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 Posted: Sun Nov 14, 2021 12:08 pm
Work at the hospital was never not busy, but there were lulls from time to time. Orah liked the spend them at the front desk, helping the girls there handle the flow of patients.
DC Memorial was, like most hospitals, clean and bright. The inside was as one would expect, if a little newer and thus a little more put together than some of the older hospitals. They'd done a little renovating before she had been hired on, from what she heard. The floor was a warm beige tile, the seats metal and leather in a warm, unobtrusive green. The sterile environment was lightened a little by the fake plants in modern ceramic pots, but there weren't a lot of them at this Urgent Care entrance. It still saw enough traffic it needed a stream lined flow, and they tried hard to keep patience from being in the waiting room long enough to be force to appreciate the decoration too much. Her favorite part was probably the painting of the reservoir that had pride of place on the back wall behind the seats. It looks serene... She often tried to take some of the serenity with her when she was working.
It didn't always help. At least she did fairly well projecting a soothing presence to cover it. Orah made sure her scrubs were always clean and professional, though that was required anyway, but she chose to keep her hair in a low braid, letting it sit soft around her face. She kept her colors muted and soft, usually purple. The ladies who usually ran the desk really liked her, though she suspected that was more due to how often she helped out up here, giving them a chance to take a break. She was fine letting them think she did it because she was nice, or because she wanted brownie points, or because she was neurotic about working. It let her keep an eye out for the unusual in the patients coming in, for injuries that might have something to do with a secret war...
Picking up a clip board, Orah read the name and leaned into the counter, searching the waiting room.
"Yinchen Li? This way please." Scrapes didn't sound too serious, but serious enough if he was here to have them looked at.
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Posted: Fri Nov 19, 2021 6:05 pm
Laike wasn't going to visit the urgent care for his busted knuckles. He was going to wince his way through it, complain about how he couldn't play games half as well, put some ice on it, and maybe whine to his grandma about what else to do. Going to the urgent care meant getting on the bus, talking to people, spending money on a copay, talking to people, being evaluated, talking to people, being judged, talking to people, being questioned about how he maybe broke his hand, and talking to people. And he didn't want to do any of that.
But he was here because his sister bullied him into it, and now he was solemnly following the nurse lady who called his real name that nobody ever used. He kept his uninjured hand clamped around his wrist, and his injured hand raised up above his heart, and he had no idea if that did anything, but he felt a little better for doing it. It made him look justified in showing up to the urgent care, he hoped.
Even though the mom who had sat next to him rolled her eyes when they called his name, and continued bouncing an obviously sick kid on her knee.
Well. He was here now. He had to make the best of it until they let him go. "Uh, can you call me Laike?" Is that something they were allowed to do? Hospitals and urgent cares seemed so legal-name-required.
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Posted: Sat Nov 20, 2021 10:52 pm
Dark eyes caught on the young man who rose at the sound of his name and swept over him, taking in what preliminary information she could garner. He held his wrist with his other hand, which could mean it hurt, it was still bleeding, or any number of other things. He didn't look in excessive pain, though sometimes that was hard to tell. A hand injury... had he been fighting, or had he gotten into some sort of accident? The questions would be first on her list, of course.
She smiled warmly as he approached and her eyebrows rose at the request, tucking his clipboard under her arm to wave him to follow her.
"Laike? Sure, no problem." The warmth of her smile was echoed in her voice, and she tried to project calm, caring confidence. The name he asked for wasn't what was on his sheet, but that was okay. If it made him more comfortable through this process, that was all to the good. "Come this way please. Can you tell me what happened?"
The empty exam room was down the hall from the ER, around the corner and nestled in a cluster of other, similar doors. The young woman ushered him inside with a wave of her hand, waiting for him before she followed and closed the door. Inside, the soft colors of the waiting room were present, but the focus was far more on utility than long term comfort. The typical paper-covered chair was there, ready and waiting, and Orah slid over a tray on wheels, picking out a variety of gauzes and a couple bottles of solution with confident familiarity.
"Does it hurt?"
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Posted: Sat Nov 27, 2021 4:44 am
Laike didn't care for hospitals, or urgent cares, or doctor's offices. He didn't know why, exactly, but he was always bothered when he had to be there. At first, as he followed the Nice Nurse Lady whose name he didn't know, he assumed it was the weird structural setup. But when they reached the actual room, he thought it was the higher-than-everything-else paper-covered chair.
