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Author Topic: Brought to Bear [Nix]  (Read 693 times)

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Offline nephero

Brought to Bear [Nix]
« on: June 01, 2017, 08:16:15 pm »
It had been a very long couple of days for one Isabel Kiers. All she wanted to do was sleep, relax, take a bubble bath or maybe call Banning for another dinner date or something that didn't involve an epic fucking disaster of nightmarish proportions. At the very least, it seemed like she was finally getting things back to a reasonable level of normalcy-- she had made nice with her brother, and while she hadn't nearly gotten to explain everything, at least he was talking with her. Willing to listen.

There had been a mild interruption, as there often was, when tests needed to be run or when someone else came to visit. Izzy felt more than a little annoyed each time, but wisely kept her mouth shut. She didn't want to broach the subject of Jon's admission into the DoSaM psych wing with strangers about. It was something that needed full explanation, not just dropped like so much dirty laundry. Chance was in no place for that kind of bullshit.

And so, when she was interrupted for the third time, Izzy decided that now was as good a time as any to get a cup of coffee. Something sweet and sugary to keep her going for just a few hours more, until she could finally clear the air and hopefully return home with a clear conscience.

Or so she thought. Her phone buzzed insistently, and she frowned down at it even as she pulled the styrofoam cup from the coffee machine's compartment. She flicked open her com's messages, and immediately frowned at the name displayed on the little blipping window.

She opened the messages between herself and Gerard, and her confusion only doubled as a result.

Gerard: Are you still with Chance? I am sorry. I felt it necessary to answer Lufti.

Necessary to answer Lufti about what? Izzy's frown deepened, and she took a sip of her coffee, thumbing out a slow and likely less than properly punctuated reply.

Izzy: I mean, I was just with him but I went to get something to drink from the vending machines

Which was true. She had literally only left a few moments before, and Chance had seemed in perfectly good spirits. Or at least, as good spirits as he could have been, considering his knee had been violently dislocated and his eye was no longer functioning and he was confined to a single hospital room for several days. That was the part Chance was having the most trouble with, the sitting still. Well, so far that was the most troubling thing. Izzy hadn't had a chance to talk to him about Jon, about the whole mess with the pills and the overdose and the absolute fucking meltdown the Pilot Cardinal had suffered. That would take time, would take easing into, would take every ounce of gentle understanding and careful wording.

Anything less and Chance would likely take a flying pirouette right off the handle.

Izzy: Wait, what do you mean

She flipped back to the Pilot Chat, wondering if there might be some evidence there. What she read was enough to turn her blood to ice, fear gripping her chest and causing her hand to spasm violently against her coffee cup, spilling a good third of it over her hand and onto the floor.

Izzy: OH HELL

She didn't wait for Gerard's reply, instead booking it back in the direction of Chance's room, where already she could hear shouting; and none of it was louder than the voice she recognized as being so terribly close to her own. An impressive number of nurses had their hands full trying to keep Chance in his room, to get him back onto his bed, but the stubborn asshole was clinging tight to the doorframe, keeping himself upright on one leg and a healthy dose of willpower.

It was a mark of how incapable he was of being up and about like this that he hadn't gotten any further-- his face was ashen, covered in a thin sheen of sweat, though Izzy wasn't sure how much of that was due to pain or terror. A definite heady mixture of both. Chance looked up as she approached, and she felt her heart shudder.

Upon their reconciliation, their connection had been reestablished. They very rarely kept themselves apart, letting one another into the surface worlds of one another's minds. It was a privilege they both fought to maintain the integrity of, never digging deeper, never using what they knew against one another. The tragic side-effect, however, was that when their eyes met, Izzy could feel every raw emotion of Chance's as deeply as her own, could feel the sudden wave of fear and despair and all the anger that came with such things.

"Iz--" Chance said, though the distraction of her arrival had allowed one of the burlier orderlies to grab him up and remove him from the doorframe.

"Chance, stop it--" Izzy said, loudly, over all the ruckus, moving into the room after her twin and pressing down onto his shoulders to keep him on the hospital bed. "Stop it, you're just going to hurt yourself--"

"Gerard isn't answering--"

"--You know he can't, he's not at liberty to--"

"What happened with Jon! Izzy don't you lie to me, don't you lie to me too!"

