| This is What I Do |
| Summary: | Cidra soliloquises; gets updated on the Bunny's status. |
| Date: | 08 Jun 2041 AE |
| Related Logs: | Some |
| Players: |
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| S'bay |
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| S'bay desc! |
| Post-Holocaust Day: #132 |
Despite his earlier protestations, someone or other has evidently called for the services of the clergy in the difficult case of Mr. Evandreus Doe. The Intensive Care unit in which he's been established for coming up on five days now, with only brief breaks each time they endeavored to transfer him to recovery, has had its curtains opened once more and been substantively aired out, but the incense clings to the thin fabric of the curtains and the Sickbay staff have, perhaps in deference to a fellow not long for this world, left the ash-smudged sigils of Aphrodite marked on the moist, sallow field of his cheek and the bruised, tender flesh below his collarbone, just above where a flat monitor cover is holding a sensor to his chest. His arms are arrayed oddly, as well, laid at his sides with their palms up, as if in prayer. His head is slightly bowed, as if it had drooped forward and to the side and no one had bothered to shift it back against the pillow. His eyes are closed and he's not moving in the least— even his breathing is imperceptible to the naked eye. If the monitors all insist that the boy yet lives, it does nothing to disturb the nigh-sepulchral peace his form's taken on. He's been brought back once, already, after his heart decided to take a nap and was prodded into waking up again. But since then, in a lucid moment, he's made it clear he wishes no further assistance of that sort. And he looks the part, now. Ready to go, if he's going.
Cidra is shown into the intensive care area where Evandreus is bedded down by a nurse. She's in her off-duties, though how long she's been off is questionable. From the look of her, sleep hasn't been high on her to-do list for a day or so now. Not that Evan, in his more than asleep state, would notice such a thing. "Thank you," she says softly to the nurse, taking a seat. Right hand going into her pocket. She rubs her eyes, then raises them to look poor Evan over. Blinking at the smell of incense. Such might bring her some measure of peace normally. Right now it only stings at her eyes. "How goes the eve, Bunny?" she asks soft. Not that she expects an answer, of course. She's more or less talking to herself now. Her prayer beads are finally fished out of her pocket. Twined around her fingers with the ease of a habit repeated a thousand times. She clutches them rather like a child clutching the hand of a parent. Seeking some comfort in them. They don't seem to immediately provide it.
The eve creeps along like the drool pooling along the inside of the plastic mask held in place over the Bunny's nose and mouth as it finally finds its path of least resistance to dribble to freedom in a slow-crawling rivulet down his chin. His chin has, at the very least, been kept assiduously bare by the attentive Sickbay staff, who have assaulted his stubbliness with more regularity than he ever managed to, leaving this baby-faced creature in the stead of the habitually scruffy Evan. Also leaving no forest of prickles to staunch the flow of spittle.
Cidra does notice the lack of stubble on Evandreus' face. It makes her blink again. Wrong, that. Against the larger picture of wrongness surrounding the young man. She clears her throat, twined beads beginning to click together in a soft, rhythmic pattern that's also as easy as breathing for her. Click-clickclickclick. Click-clickclickclick. Repeated over and over and over again. It's normally meditative. Tonight it's just rote for her, however. Click though her beads go, her eyes remain locked on Evandreus' face. There's still that haze in them. Probably not all from the residual scent of incense. Another soft clearing of her throat. "Apollo, Lord of light and sun. Asclepius, Lord of the medical arts. Lords of healing. I pray you shall watch over Sextus Evandreus Doe. I pray…" But she has to stop, her voice threatening to break. Shutting her eyes. "I am sorry, Bunny. Gods forgive me for this. For all of it…"
It does have a profound effect on his countenance, the lack of scruff. Makes him at once more angular and more boyish, giving him a fresh youth that only wastes away with the sallow, sunken, sickly contours of his face. The catalog of the technai of Apollo and His Son resound aimlessly off of equipment, and neither the Bunny nor the steady ticks and bleeps of the machinery to which he's connected seem moved by the prayer. But his palms are open, yellow-tinged fingers just slightly curled with a jaundiced arthritis. And if he's not saying much, his head's tipped vaguely toward Cidra's side of his bed. Maybe he's listening, after all.
Cidra flutters her eyes open, and there are proper tears standing behind them now. A deep, shuddering breath is taken. She's not particularly bothering to try and affix her typical mask of composure in place. She's beyond that. And it's just her, really, so there's little point in it. "Gods, how old are you?" she murmurs. Transferring her beads to her left off-hand. The right is reached up to touch her fingertips to Evandreus' yellow-touched hands. "Twenty-five, maybe? What are you doing here, Bunny? Mercies upon us, what are any of us doing here?"
