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 Posted: Fri Jun 12, 2009 8:14 pm
Twelve new cases in half as many days. In the crowded halls of the Weyr, the flu spread among the people like… well… the plague, actually. Thankfully, it was just the flu and not anything more dramatic, although with some people it was impossible to tell. Cordel spread his hand across his face and closed his eyes and tried to pretend that the man standing in front of him didn’t exist. The Healer had been in the long laborious process of sorting out the herbs. Apparently, the Healers at Ista Weyr followed the time-honored filing process of ‘putting down jars without labels wherever there was space’, a fact that made Cordel’s life so much more difficult. And now the patients started hunting down the new Healer, in hopes of getting… well, something out of him.
“No, I assure you,” Cordel said wearily, “Fellis is not an appropriate treatment for the flu. And you don’t even have the flu!”
The man gave a theatrical and very obviously fake sniff. “How do you know that? I might have it! And the last Healer gave me fellis for it. Made everything better.”
“I know it because I’m a sharding Healer and you’re not!” Cordel’s temper twanged dangerously, just as it always did when he was trying to get by with far too little sleep and not enough drinking. He couldn’t even remember the last time he had gone drinking with K’em and W’ten, or, more specifically, gone drinking with K’em while W’ten stared at them both. “And I don’t care what the other Healers used to give you. I’m here now and I say no.” It wasn’t even as if he had the authority to give out fellis; only the Master Healers could do that, but he couldn’t very well say that.
That would imply that he wasn’t a Master Healer. Well, he wasn’t… but he liked to pretend otherwise. But, since he couldn’t let the man go without anything----what if he really was sick, after all?---Cordel eventually dug through a few jars until he found the raspberry leaves. “Here. Make tea from this every night until the cough goes away. Just… go.”
Cordel continued to glare at the door long after the man had scuttled away before he returned to the impossible task of sorting out the jars. “Lemongrass,” he murmured. “Lemongrass, lemongrass, lemongrass…” after a few jars of sniffing, he managed to find it and get himself a handful. He could feel a headache coming on and figured he might as well be prepared.
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Posted: Sat Jun 13, 2009 11:08 am
"Cordel, what are you telling these people? Of course fellis is an appropriate treatmeant for the flu!"
K'em strolled in only a moment after the shady fellow had bumbled out, one hand clasped to his right eye as he tried to maneuver his way through Cordel's mess. The healer always made a mess when he was organizing. At least, that's what the brownrider assumed his friend was up to. Why else would he be chanting the names of things only healers needed to know, eh? The logic was sound! (W'ten would be proud.)
Shuffling a little closer, K'em caught a whiff and wrinkled his nose. Shards. What was he trying to do, kill all the sick people? (Though, he wouldn't blame Cordel if he did. Sick people were kind of....icky.) "Hey, you got a minute? I need you to look at something for me." K'em flashed his best friend a toothy grin before pulling his hand off his face, revealing a sticky mess. He'd clearly been punched (what was this, the eighth time since he'd come to Ista?) and there was an impressive cut above his eye.
"I think it's still bleeding. Hurts like a sharding b***h, though." As if Cordel actually cared how it felt.
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Posted: Sat Jun 13, 2009 2:01 pm
“Don’t you dare encourage them, K’em,” Cordel grumbled. The last thing he needed was the Brownrider shouting out things like some sharding deadglow. People had the strangest idea that, somehow, dragonriders knew things that others didn’t and would cling to that. The moment that K’em had stumbled in with a hand over his face, Cordel could guess what he was hiding. And he wasn’t disappointed either, when the wound was revealed. “Right. Well, sit down and tell me what you did. And don’t touch anything.”
Of course K’em must have done something to earn himself a punch like that. He always did. Cordel briefly thought it was sort of sad that this was the most he had seen of his friend in a sevenday, but they were both busy men. That is, Cordel was busy trying to help idiots survive and K’em was busy being a punching bag. The Healer washed his hands in redwort---there were jars of it in every room in the Infirmary----before taking a closer look at his friend’s eye. Yeah. Clearly a punch. “You think it’s bleeding. Oh. Silly me. I was about to assume that this sticky red stuff coming down your face was just from a nasty redfruit accident.”