"Pilot Echo Kiers you will cease this nonsense right this very instant!" Izzy barked, and the ingrained discipline in Chance's bones gave them a moment of pause in which he stopped fighting so hard. Chance grunted as an orderly pricked at his arm, pushing a sedative in before Chance had the opportunity to do a damn thing about it. It didn't take long for it to take effect, even against a hemokinetic, and after a few moments Chance's eye went glassy, his struggles weakened, and he fell back against the bed.

"Please, please, just tell me what happened. Fuck, Iz, I don't... I can't just..."

"Tearing your joints apart and flailing around DoSaM isn't going to help him any, Chance." Izzy said, her hand sliding up to pet at her brother's hair when it no longer became necessary to hold him down.

"I'm such an asshole, I'm such-- such a stupid asshole--"

"Chance, none of this is your fault," Izzy said, firmly, staring down into Chance's remaining eye, trying to get him to focus on something solid and real and not all the terrible what-ifs that were plaguing his head. "This was something that was necessary. Jon needed to see a doctor and that is what he is doing, okay?"

Izzy wasn't even sure where her coffee had gone. The sleeve of her shirt was wet and cold where a portion of it had spilled, but that was about the extent of the evidence for its existence. She slowly settled back down into the chair she had pulled up beside Chance's bed, sighing heavily and gesturing for the hovering nurses to leave them be. No sense in crowding the man once he was already drugged. Besides, they had a lot to discuss.
« Last Edit: June 01, 2017, 09:02:20 pm by nephero »

Offline Nix

Re: Brought to Bear [Nix]
« Reply #1 on: June 04, 2017, 01:26:52 am »
Gerard: The Chat.
Gerard: Yeah. Do you want me to come down there?

The silence was answer enough of an answer. He wasn't going to let Izzy deal with this alone. Not after she had to deal with Jon by herself. That foreign born imbecile was dragging down both of the Kiers twins, though that line of common sense seemed to be lost on kind hearted souls. Pilot Cardinal Rheeves was trash, simply put. There was a reason losers like that were rank locked, and it was because they weren't fit to be Pilots in the first place. Of course useful ones like Rheeves managed to graduate candidacy thanks to their abilities, but it hardly made them worthy of the job.

It definitely did not make him worthy of Chance. He had been through enough now too.

Gerard made his way down just a few floors on the elevator to were he was already well aware Chance's room was. He made sure the Pilot was as comfortable as possible, with a private room and the best nursing staff they had. After all, Pilot Echo Kiers deserved the best. Gerard regretted not being able to save Chance's eyesight in the one eye, but fortunately the organ was intact and the venom had not spread further into Chance's system. Still, there was nothing more frustrating as a doctor than knowing there was nothing you could do for a patient. Especially if there were special to you.

 By the time he reached Chance's room the Pilot had already been sedated and the nurses had left the twins to their privacy, though the door to the room was still open as was protocol. The older Pilot knocked on the door frame just loud enough to be heard and alert the twins to his presence. "Chance, you really cannot be getting up and trying to walk just yet. You exacerbate that leg before you are even able to do physical therapy and you might end up never walking right again." He said frowning as he moved into the room and sent a soft sympathetic smile Izzy's way.

"There is still much I cannot discuss with you but I came here to speak with you about what came up on the Pilot Chat. There is still doctor / patient confidentiality and issues of clearance in play, but I can speak with you more honestly now than I could where anyone could see it. I wasn't trying to ignore or upset you Chance. As your doctor and your friend please understand I only want what is best for you."

Offline nephero

Re: Brought to Bear [Nix]
« Reply #2 on: June 04, 2017, 02:21:34 am »
Izzy looked up as she heard the knock, and with a far more delayed reaction, Chance looked up as well. The looks on their faces said that they had almost expected it to be another nurse, and their mutual annoyance melted away nigh immediately to see that instead of an unwelcome intrusion they were being visited by a very dear friend.