Some low-level nerve impulse twitches at Bunny's fingers when his hand's touched. Hotbed of nerves, there. Sadly, the inflammation in his joints staunches the better part of the reflex. As for what he's doing here, he seems to be throwing up a little inside his mask. It's a strange sight, a guy vomiting without heaving or even really moving, just this… liquid coming up and oozing out with a little more gusto than the saliva, but with about as much a reaction. It stalls against the plastic mask over his face, beginning to flow back and fill his mouth again. Still, nothing from the Bunny. No coughing or choking. No responsiveness whatsoever, though his heartrate increases suddenly enough to draw that nurse back to the mouth of the unit. "We okay here? Huh," she goes on, spotting the little situation with all the aplomb due to a member of a nursing staff that's seen far worse in recent months. "Let's get this mask off, huh?" she goes on, talking to the Bunny as if he can hear her, keeping her tone effortlessly casual for the sake of the fellow's visitor, who gets a quick flash of a smile. "He's not coughing up on his own… I'm just going to get a tube in his throat to help him breathe a little, then I'll be right out of your way."
"I…I am sorry," Cidra apologizes softly to the nurse, withdrawing her hand back to her lap. As if that were her fault. Her words stumble some, hot tears running down her cheeks. She does not bother to wipe them away. "Has there been any change in him? I mean, is he better today, worse today…I cannot tell."
"It's not your fault," the nurse is sure to remark to Cidra as she goes about her business, removing the mask and using it to catch the remnants of the fluid as she moves the Bunny's head about in a gentle but functional manner to keep him from choking on the gunk. "He's been going off pretty regularly since he was admitted. He's our very own ol' faithful," she tries her best to inject some levity, looking back to the Bunny as if she'd shared that joke with him before and was hoping to see some recognition of it. None comes, of course, and then she's wiping his face down and pulling a tube from its hook on the wall to suction the vomit from the back of Bunny's throat, tipping his head back and maneuvering his jaws for him. "But he's not working at it anymore, he's not— it's just a biological function. That technically pushes him over the line into a coma," she gives the bad news, first. "The good news is that his last round of tests came back and his numbers don't seem to be getting any worse. Now… for the sake of full disclosure, there's not much room left for them to -get- worse. He could just be bottoming out. But on the other hand it could be a sign he's gotten it all out of his system. We should know for sure within a day or two."
"Within a day or two. Thank you," Cidra replies to the nurse, without really looking at her. Eyes rest solely on Bunny. It's muttered mechanically. "I liked you, Evan." Less mechanical, that, but the past-tense is used even now. Cidra is not high on optimism these days. "You are so…kind. There is not enough kindness now. There was not even before the worlds were burnt to cinders. We need that. I need that." She sniffs. Wiping the back of her hand swiftly across her face. It does little to dry it. "Fresh is gone now. Ethan Weber. Such a brave young man. Not long on tact, but very brave. Very good. He died to save his comrades. Orr is gone. A traitor put a bullet through his skull. Good men and just…it never stops. Even those of us who are not dying are being destroyed…" She chokes a sob.
Nurselady seems to understand that the update is not meant for her, and so she doesn't contribute anything to it, only cleaning up the Raptorbunny's mouth and chin and then peeling open the packaging of an as-yet-unused breathing tube and getting it into place down Evan's throat. Uncomfortable, certainly, but he doesn't seem to mind. Just another tube. Not like he doesn't have a million in him already, and in even less comfortable places. While the comatose pilot gets finished getting caught up to date on the losses in the Air Wing, the nurse, in one final act of nurseliness, draws a tissue from a tissue box— one of those harsh, rustly, nose-chapping variety the military saw fit to outfit sickbay with— and extends her hand silently to Cidra. You are leaking, ma'am, the gesture seems to signify. With his head tossed back, and back arced a little, Evan's breathing becomes more readily apparent in the rise and fall of his chest, as well as in the rough hiss of air at the filter-end of the breathing tube.
Cidra just stares at the tissue for a second. As if not quite comprehending what she's supposed to do with it. Finally she does take it, dabbing it at her eyes and then her nose. Harsh though it is, it's better than nothing. She watches Evandreus breathe through the mist from her eyes but, if she takes any comfort his eased breathing, it doesn't show. "I destroy people…that is what I do…"
Well, -now- she can't leave. A few more tissues are gathered up as the nurse tries to parse out whether that comment indicates a higher level of danger to her patient or to his visitor. But either way, she has to speak up: "I don't envy you your job, Sir," she remarks plainly. "Maybe I should see whether Dr. Byrne can make some time in his schedule for you? You sound like… you could use someone to talk to."
Blink, blink. Cidra doesn't quite pull herself together. She's not even remotely close to there. But she at least makes a token effort to dry her eyes so she can fix the nurse with a level look. It lacks any sort of its usual CAG-ly impact. "I…thank you, Nurse, I am not going to talk with Doctor Byrne." The idea is dismissed with as much firmness as she can muster. Not that so many of her pilots haven't been mandated in and out of his office over the past weeks. But *she's* not going to. She stands. "Thank you for…your good care of Bunny. I should…I should be going…" And so she makes all readiness to flee.
The nurse returns the look with one approximately evenly leveled, for an Enlisted person. She momentarily comes over as the sort who's taken her share of guff from pilots who are too big to take their medicine, but she bites back any further comment out of respect for either the woman, the man, or the situation. "I'll be sure to let you know when there's a change," is the only reply she makes.
"I thank you," Cidra replies, dropping her gaze from the nurse's before those last - rather muttered - words are out of her mouth. A last look back at Evan and she passes out of the room. Tissues now clutched in her fist.