trans_9 | I've got a disease, deep inside me [totally open]

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I've got a disease, deep inside me [totally open]

[ooc: Rather than spam the boards with posts for my characters, this thread takes place a few days after everything quiets down in the medbay. If your character wants to speak to either Luis or Steve, this is the place. I won't have the two of them respond to each other (I'm not quite that tasteless), so let me know who you've come a-callin' for. Alternate thread title: I Can't Believe It's Not Muncest.]

In an isolated bed near the back of the medbay, a teenage boy lay restrained. Anyone who'd caught a glimpse of Steve on the day of the incident would have said he looked much better, but he still looked like hell-- bloodless, clammy skin misted with a thin sheen of sweat, veins standing out dark and purple, a facial expression that read he had been sleeping for quite a while and could stand to sleep for quite a while longer. His right shoulder was tightly bandaged, as was his left hand, and a loose bandage had been wrapped around his head to cover his left eye. His hands were still strapped down to the bed and an IV was feeding into his arm, but it looked like the energy and the color were slowly returning to the skinny redhead.

Now if only it wasn't so goddamn boring in here.

There wasn't even the comfort of constant conversation. Dr. Sera kept busy looking out for the injured all over the medbay, and didn't seem much for talk anyway. Any time he didn't spend hunched over the laboratory equipment in the back of the room he spent sort of muttering to himself, staring at charts, or making thinly veiled passes at the female visitors to the medbay. He did have the decency not to hit on the injured.

Still, his brain was fully entrenched in Science Mode and anybody who needed to speak to him would need to flag him down.

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Sherry hadn't wanted to come see Steve. Not out of spite, but, because of the way things were usually between them. They had their reasons for not getting along, of course (beginning with a C and ending with a laire.), though Sherry knew this wasn't the time to talk about it.

So, instead, she found herself down in medbay, staring at his sleeping form. ~~Not being creepy at all.~~

Not so much sleeping as vegetating, actually. It was getting into the latter half of his third day being stuck in this bed without moving (weren't they supposed to let you move around, or else you got bedsores or something?) and Dr. Sera was still adamant he keep the restraints on. His left eye under the bandage was still blood red and his injured hand still didn't look quite right, though it was sore and starting to revert back to normal. Once it did, Luis said the restraints could come off. So Steve was actually sitting there, trying to force himself to heal up with any psychic powers he might not have.

He heard somebody breathing next to him and abruptly looked up, nearly jumping.

Sherry squeaked and jumped back too, her hands flying to her mouth to cover the noise (possibly so some doctor wouldn't swoop down on her like a hawk and kick her out of Medical.

She wasn't entirely sure what to say now. So, she went back to staring at him with her wide, blue eyes.

After all, the last time she'd seen him, he'd been bleeding fire.

Steve stared back at her uncomfortably. Not surprisingly, he had never exactly prepared himself as far as what to say to the little girl whose life you saved while mutating into a nine foot monstrosity in the middle of a zombie outbreak, especially when the little girl happened to be the daughter of the woman you loved and a man who you did not particularly care for, since he seemed a little overeager to shoot you in the head given the aforementioned possibility of turning into a nine foot monstrosity.

Wait... slow down. Head hurt.

He bit his lip and stared, wondering if she had a reason for being here.

Sherry broke her staring contest with Steve to look back down the line of beds towards the exit. She could just go back home to her new quarters, and put this off until tomorrow. Or the next day.

Or a week later.

She could, in theory, not do it at all, but that would be selfish even for her. So, Sherry turned and looked at Steve again. One of them had to talk first. She just... didn't want it to be her.

Luckily for Sherry, Steve was the King of Awkward. Which meant he liked to prevent awkwardness wherever he could.

"Hey," he said, nodding his head at her.

Well, it was a start...

She jumped a little when he spoke and then tried to smooth out her features as best as possible. "Hi."

Sherry paused for a few long moments, and then said, "You were bleeding fire."

Well, nobody couldn't say she was honest.

Steve cracked a tiny, crooked smile like that and nodded. "Yeah. I, uh... I noticed. Are you okay?"

Someday, Sherry would learn to temper her brutal honesty with tact, but until then...

"I'm fine," she replied and continued to eyeball him. "You're the one that got all," Sherry nodded at Steve. "You know."