He frowned at it before he sat at the very edge of the thing. Of course, it crunched like a hundred microwaves full of popcorn going off at once.
Even if she hadn't given her name yet, Nurse Lady was pretty nice. She wasn't asking hard questions, but the one about what happened left him a little nervous regardless. He couldn't exactly tell her that he was dragged into an epic space battle and was told to punch someone out by his superior. Or he could, and she probably wouldn't believe him, but Jet might get mad at him for it.
"Someone tried to mug me, so I punched them." Obviously he wasn't very good at punching people if he opened his knuckles, but whatever. He was clearly built to play videogames. And it wasn't like the Nurse Lady was going to report it to the police. He looked at the front of her scrubs — the nametag read Orah Gowan. Maybe Orah wasn't paid enough to look too far into his lame explanation.
He thought about the second question as he looked at all the puffy packs of gauzes and some scissors and stuff on it. She didn't seem like the type to break out a chainsaw on him, but.
"A little, I guess." It hurt. It throbbed, and he didn't want to look at it, because if he looked at it it hurt more. But he didn't want to cry about it in front of her.whimsical blue ugh crappy tag but a done tag ]
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Posted: Fri Dec 10, 2021 12:25 pm
He seemed nervous. A lot of people did when they came into the hospital, if they weren't angry, or in pain, or any number of other emotions mixed all up together. Orah had a particular smile for people like him, a warm, open, almost motherly expression as she gestured him at the seat and set down the clipboard on the side desk. Snagging the rolling stool, she settled on it and pulled on some of the sterile gloves, holding out her hand for his.
"I'm Orah." She offered, very gently guiding his hand over a shallow metal bowl. "I'm going to move your fingers a little, so let me know if any of this hurts more than it already does, ok? Then I'm going to flush out the cuts so we make sure there isn't any bacteria in them."
His hands certainly didn't look used to punching people. They were slender, calloused, and the knuckles weren't swollen from anything other than the recent abuse they'd taken. She went through his fingers one by one, gently lifting and turning them to explore their range of motion. Her eyes flicked from her work to his face to catch any sign of increased pain, feeling for twinges that might mean more damage than she could see on the surface.
"I'm glad you got away from that mugger with just some scraped knuckles. That was probably pretty scary." Orah said lightly. Had it just been a mugger? In DC, you could never really be sure second hand. She'd never met this young man before, so there was no way of guessing what side of the war he was on, if he was more than just an innocent civilian. She didn't dare ask, or event hint... her position, and her family, were too precious to risk if he turned out to be on the wrong side... but she could mull it over, and wonder.
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Posted: Sat Dec 11, 2021 6:46 pm
Laike didn't like the idea of more pain, and he wanted to ask her not to do that. But when he opened his mouth to speak, no words came, so he just nodded meekly. Even if he said no, she'd probably do it anyway. Or like, given him a sciency explanation that probably included 'pain is gain'.
She was being gentle — or as gentle as she could be. Laike tried to school his expression, but the muscles in his arm stiffened reflexively whenever she opened his fingers in such a way that the nerve reacted. First came a light shock of pain, then a burning throb that followed it seconds later. He still chewed his tongue and tried his level best to keep a straight face; if He was here, she would've laughed at him if he whined. And then felt bad for him after.
Really, it was the feeling bad for him that got under his skin. Sort of like whatever she was irrigating with would be soon.
Snapping out of it a little, Laike nodded on a delay. She was nice, and she was right — it was good that he got away from that crazy battlefield with just scrapes on his knuckles. And a whole lot of fatigue. And questions. But mostly just scrapes. "Yeah, I, uh, I carry my Switch with me? And I don't want to lose that to anybody." Not that his Switch was ever in any danger, being all safely tucked away in subspace (as Jet called it).
Sucks that his skin crawled a little every time he had to lie to her, but Jet would tell him to get used to it, he was pretty sure.