Despite his harsh words, he was gentle when he started to clean out the wound and clear up some of that blood. It wasn’t nearly as nasty as he thought it was. Well, that was a relief… now if only K’em would stop seeking out these situations. “So, how have you been? Besides playing punching bag?”
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Posted: Sat Jun 13, 2009 3:00 pm
"Oh. You're a b*****d, you know," K'em muttered. "I said I think it was still bleeding. I know what blood is." It would completely pathetic if he had managed to not realize he was bleeding after all these turns, all these injuries. And he was not a punching bag, for the record. As a dragonrider, K'em generally tried to avoid provoking people to the point of punching him, but sometimes...sometimes he just pushed people a liiiiittle too far. This might be one of those times.
Okay. So sleeping with rivaling sisters was not his greatest idea ever. Telling the hot one that she was, indeed, hotter was even less of a great idea, as it were. But the ugly one didn't need to punch him!
And he certainly didn't need to tell Cordel he hadn't seen that coming. The brownrider was actually quite good at holding his own, but he didn't usually get slugged by the female persuasion, especially those he had so recently seduced. They were normally quite enamored with him and...yes. It was a bad situation, K'em admitted to himself as he took a seat, absently touching the cut and cringing while Cordel tried to clean it up.
"Gonna heal alright, y'think?" he asked absently. Wounds didn't matter as long as they didn't leave a reminder. Oh. Cordel was talking to him. Frowning a little as he engaged the thinking part of his brain he shrugged a little. "...I have a lot of paperwork to finish for S'kagi."
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Posted: Sat Jun 13, 2009 3:33 pm
“I’m also the b*****d who’s going to help you, so let’s try to be polite.” Pfft… talk about the pot calling the kettle rude. It wasn’t even as though Cordel would suddenly refuse to help K’em. Or anyone else, for that matter. K’em wasn’t telling him what he did. That meant something, although Cordel didn’t know exactly what it meant. Probably that the Brownrider knew he had deserved this, but the Healer wasn’t counting on it.
“It should heal alright. It’s not likely to leave a scar anyway. And stop fiddling with it! I can’t get a good look if your hands keep getting in the way. It looks worse than it actually is.” Hyssop and mosstea he decided to himself. Mostly hyssop, to keep the infection away. He would have preferred to add some woodruff as well, but, unfortunately, he hadn’t found that herb yet. Finding the right jars, he carefully poured out some of the dried herbs so he could make a poultice.
Paperwork. How exciting. He patiently ground the herbs into a powder and carefully added some clean water to make a paste. At least he had spent some time boiling water and cleaning linens earlier. The mixture was spread on a bit of clean cloth and carefully wrapped up. Then, kneeling in front of K’em, he applied it to the man’s face.
Or tried to, anyway. “Shaffit, K’em! Would it kill you to get a haircut?” he complained as he tried to get the man’s hair out of the way.
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Posted: Sat Jun 13, 2009 8:26 pm
Looking worse than it actually is? Excellent news. Well, not about the look bad right now part, but as long as no one ever learned the source of K'em's latest wound, it would never really matter. Considering the sheer volume of injuries the brownrider acquired on a regular basis, he was fairly certain no one would take any particular interest in this one. If they did, he could accuse them of something strange and unusual, like stalking.
"I don't need a haircut. All the ladies seem to think my hair is quite lovely," K'em retorted, running a hand through messy brown hair. As if he'd really cut it, just for Cordel's convenience. Speaking of convenience. K'em raised his eyebrows as the healer kneeled to apply the strange mixture. The slight stinging didn't even phase him and, without warning, K'em reached out and rain a hand through Cordel's hair. A pleased sigh.
"I like your hair," he commented absently, carding his fingers though the healer's hair again. It was good to grab, too. Hold in place, direct.... The wingsecond eyed the man kneeling before him before eyeing his own upper legs.
"....you know, Cordel, this is a very compromising position."
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Posted: Sat Jun 13, 2009 10:14 pm
K’em’s sudden affection certainly phased Cordel. It always did. One would think that he’d eventually get used to the Brownrider’s constant flirting, but it just never quite happened. The Healer ground his teeth and tried to keep a lid on his rising temper. After all, it was completely possible that the punch to his face had jarred K’em and he was a little out of it at the moment. Besides, it was bad for Cordel’s blood pressure to get upset. And K’em wasn’t helping it any, especially when he pointed out how compromising the position could really be.
