[open] general hospital: envy edition

[thereneverwas]

WHO: whoever
WHAT: infirmary catch-all for the envy demon shitshow
WHEN: yknow
WHERE: The Gallows infirmary
NOTES: injuries, gore, all that you'd expect

[Throw in your healer toplevels or your injured characters dragging themselves in. Go hog wild. Live your truth.]

Comments

[elegiaque]

“Do not entertain for a moment the idea that I can't make you, Vanya Orlov,” has a certain ominous determination to it. Whether she thinks she can physically take him right now (a solid 'literally right now? yeah, I reckon') or is simply prepared to call in reinforcements— unclear. Although the eye she's casting over Cedric doesn't suggest she has interpreted him, precisely, as reinforcements.

He looks like he ought to be lying down, too. He's got a limited amount of time before she does something about that.

“It's done. Sit up, you're going to eat this very slowly—”

She remembers what it was, coming back after that long walk. Iorveth holding her on his chest at night, for warmth and a barrier between her and the hard ground; how little they had managed to scrounge and scavenge. No money, no weapons, no crystals to call for help...

She remembers making herself sick, at first. Even knowing better.

[wearyallalone]

He does sit up slowly, though whether it's obedience or the inability to move otherwise is anyone's guess. Cedric's appearance, though, got a small flicker of relief of its own. "Glad to see you aren't dead. I heard Barrow call your name." But ... they'd been busy, and then Vanya hadn't been conscious.

Why exactly Cedric is at Riftwatch is a thing he can pursue later, if at all. He doesn't know if Cedric is equally glad that Vanya made it, considering, but his own relief is unfeigned. Vanya is logically aware that a demon wearing his face doesn't make anyone that demon kills his responsibility, but the feeling would have been hard to shake all the same.

To Gwenaëlle, he adds, "I am not going to force you to force me, I promise."

[dissolving]

"Good," Off-hand. "Because we all owe her, really. I wasn't sure. Could be you'd just turned into a prick."

He reaches for Vanya’s shoulder. A gentle grip bracketing Gwen’s own, sharper shake. Something of the uncertainty from speaking with the demon is,

Well. It isn’t gone (never goes entire). But sometimes, you just need to decide a thing: For yourself, for someone else. That afternoon's blurry anger - he’s decided. I'm glad you aren't dead.

"You know," As though this is a serious consideration, "The spoon could make griffon noises."

He isn't remotely keeping a straight face.

[elegiaque]

Something crosses Gwenaëlle's face — difficult to read, which means it's complicated because otherwise she never is. Maybe she wasn't keen on immediately taking credit for that; unhappy still how long it had taken her to piece together his strangeness, and in no hurry to admit to Vanya how much of his privacy she'd ended up having to crater to be taken seriously.

“You can hold your own spoon,” she says, extremely graciously, “unless you struggle with it. Griffon noises are entirely between the two of you.”

Men.

Not that she shows any signs of getting up to leave them to it; she is exhausted and fizzing from stress and combat and she could sit here and watch him eat soup until he's finished for as long as it takes, probably.

[wearyallalone]

He notices Gwenaëlle's ambiguous expression and decides to save pursuing what, exactly, Cedric meant for later. There are maybe some things he'll want to say too, when they're not in the middle of the infirmary.

Instead, he takes the spoon. His hand is relatively steady, but part of that may be taking it slow. The temptation not to is real; the broth may be simple, but he hasn't had anything hot to eat in long enough that it's tempting to gulp it down even so. But he manages to be deliberate about it (no griffon noises evidently required).

After two or three slow spoonfuls, he says, "Is Gela getting some rest?" because he can't actually help it.

[elegiaque]

“Florent's taking care of her still,” she says, supervising that slow soup eating with a watchful eye; her only one, in fact. “I'm not going to throw her off the boat sooner than she's ready, but Stephen might want her here in the infirmary, I'm not sure. We'll cross that hurdle when we get to it.”

No need for Vanya to lurch out of bed personally to carry her back here like some kind of madman overcome with the need to express fraternal care and shunt aside, as usual, his own difficulties. She's willing to let that part remain implicit,

unless he pushes it.