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Posted: Wed Dec 22, 2021 9:22 pm
Watching him so closely, she thought he might be trying to hide the pain he felt from her. There were probably a wealth of reasons why, but as unhelpful as it was, it wasn't really her business how he expressed himself. She couldn't help feeling equal parts exasperated, and sympathetic. Someone in his life had taught him not to show things like pain... and that was a regrettable thing.
"It doesn't seem like anything's broken, which is good." She said when she finished, flashing him a smile she hoped would help to put him more at ease. He seemed wound tight, sitting in her chair like that. Settling his hand over the shallow basin, she pulled out a opaque plastic bottle filled with something, an angled little nozzle coming from the top.
"This is saline. I'm going to rinse the cuts to make sure there isn't anything trapped in them and wash out any bacteria to keep it from getting infected." She held up the bottle for him to see, and then moved to hold his fingers lightly. "I don't think you'll need any stitches, luckily. Just wash this out and bandage it up, and you should be good to go."
The solution ran red as it poured over the young man's knuckles, dripping down his fingers and along the underside of his palm before it ran into the basin. Each little squirt cleared more of the blood and dirt away, giving her a clearer view.
"Were you on your way home? You might want to find a different route, just to be on the safe side. Stick to well lit places with other people around. Sadly our city isn't the safest place to be at night, or even sometimes during the day." Orah said as she worked. She knew why that was of course... and there was precious little she could do to help this young man that she wasn't already doing. The advice seemed woefully inadequate...
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Posted: Thu Dec 30, 2021 3:09 pm
Laike was listening, but he also wasn't. He nodded, following her hands as they went through the motions, as they showed him the irrigation bottle that she unscrewed and poured over his hand, but his mind kept casting back to the battle.
He wondered what was really going on — he didn't understand anything the Queen said to them, and Jet was too busy with the aftermath to ask. Laike wasn't one for conversation or large crowds, so he left as soon as he found someone willing to take him back. That meant foregoing the Negaverse-sponsored medical treatment, but he wasn't that interested in being hungrily stared at by a youma, or led to the same place where a dozen people were all getting treatment.
He had to couch his reasoning carefully here, but somehow, it felt a little less stifling.
"Ouch," Laike reacted automatically to the saline flush. It burned quite a bit more than he was expecting, but he acclimated to it in a few moments. He watched diluted red spill down into the basin, slowly filling it, and wondered if he was going to make a habit of coming here. The thought had him running his thumb over his knuckles in his pocket, wishing for some sort of charm.
He wondered how often he would run into this nurse, if he kept coming here. Would she suspect something? What if she was involved, too?
"I-I'll do my best, thanks." Laike nodded resolutely, his attention still on her work with his hand. It'd be easier if the magical terrorists just… went away, he supposed, but he doubted that would happen so easily.
He'd have to just accept that he'd be seeing this nurse more often, unless he finally got up the gumption to visit the Negaverse hospital.
"I, um. It's not the best area. Where I live, I mean? And, it might be a while before I can move somewhere better. So. Maybe self-defense classes would be good." He winced as he brought up the suggestion.
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Posted: Sun Jan 02, 2022 6:05 pm
"If you can afford them, probably." She said as she worked, her eyes on her fingers but her attention on the young man.
He seemed like just a kid from a rough area... but was he really? There was no way to reasonably find out, but... perhaps it was better not to speculate too much. He'd been hurt, he needed help. It really wasn't... her job to play judge and jury on who deserved help and who didn't, or to play investigator to find out what side he was on. The thought, strangely, relaxed her, letting some of the inner tension she carried leech away. For now... he WAS just a kid. Washing someone's bloody knuckles wasn't going to win or lose the war.
"If you can't get classes..." She said quietly. "Just stick to the safest places you know of, as often as you can. And try to keep people around you. Safety in numbers, right?"
Advice would only go so far... but she really did hope it helped. With the wash done, she blotted around the wounds and then pressed gauze pads down over them, wrapping his hand with the stretchy, soft material that would hold them in place.
"Keep these covered while they're healing, and change out the bandage once a day, if you can." Orah said as she finished, tucking the loose end away to keep it secure. "Wash your hands when you change the bandages, and if the skin gets really tight as it scabs up, you can soak your hands in some lukewarm water to soften it. Try not to pick at the scabs, let them peel off on their own, or you'll keep reopening it."