“K’em,” he said very, very sweetly. “You have no idea how lucky you are today. For instance, you’ve already been punched once today and I have a limit. I’m only allowed to punch people when they haven’t been hit already.” No, shaffit, he wasn’t blushing! He never blushed. He only got angry. And flushed. There was a complete difference. The letters F and B for example. He bristled and glared at the other man, hoping he would get the message, although it had never worked before.
Since he knew it was a doomed effort, he merely grumbled to himself and worked on dislodging K’em’s hand from his hair. “Hold the poultice down. I’m going to get… something.” Like a breath of fresh air, and possibly a drink of cold water. “And don’t touch anything! Except for the poultice, obviously.”
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Posted: Sun Jun 14, 2009 6:40 pm
Sometimes K'em wondered why Cordel never saw the inevitably flirting coming, but the brownrider wasn't going to push the issue. The flustered, irritated responses were much more entertaining than the deadpan logic W'ten always offered, which was probably very well why Cordel still got hit on whenever the opportunity presented itself and W'ten did not Of course, that didn't mean the wingsecond wasn't a bit disappointed when his best friend all but threatened to punch him again.
"What would your superior say, if he heard you threatening a paitient?" he asked, clucking his tongue as he shook his head. Oh, shards that stung. Cringing, K'em quickly resolved to stay still as Cordel continued to patch him up. It would only be a- What was that? Was that a blush?
The grin that spread across his lips was positively man-eating. He opened his mouth, a scathing remark about to escape when Cordel suddenly pried himself free of the strange situation and left him to patch himself up. The only sound that K'em made was indignant and as soon as the healer had left, the wingsecond was on his feet, grabbing jars and rearranging them, purposely. Bah, Cordel. This'd teach him!
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Posted: Sun Jun 14, 2009 7:17 pm
“Well, my superior would probably be a little upset, yes… but, after spending five minutes with you, I’m fairly certain he’d offer to hold your arms back.” Ok, not really. From what Cordel could see, the Masterhealer was a nice man who wouldn’t even harm a fly, but K’em didn’t know that.
Outside of the room, the Healer collected himself, a process that apparently involved some deep breathing and a glass of cold water. Best friend or not, K’em pissed him off so badly sometimes. But… he rolled the empty glass in his hands a bit, thinking about the good times they had shared, like the infamous wher incident. Yeah, K’em was an a**, but he was still a good friend. He could have gone to any Healer for help, but he chose to come to Cordel. That was sweet, in a way. It was K’em’s retarded way of saying, ‘Hey, I care about you, man, so come over here and help me’. Being a people-pleaser, Cordel was never quite happy unless he was taking care of someone else.
And this was honestly not the best time to get into a fight with the Brownrider either. It had been far too long since they had just enjoyed a drink or something together. Fully calm once more, Cordel went back to talk to K’em. “Right… sorry about that, K’em,” he said with a slight shrug. “It’s just stressful right now. An… did you move my jars around?”
‘His’ jars, he said. They were his, not the Infirmary’s. Panicking again, the Healer moved forward to put everything back into their previous order. “Sharding idiot! This is important! What if someone needs to grab a specific herb and they can’t find it because of you?” So much for forgiveness…
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Posted: Sun Jun 14, 2009 7:49 pm
...that was fast.
K'em blinked, using whatever brain cells currently unoccupied with admiring Cordel's a** as he scurried about, to keep his jaw from falling open. The speed at which his prank was caught was downright impressive. Perhaps his best friend really did know him too well! That wasn't even worth the effort he put into it! Cordel didn't freak out, just sort of...scrambled. It wasn't nearly as much fun as an explosion or a verbal spar.
The brownrider waited in silence until the flurry of movement had ceased, simply holding the poultice in place. "...you gonna be alright, Cordel?" he finally asked, wariness on the edge of his voice. It didn't look like he was going to be alright. He was going to come apart at the seams, all edges and rough and K'em couldn't help but wonder if he would be enough to piece the healer back together.
It was rare K'em felt any guilt for anything he ever did, but if he had to place a title on the feeling trickling down the back of his neck, that might be the label he placed on it.
