Participants:
| Scene Title | Will You Be My Mom? |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Melissa finds Kendall curled up in a hallway. They talk about parents. |
| Date | March 28, 2010 |
Darkness has fallen, although in parts of the house it falls unawares due to the lack of light from outside the house even in broad daylight. For the most part, everyone is quiet and off in their own rooms, and visitors, if there were any, have departed before the butcher shop closed for the night, thus limiting suspicion. Kendall… is not in his room. Actually, he's in one of the downstairs hallways near the stairs, curled up in fetal position.
Melissa has come to do her rounds, because not a day goes by that she doesn't check in on the people staying here. And after checking the supplies and whatnot downstairs, it's over to the tenement building to check on the sickies! Except, she runs into one before she expected to. She frowns and moves towards Kendall, bending down to touch his shoulder lightly. "Kendall? What are you doing down here?" she asks softly.
"Fell asleep here, and now I can't move." Kendall whimpers. No, he's not all right. "I've got cramps really bad." he does look like death warmed over, complete with bloodshot eyes, pallid expression, and clammy skin. "I'm gonna die." well, he's slightly exaggerating.
Melissa smiles a bit and shakes her head, reaching out and touching his forehead lightly. "You're not going to die," she murmurs, concentrating for a moment, then stealing away the pain from the cramps. "C'mon. Let's get you back upstairs, hmm?" she says, sliding an arm around him, to start to try to get him on his feet. After all, she's a small woman. She couldn't carry him upstairs by herself.
She might have to, Kendall wasn't kidding about not being able to move. His legs just aren't responding! He does cling to her, however, and fortunately he's not all that large for his age either. "I can't!"
"Sure you can, honey. The pain is better already, isn't it?" Melissa asks, huffing and puffing as she works on dragging him up to his feet. It's not easy, even if he isn't that big, especially not when part of her focus is on keeping his pain suppressed.
"No, it's not pain, I just… can't move my legs." Kendall sounds pretty panicked at the very idea. "Oh hell." cue freak out.
"Shh…It's probably just part of the flu. Calm down, hon," Melissa says, starting to work at moving Kendall down the hall. It's slow and difficult, but progress is made!
"Are you sure? I don't want to be paralyzed the rest of my life!" Kendall frets. "Sorry…" he adds when he notices how she's struggling to help him up the stairs. He covers his mouth as a coughing fit racks him, which is likely jolting poor Melissa as well.
The coughing has Melissa pausing and leaning against a wall, rather than risk dropping him and sending him tumbling. "Seriously…Just calm down and everything will be okay," she says, her tone reassuring. Once the coughing is under control she starts moving again.
Kendall's legs twitch a little, and Kendall sighs. "There should be a bathroom on the second floor too…" yeah, too bad they can't exactly remodel the place without drawing attention.
Melissa smiles faintly. "Yeah, I know. Sorry about that. If I could fix it, I would." By the time they reach the second floor she's huffing and puffing, but they've made it! Hurrah!
Kendall still can't stand up, but fortunately his room, with Anders as a roommate, is nearby so it's just a little further. "At least I'm not like Storks." why yes, he'll still call Daphne that when she's not present. Or maybe especially since she's not present, those crutches hurt.
"Storks?" Melissa asks, a little out of breath, but she's game to half carry, half drag him down the hall to his room.
"Whatserface, the one with the hair and the issue walking." like Kendall's one to talk right now. "The one with crutches." does Kendall even know her name? If he did, he forgot it.
"Oh, Daphne? She'll get better, same as you will," Melissa says. And finally, they're at his room, and he get dropped onto the bed and Melissa leans against the wall, breathing heavily.
"Sorry." Kendall tells Melissa again, snuggling into the covers. "I don't meant to be such a bother to you." aww, isn't that cute, he's so apologetic!
Melissa shakes her head and waves a hand dismissively. "Don't apologize. You didn't choose to get sick. You just worry about getting better, alright?"
"What if I don't? What if I'm like this the rest of my life?" oh, quit the dramatics already, Kendall, it's just the flu, even if a particularly bad one at that.
Melissa sighs softly. "Kendall, it's the flu, it's not some incurable lifelong disease. You'll get better. You've had the regular flu before, right?"
"No, actually…" Kendall coughs again. "I've gotten colds, but never the flu. I've always been vaccinated." plus, he's pretty healthy, all things considered. Or he was, at least.
"Ah. Well, the flu goes away. Sometimes it feels like you'll have it forever, but you don't," Melissa explains with a shrug.