This wasn't the worst injury she'd seen today, and it was something of a relief for it to be as minor as it was. A chance for a break was nice... even if it gave her some worry for a young man she could only do so much for.
"Do you have any questions about anything? I'll give you some gauze pads to take home for bandage changes."
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Posted: Thu Jan 13, 2022 6:34 pm
"Yeah, I guess so." Where he came from, the opposite had been true — numbers fed the danger on that battlefield. If he wasn't there, if he was alone, he would've escaped injury. Especially if he just stayed home and played on the computer.
But Jet wouldn't have let him miss out on something that big. The Queen was handing out medals afterward, even if he didn't really understand how it was some great victory for them. The generators all went down, whatever weirdness was going on with the aliens kept going on, he had to punch someone who was actively trying to defect, and in the end, they brought home a bunch of corrupted people. Was that all they needed to do? Laike couldn't pretend to understand it. He could ask Jet, but —
As he winced a little around the peroxide pain, he wondered if it was less work to just keep his head down and do the job. He would if it meant he'd never have to do this again.
He watched how she wrapped it, since he'd probably be doing it himself. He could ask his sister, but that would beget questions that he didn't feel like answering. If he told her he punched a wall after he lost an Overwatch match, she'd go hunting around his apartment for the hole. If he said he patched it, she'd scour the walls for fresh paint. Nothing escaped that shrewd girl.
Her question pulled him from his thoughts. "Uh, no, I don't think so? Wait — can I still, um, play games with this thing on? And use a mouse and stuff? I stream a lot, so…" So he needed his hand. To play games. And probably click things. And eat sandwiches and shave his stubble and stuff like that.
"And, um. Thanks. For doing this."
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Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2022 7:41 pm
Orah was still thinking about scraped knuckles when he asked about using his hands and she flashed him a warm, reassuring smile.
"You should be fine. The big thing will just be that scabs on your knuckles don't stretch when you bend your fingers, so it might get a little tight and painful. That's why I recommend soaking them if you need to. Otherwise, it shouldn't hurt anything to do what you normally do. Maybe try to avoid punching other stuff if you can." The young woman shrugged as she pushed the rolling tray out of his way and rolled herself back, scooting across the room to a computer on a desk that jutted out from the wall.
The young man's information went into that computer, along with the treatment she had performed for him. All neat and tidy in it's little boxes, lacking all of the humanity of sitting in a room with this boy, talking about what had happened and what to do about it. It would go into a database no one would see unless they pulled up this specific file, and what had happened would be forgotten by everyone else. Orah suspected she wouldn't forget it as easily... questions still lingered.
Turning back, eyebrows raised, Orah felt a genuine smile curling her lips.
"You're welcome, Laike. I hope I don't see you in as a patient again." She said, keeping her teasing light.
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Posted: Thu Jan 20, 2022 1:42 pm
Laike was quiet as he nodded along, even as his gaze was transfixed on his hand. It looked weird, seeing himself with marks like that. He never thought of it before, but until he got into the Negaverse, he never did anything to warrant that kind of injury to his hands. He wasn't a careless kid, and seldom got scraped up and bruised when he was growing up. Ever a homebody, Laike didn't need to go outside and play with the kids in his neighborhood. Often, he avoided it. At all costs.
Now his hand was all angry, red, and swollen around the bandage. He wasn't sure how he felt about it.
"Thanks for patching me up." He waited quietly while she typed away, then accepted his discharge paperwork with a nod. Looking through it, he noted that his insurance was already billed and no copay was necessary. Which was well and good; he didn't have any money on his cards that day. And he wasn't sure he brought his cards with him.
He breathed a sigh he'd been holding. "Right. Um, I won't let you down." He sounded unsure of himself, felt unsure of himself, but it would be rude not to try. She was nice, and even if it was her job to patch people up like this, she probably got tired of it. And he looked like a thug with a hand like that, so.
Laike excused himself from the chair, and paused as if he had something to say, then decided he couldn't reword I hope we don't run into each other like this ever again in a polite, well-meaning way, so he bid her another thanks, and then rushed out of the room as his cheeks started to redden.
He stared at the floor as he walked himself right back out the door. The talking part was leagues worse than the pain of getting his hand irrigated, he decided.whimsical blue fin! heart thank you for the rp!!
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