pieces stuck to her away with a malicious intent. She thought she had grown up when she was a child. Celeste's dark eyes bore into Zachery's. "You should see a doctor." She offers and half smiles, it doesn't reach her eyes.
“Oof!” Isis barely catches herself and Poppy, catching the backpedaling woman by the shoulders. Once the pair of them are steady she looks around Poppy and Celeste to catch sight of the macabre, gaping hole where Zachery’s left eye should be. “Jesus, blecch,” Isis visibly gags and is momentarily grateful that her minor kitchen accident kept her from eating any lunch, lest it have ended upon Poppy’s back. The redhead clears her throat and takes a few paces back at Zachery’s wordless, waved suggestion and the altercation heating to more than simmer between Celeste and Poppy.
From the little distance she’s managed to put between herself and the other three alley visitors, Isis finds herself quite literally faced with a choice - the sparking cat fight or the man convincingly made a fresh pirate. She grimaces briefly at Poppy and Celeste - these women’s wounds were deeper than flesh, dangerous in their own right but always requiring time. Zachery’s, on the other hand, looks hella life-threatening - Afterall, what’s the margin of error between the back of eyeball and the brain, she finds herself pondering morbidly.
She takes her hand from Poppy’s shoulder and moves carefully around the two women in order to wiggle into Zachery’s side. “Come on. It’s amazing you made it even this fucking far. Isn’t the body supposed to kick into shock or some shit for things like this?” She makes a quick safety check on her ability, using the pain in her own sliced and bandaged palm like an anchor, before reaching out. Isis tries to help Zachery’s arm over her shoulders and support some of his woozy and disorientated weight.
“As for you two,” Isis looks to Poppy and Celeste. “I dunno what’s going on there, but I’ll tell you one thing - that rage and sorrow? It doesn’t last forever. And when it’s gone, you’ll be sad if you manage to let it push whatever’s left away for good.”
There are no wise words from Zachery. In fact, there are no words, period. Which is probably for the best because they'd probably have been in response to Celeste, and they would have definitely been, 'I AM A DOCTOR.'
It's not exactly what neither she nor Poppy need right now, so it's probably for the best that he actually stays quiet and seems willing to use Isis as a leaning post, if a little clumsily. There doesn't seem to be any hesitation— in fact, he's already leaning FORWARD again as soon as she even manages to get him halfway to his feet, like a drunk drawn back into the direction of a bar, unconquerable in his conviction to pass through those doors, into the hospital. Except for it he falls over first, maybe. YEP let's GO. Sorry mourners. Any other day, and he'd have shown at least some snippets of feigned manners.
The movements by Isis are clocked by Celeste but she stays where she is which could be considered uncomfortably close to Zach given the nature of his injury and her sparks. Again Poppy is the one to listen but Celeste's eyes do at least flick in Isis' direction. "Come on Celeste. You're my family-"
"We are not family!" The surge of sparks lift from Celeste's fingers and hurtles towards Poppy though they whizz over her shoulder to crash and crackle against the concrete wall of the alley. Poppy's eyes widen at her friends outburst, she hadn't been like this since..
Celeste walks to the entrance of the alley, not looking back. "You were always her family." And she's gone.
The platinum blonde left with Zachery and Isis looks distressed and she digs into her pocket pulling out a paper and pen, "Hey I'm sorry about that, there's a lot going on. H- someone died." That should explain it all right. Scribbling her number she stuffs it in Isis' hand. "I'll buy you a drink sometime, both of you." Isis was nice and Zachery needed it. A look over her shoulder and Poppy's expression grows more pained. "I'm sorry I have to catch up with her." Quickly the the woman hogs off, her platform heels clunking on the pavement until the two are left alone in the alleyway.