All the people who'd visited so far had commented about what happened, but leave it to the kid to really drive it home. Steve's face turned red and he stared down at his lap, feeling an uncomfortable knot tying up in his throat.

"Yeah," he said quietly. "Sorry about that. I didn't mean to."

Well, crap. She hadn't wanted to make him uncomfortable, but she hadn't wanted to make with small talk, either. It was just one of those weird, awkward things.

"Well, it wasn't your fault, was it? I mean, that other monster..." Sherry trailed off and looked down. That monster was one of the many reasons she'd been sleeping with Claire instead of her own bed. "Anyway, don't apologize, that's stupid."

Aaaawkward.

Steve sighed and shook his head. "Well I am sorry. It sort of is my fault. But it's not..." Well, actually, it might be something that Sherry would understand. She was from his world. She probably knew about the T-virus. He didn't exactly feel like explaining it to her if she didn't, so maybe he could get away with the simple version.

"What happened was I got sick," he explained. "I am sick. That's why my blood was..."

"Oh. So you were sick, too?" Well, in that case, maybe they really just needed to get a B-vitamin shot or something. Debilitating mutation diseases just seemed to follow them around or something.

He took a deep breath and hesitated for a few seconds, trying to figure out how to put it or what to say.

"I have a version of the T-virus," he said quietly. "You know. The virus that makes zombies. And it might turn me into a monster."

Well.

That sucked. Sherry shifted her weight, back and forth trying to think of something else. Unfortunately, the only thing that came to mind was, "At least you don't have to worry about getting a shoulder eyeball." Silver linings, right?

Unhelpful silver linings, but nevertheless...

Steve stared at her for a few long, awkward, silent moments.

"Huh?" was all he could come up with in response.

Sherry stared back and wondered if the strain he caught had made his brain as dumb as a zombie's, too. "Shoulder. Eyeball." she said again slowly, stressing the syllables.

"No, I heard that part. What the hell are you talking about?" he asked.

"That's what my dad told me I wouldn't have to worry about, because some monster made me sick. But, they gave me a medicine that made me better again." It had also left a small, dormant monster in her stomach, but that was neither here or there.

The important thing here was that Steve didn't need to worry about shoulder eyeballs. Probably.

"Oh." Steve finally caught on. "That's right, you were sick too, because..."

He wondered if anyone had told her about her antibodies and how they were being used to help him. If it were him, he'd certainly want them to. But at the same time, being told that somebody else was getting your blood could be seen as kind of disturbing.

"Did they tell you about antibodies?" he asked.

"Sort of," Sherry shrugged. "I told Doctor Sera I had wanted to help, and antibodies would be logical, right? I mean, that's why they give us all those shots for school and stuff." Her mind wandered back to that channel conversation (it seemed like forever ago, but then, in kidtime everything was forever ago), and sudden realization hit.

"So, are you the person that they're helping?" Sherry looked surprisingly calm about her cells running around in Steve. Hey, weirder things than this had happened. Like monster with giant, exposed hearts.

Steve was quiet for a moment, watching her face and trying to gauge exactly what kind of a reaction that was. It was more out of the knowledge that he and Sherry had a rocky sort of acquaintanceship at this point than out of the need to be defensive.

"Yeah," he said quietly. "It's not working as well as they hoped, but. Dr. Sera said your antibodies are slowly making the virus go dormant again. So I'll look... normal again."

He wondered if a "thank you" was in order. It struck him as kind of weird.

"I guess that's good then. Even if it's only working a little bit, it's still better than nothing at all." Sherry shrugged. "Maybe they'll find a way to improve it." Who knew?

People here could do all kinds of things. Sherry didn't mind looking at the silver lining when things like Science were involved.

That made Steve smile a bit. "Yeah. I sure hope so," he said evenly. He paused a moment, still regarding Sherry with a searching expression. At last, he shrugged his shoulders and looked down at his hands again.

"Thanks for letting them. It means a lot to me... obviously."

Sherry's eyebrows came together, a little put off by the thanking. "Even if it hadn't been you, I still wanted to help." That was what was supposed to be important, right? Helping other people, even if you didn't really like them? Not that she didn't dislike Steve (as much) now, but if what was swimming around her could do something for people besides herself, then clearly that's what needed to be done.

"But..." Sherry toyed with the sleeve of her plantsuit, "you're welcome. I think."

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