Izzy sighed a bit in relief, and Chance settled back more solidly into his pillows, head turned to better keep Gerard in his functioning eye's line of sight. It was going to take getting used to, certainly, that much both the twins knew, but already Chance was making progress with dealing with the fact that the only thing he could catch out of his right eye were the dimmest of shadows set against a backdrop of nothingness. Utterly useless.

"Yeah..." Chance dimly agreed, looking down at where his injured leg lay beneath the hospital blankets Izzy had piled onto him when he had stopped thrashing. He couldn't feel much now, with the sedatives coursing through him, but just being upright without any sort of crutch, even only for the short moment he had flipped the fuck out, that had been agony. Agony he had been more than willing to endure in order to get answers, in order to crack the code that was Omajon Rheeves' current condition.

Jon.

Izzy grimaced, feeling the pang of heartbreak and guilt and desperation and (even now, even still!!) white-hot love as sincerely as if the feelings had been her own. Drugged as he was, Chance was having trouble keeping their connection to a modest level, but Izzy was too relieved to have it back to make any kind of effort to mute it. Besides, the least she could do was empathize with her twin. She had no idea how to do anything else about this whole mess.

Both of the Kiers shifted in syncronization, looking back up at Gerard and brows knitting together as he explained the situation as much as he was allowed to explain it. Izzy could feel that the words were becoming muddled to Chance, and so she turned to look over at him, trying to help patch the holes in his drugged understanding.

Chance swallowed, looked over at Izzy, before nodding.

"Yeah... I know. Sorry, I just... kinda lost it."

Kinda lost it. Izzy's mouth pulled to the side a bit. More than kinda, if she had the opportunity to word it herself.

"Is there..." she began, unsure of where she expected the thought to go. For a moment she couldn't seem to decide, and so finally scrapped it altogether, starting over from scratch. "Is he going to be okay? Jon?"

Again, she felt a pang from Chance's direction, and didn't need to hear the shuddering breath he took to know the concept of anything but "going to be okay" terrified him.

Offline Nix

Re: Brought to Bear [Nix]
« Reply #3 on: June 04, 2017, 03:09:35 am »
"Pilot Omajon Rheeves seems incapable of taking care of himself." Gerard started off much harsher than he meant to, even his body language betrayed him. His stiff posture, his muscular arms folded to his chest. He let out a sigh and headed to the door to close it for the moment before returning to the twins and pulling up the other chair in the room.

He knew he shouldn't say much of anything, but allowing Chance to stew in worry was not good for his recovery and that was something Gerard could not abide. He hunched forward in his chair and looked from Izzy to Chance, trying to get a feel for what Chance knew, what was acceptable to disclose given certain aspects of the case were still under investigation. He exhaled through his nose, his shoulders rising and falling with the deep breath. "Pilot Cardinal Rheeves suffered a 'depressive episode' and was consulted by the Inquiry shortly after. My understanding of the results of these events is that he has been suspended from any active case work and his duties as a Seeker until further notice, and was reassigned to the Ministry, pending a psych evaluation, reinstatement to the Seeker department to be determined at a later time." He was reciting what he had read in Jon's updated file, though not quite verbatim.

"After the incident he was sent here for some blood work and sent home with supervision. His first psych evaluation set for yesterday at noon; for which he failed to show. He was however, here at DoSaM and when he was found he was admitted since he had failed to report for his evaluation and was dehydrated. It was determined he is a... 'hazard' to himself in his current condition." Gerard had not meant to deliver as much information as he had, but he needed to give Chance some piece of mind.

He sat up and exhaled again looking between the twins. "That is all I can say at this time." He said, a pang of regret in his voice for not being able to divulge more. "He is in excellent care though. He is not what I would consider a 'lost cause'. We Pilots, as a system, place so much burden on ourselves to be impenetrable that when it comes to mental health we do not seek help when it is needed. There is much stigma attached to these things, understandably, since none of us can afford to be 'weak'; but I hardly see rationality and responsibility as weaknesses. If you had a festering wound you would get it treated. So many of the more 'pathic' Pilots among us especially, suffer mental scars and they fear coming to Psych for it as it could very well result in repercussions for them. But unfortunately, things like this incident are the results of what might have been solved with simple therapy sessions otherwise."