[dissolving]

Vanya eats. Asks, eats. Gwen's eye glints. He's watching their hands. He's thinking about Gela. Things are sluggish still, take some sorting. It's not the right time to ask, but after a moment or two he does.

"What is," Tentative. "What's she actually like? Gela?"

A diversion from her care, or a different means to express it. They're her friends, they'll know: The good in her, whatever the demon saw there and sought to imitate.

Some measure of it must have been real. He believes that.

[wearyallalone]

Vanya fully assumes all four of them will wind up in the infirmary sooner or later. (That is, on the optimistic assumption that Benedict and Edgard made it until their rescue, but he's choosing not to dwell on the alternative possibility at present.) Still, Gwenaëlle's houseboat is a reasonable place for Gela to remain at present.

Instead, he answers Cedric's question. "...kind," he says, after a moment of thought. "Thoughtful about other people's needs and emotions, generally. There was." He pauses, unsure how much he wants to explain if Cedric hasn't already talked to someone about Granitefell. He settles on: "Riftwatch went through a very hard time last year," which should be clear enough to anyone who does know about Granitefell, "and it was one of the first times I think I talked to her at length, beyond pleasantries. Even when things were wretched, she was thinking about others: what would help. What they deserved."

He wouldn't have described them as close, necessarily, before what they'd just been through. But he's admired her penchant for kindness for some time.

[elegiaque]

“I don't know her well,” Gwenaëlle admits, thinking through the handful of conversations they've had— pleasant enough, she thinks, the offer she'd made about hair care having been offhand and sincere enough with the expectation it'd be no hardship to follow through on. Still; not someone who she'd confidently speak on, either.

There'd been a reason, before the true pair returned, that she'd volunteered for that demon over the one impersonating Vanya. It had seemed

less personal. At an easier remove.

“She seems clever and pleasant. I wasn't there for that wretchedness,” she'd been dead, “but I would expect her to be thoughtful. Considerate. Enthusiastic, in my knowledge of her. And Florent likes her,” as if that settles the matter and she must be good.

[dissolving]

What would help, what they deserved. Well, alright. Cedric squeezes his shoulder, pulls back his hand at last.

"It'll be good to meet her," Eventually. If she's in the same shape as Vanya, she could do with some time. "Clarisse was worried. I've been bringing her buttons - not Clarisse, Gela, I mean."

He trails off, brows pinching. A beat:

"- Sorry."

[wearyallalone]

"For the sewing," he says, after a brief moment of puzzled confusion. "Ah. Well, the real Gela may appreciate it, when she feels up to doing something with her hands. I imagine the healers will clear her for sewing sooner than I'll manage to get back to the training yard." This last is a wobbly joke, especially considering the state of the man who makes it.

[elegiaque]

Tranquilly, “If you want a more debilitating injury to enforce the rest, Orlov, it can be arranged.”

[dissolving]

"So that's buttons for you,"

Lest he be preventatively kneecapped.

[wearyallalone]

"The last time I was on bed rest I was frequently delirious," he points out to Gwenaëlle, not quite cross but closer to exasperated that she's generally seen him. "I'm not going to disobey the healers when I'm lucid. There's no need for maiming."

A series of sentences that's definitely not alarming in any way.

[elegiaque]

It is in precisely the same placid tone that she says, “Good,” perfectly satisfied and completely unmoved by his exasperation. Men who march off with a sword into a demon fight when they ought to be already in the infirmary don't get to be snippy about being frowned at, in her view; she isn't dignifying that he was with acknowledgment.

Instead, to Cedric: “Who's seen to you?” speaking of needing to bribe her with buttons.

(It won't work, but she will take the buttons.)

[dissolving]

"Rifter, the new one,"

He's searching for the name. Made such a point of it before - but all that comes to call are Gwen's own words. Later, maybe, he'll think on this: The manifold ways one can sink out of their own skull. So Vanya was delirious, Vanya was ashamed,

Well. No one needs lyrium for that.

He gives up. Regretfully, offers: "Yappy."

Cedric pulls a hand through damp hair, moves to stand. There's a very tempting mattress upstairs.