"...let's go get a drink, or something."
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Posted: Sun Jun 14, 2009 8:16 pm
This was not a good time to play the, ‘Hey, let’s screw around with the funny Healer’ game. There was an outbreak and general panic and not to mention Cordel was still reeling a little from the sudden move over here. It was too sharding hot and he missed coming home to someone. Alright, so Caysine had been an… intense woman, but he had needed something intense in his life besides just his studies, right? He looked down at the jars in his hands before carefully putting them in their proper place. “Every time I turn around, someone has been moving them around, I swear,” he grumbled, partly to himself and partly because he needed to grumble right about now.
It wasn’t often that he didn’t respond to things with snark and vinegar. Even K’em was starting to catch onto the fact that something was wrong. And when K’em started to notice things, there was definitely a problem. Cordel ran a hand through his hair, trying to undo whatever damage the Brownrider might have done earlier.
“I’m just stressed. There’s a lot of work to be done and it feels like every time I turn my back, someone undoes it all.” Was there resentment in his voice? Oh, yes. He knew that K’em was just being K’em, but it was hard not to be angry at the man when he was deliberately moving things around. And there was always more to do. More patients to see, more things to work out, more herbs to organize… “Right. Let’s go get a drink. Before responsibility sneaks up and grabs my a**.”
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Posted: Tue Jun 16, 2009 6:45 pm
Forget guilt. K'em was feeling downright alarmed. Why did he suggest a drink? He didn't want to be anywhere near the Healer when the latches finally came undone and the man went to pieces. He'd never find them all. And even if he did, Faranth help K'em put such a complicated puzzle back together. And he's not saying he couldn't. He just doesn't want to be the one responsible for his friend.
What K'em's not saying is he doesn't want to the one responsible if Cordel isn't returned exactly the way he was, but he's fairly certain that pretty little girl who left him behind actually ripped out on entire chunk. It wasn't a broken heart, not like the Harpers sang about. It was as though a piece of Cordel had been ripped right out; he could still see the tears if he looked close enough.
"So, a drink sounds good. But. Um. My face?" He was still holding the poultice. "Can we fix that first, please?"
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Posted: Wed Jun 17, 2009 2:50 pm
Cordel blinked at K’em several times, having completely forgotten about K’em’s little face issue. Well, not completely. It wasn’t so much ‘forgotten’ as put out of his mind with everything else going on. He caught himself soon enough and pretended that he had not, in any way, shape, or form, forgotten about K’em’s injury. “I don’t know… you probably deserved it, whatever you did to get punched in the face. I suppose it would cause undue comment.”
It wasn’t his usual level of snark, but it made him feel better. Now, if he had known that even K’em was beginning to notice that he was off... that would’ve been different. Not bothering to kneel this time, Cordel lifted the poultice for a moment to take a look at the wound. It wouldn’t need stitches, but it would need to be covered. Can’t let a Wingsecond run around with open wounds like that. It didn’t look too bad, so he felt that he could safely remove the poultice and just bandage the cut up. “Right. Just remember to change the bandage until it’s healed. Or remember to tell W’ten so he can remind you that it’s only logical to let a Healer look after your injuries.”
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Posted: Wed Jun 17, 2009 6:22 pm
K'em snorted when Cordel made a stab at his roommate. W'ten and the healer had never gotten along, though the brownrider could never really quite put his finger on why. (It was one of his craziest fantasies that they were, perhaps, fighting over him, but even the brunette had enough brain to realize the folly in such a way of thinking.) Well, maybe his friend wasn't as unraveled as he'd thought; he was still making fun of W'ten. It was a good sign.
"Yeah, yeah. I'll make sure it doesn't get infected. Thanks, Cordel." The brunette stood and promptly poked at the bandage on his face. Well, at least it'd get him pity sex tonight. (He'd definitely avoid those sisters though, shards. Definitely on his black list. Well, the ugly one, at any rate.) "Now, how about those drinks, huh? I think we both deserve one of those."
The please was silent, though it's presence heavy on the end of the sentence. K'em didn't want to have to beg for his friend's attention, even if he may or may not have gotten a punch to the face to have a reason to visit the man in the first place.
...friendship was a highly illogical thing.
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