"Except for the people who die from it. It never goes away then." wow, Kendall's got a fatalistic view on all of this. Talk about self-pity and theatrics. "People are dying from the flu every year."
"Yeah, but that's mostly old people," Melissa points out. "You're not going to die, Kendall. You're young and healthy aside from the flu. So stop thinking about that part of it, okay?"
"Well, I guess, but at least it keeps me from thinking about what I'm going to do if I do get better. I mean…. I don't have a home anymore." Kendall sniffles a little at that.
Melissa's head tilts. "I thought you were living with Magnes. Though, if you don't want to live with him…" She studies him, chewing lightly on her lower lip. "We can find you someplace. How do you feel about rather large puppies?"
"Well I don't know if that was permanent or just a place to stay for… until my…" Kendall trails off, managing to look even more miserable than before. "I guess it's official then, my parents disowned me and I don't have a family anymore."
Melissa gives him a sympathetic look. "Parents aren't that great anyway. I never saw mine growing up. Not really. But you have friends, and friends can be closer than any family. But I'll talk to Magnes, see if it was a permanent offer or not before we start talking alternatives."
Kendall rolls over so that he's facing the wall. "My parents just expected so much from me and I let them down." more like held up ridiculous standards that he had to struggle to meet.
"Bullshit," Melissa says in a flat, "don't argue" tone. "You had shitty parents, Kendall. They let you down, not the other way around."
"Well maybe you can be my mom then." Kendall sounds like he's half-serious, too! ….no hitting the invalids, Melissa.
Melissa blinks slowly at that, then her head tilts slightly. "I…uh…you sure you'd want that? I mean, I'm not sure I'm really…mom…material. Though I guess I can't do worse than your birth mom," she says, sounding a little uncertain. "Though you didn't answer me about the puppy thing either…"
"I don't mind dogs so long as they're not tiny yippy yappy things." Kendall shrugs under the covers. "And it's not like I need a mom for much longer, if at all. I'm practically an adult now."
Melissa shakes her head. "Nah, it's a German Shepherd. Not much yappiness. Have you ever seen the movie K-9? With Jim Belushi?"
"Uh, can't say that I have. Did it come out recently?" blank look. "Jim who?" remember, Melissa, Kendall is young. K-9 came out before he was born!
Melissa winces a little and shakes her head. "No…It came out in…I dunno. The 90's I think. Anyway. The dog in the movie is a badass German Shepherd." A pause, then, "What's your last name?"
"Cunningham." Kendall responds, sighing. "German shepherd, sounds fine to me." pause. "You said puppies? Like, little tiny ones?"
"Well, he's like five months old now, so he's not tiny anymore," Melissa says with an apologetic smile.
"Oh, so just one puppy then? I think I can manage. German shepherds tend to be well-behaved dogs, right? I mean, you always see them as seeing eye dogs and stuff. Can't say I'd be used to dealing with dogs, my family always had a cat." Kendall snuggles deeper into the covers like he was still cold or something.
Melissa nods. "Yeah, they're like, one of the smartest dogs. And I'm sticking mine in training, so he's pretty well behaved. Unless I leave him at home alone too long, then he chews up my leather," she says with a sad pout.
"Leather?" Kendall's eyebrows go up. He can't even begin to imagine what Melissa has that's made of leather. Of course, it could just be something innocuous like furniture.
Melissa nods. "Mmhmm. Like my boots and jackets and stuff. Last time he got my favorite pair of boots. I seriously flipped out."
"Ah." is that… a hint of disappointment in Kendall's voice? What, maybe he wanted her to say that the dog was chewing up her whips and leather outfits or something?
Mel wouldn't be a very good surrogate mother if she talked about those types of leather with Kendall! But she does look amused at his reaction. "Anyway. You should get some rest. I’ll bring over that movie tomorrow and you can watch it on one of the portable players. Sound good?"
"Sounds good to me… but I thought we weren't allowed to do stuff so that people would see?" Kendall's been sleeping most of the time or spending time in bed trying to sleep or waking up, when he's not eating.
"The portable DVD players don't really give off much light, and you can always watch during the day if you're worried," Melissa explains with a shrug. "We've got headphones too, so…"
"It'd take my mind off of things, that's for sure." Kendall replies around yawning. Now it seems like he's having trouble staying awake.
Melissa nods and moves over to the bed, tucking the covers in around him. "Always a plus. Now you get some rest, hmm? If you're sleeping when I come by, I'll leave the movie on the table." A smile, then she withdraws, shutting the door quietly behind her.
Kendall is asleep by that point, so Melissa could probably assume the answer is 'yes'.