He looked at both of them levelly. "Pilot Rheeves hid his depression, as many in his position have and would. But this does not fall on you- either of you." His gaze flicked from Izzy back to Chance and stayed there as he leaned closer to take Chance's hand and give it a light squeeze. "None of this is your fault. Do you understand Pilot?"

Offline nephero

Re: Brought to Bear [Nix]
« Reply #4 on: June 04, 2017, 05:16:32 pm »
'It is determined that he is a hazard to himself in his current condition.'

However ashen Chance had been a moment ago, it was nothing to how he looked now. All the blood had drained from his face, leaving his skin ghost-white and remarkably similar to the pillowcase he was leaning back against. He was staring at Gerard, but not quite seeing him, and Izzy reached out to touch at his shin beneath the hospital blanket on sheer instinct, trying to help ground him as she felt his thoughts spiral out elsewhere.

How hadn't he seen this? How hadn't he noticed? Jon was supposed to have been his best friend-- up to their messy parting, they had spent near every free moment together in one way or another. How could Chance be so close to someone and not know they were hurting so bad? He wracked his brain, trying to remember all of their conversations, all their interactions, but nothing jumped out.

Nothing but those beautiful green eyes and that wonderful smile. Nothing but how it felt to hug him, to hold his hand. Nothing but the nerdy little jokes they would always throw at one another-- used to throw at one another. Chance's breath hitched, his chest constricting tight, but the reaction didn't go further-- he was still too far in shock to do anything else.

Jon was self-conscious, he knew that. He knew he didn't always think he was good enough, but he tried. He always tried so hard, he always worked so hard to do right by his friends, his coworkers, his country. Of course he wouldn't have thought it possible to seek actual help. Of course he would hide it like this. Chance had just thought-- just hoped, he supposed-- that Jon would be comfortable enough to talk to him. But then again, Chance had also thought their relationship would last longer than a week.

It left him feeling... raw. He hurt all over, physically, mentally, emotionally. He wanted to be pissed at Jon, he wanted to cuss and scream and yell and throw things. Because why wouldn't Jon tell him? Why wouldn't Jon be honest with him? Why would Jon publicly humiliate him instead of just talking to him? Chance wanted to be mad, to be cruel, to pretend like he could just say 'fuck that guy' and get on with his life.

But that was a lie. Because despite everything, he still loved him. Despite everything that had happened, Chance still wanted nothing else in this world than to be next to him. Despite it all, knowing this, knowing Jon was hurting so badly, was actually dangerous to himself, knowing that it had all spiralled so badly out of control and all right under Chance's nose--

Chance felt his heart breaking all over again. Izzy's hand squeezed at his shin, and he knew she could hear every thought. It was something of a comfort, in a weird way, knowing that there was someone else, at least, who understood. Actually understood. She sighed, quietly, a sound that was shortly echoed by Chance himself, the pair soon falling into sync, entering their breathing exercises that had always been their mutual go-to for calming down.

It was some relief that Gerard didn't think Jon was a complete lost cause. There was some hope, however fragile, and Izzy was determined to cling to it for all she was worth. She let that determination bleed through, and after a few moments some color started returning to Chance's face. It might still be okay. Gerard was the best of the best, and if he said Jon was in excellent care, then Jon was in excellent care. The twins knew this, and slowly, Chance relaxed into his bed, his hand twitching lightly under Gerard's own.

It wasn't his fault. Even Chance knew it wasn't-- he didn't cause Jon's depression, no one outright caused something like this. But he hadn't done anything to help, either. And somehow, somehow, that just felt worse. Still, he did his best to meet Gerard's gaze, and slowly nodded his understanding.

"Understood," he said, quietly, his voice as raw as he felt. Izzy watched her brother for a moment, before turning back to Gerard.

"Do you think he'll be able to make a full recovery? And more to the point, is there anything that we should be careful of when he does?" she asked, quietly, "I mean, if it were me I'd want to pretend the whole thing never happened, but I also don't want to just... sweep it all under the rug if that's not going to help."

 

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