(no subject)

[guppy_sandhu]

Guppy and Hannibal spent a fair amount of time working on Sunshine yesterday, and she is currently resting in one of the beds.

She could probably do with some gentle company.

Comments

Re: Sunshine awake / Autor

[herr_bookman]

Autor blinks at her in return. Until he snorts into a laughter which runs a gradient from a soft chuckling to a full-on cackle.

Still grinning, the boy removes his glasses and scrubs at his eyes with the heel of his hand. He leans back, hoping the sunlight shields him from her view, and that she can't smell the salt.

Re: Sunshine awake / Autor

[sunbaked_baker]

Sunshine's smile widens, her eyes mostly shut with sleepy amusement.

"What are you laughing at, smartass?" Her tone is fond, and would normally be accompanied by chuckling.

Re: Sunshine awake / Autor

[herr_bookman]

"You, of course, and the derailing of your train of thought," Autor says, patting her hand. "Though I must confess to a slight disappointment. The last time one of us was doped up, there were recitations of poetry."

Re: Sunshine awake / Autor

[sunbaked_baker]

"So flamboyantly fictitious, exaggeratedly economic bragging battles are not lofty enough for you?" Rae is smiling. She might be drowsy and contented on painkillers and sunlight, but she can still engage in aggressive alliteration like a pro.

Or at least, that's what she wants to convince him of.

Re: Sunshine awake / Autor

[herr_bookman]

"Oh, that is not even remotely right," Autor grouses. "I was looking for fruit in a milkshake and you're capable of conjuring compositions which conform to the contours of cadency."

Re: Sunshine awake / Autor

[sunbaked_baker]

A faint line appears between her brows.

".......Looking for fruit in a milkshake?" she asks, muzzily.

What even, Autor?

Re: Sunshine awake / Autor

[herr_bookman]

"Mil-oh! Er. No. Smoothies," he says, face warming not just from the heat of the sun jars. "I'd remember thinking it was a milkshake and looking for the sparkles in it, and forgetting there was fruit, and then remembering again, and, anyway, I'm glad you handle your meds better than I handled mine."

He doesn't quite flail. But Sunshine can probably feel him squirming if she can't see him.

Re: Sunshine awake / Autor

[sunbaked_baker]

Rae blinks at him, smiling in a vague and slightly lost manner.

"That's okay. I have no idea what you're talking about." And she's pretty okay with that.

Re: Sunshine awake / Autor

[herr_bookman]

"I'll let you in on a secret if you promise not to tell anyone," the boy says. He glances around furtively--straight into sunlight, which strips him of any claim to subtlety. "I don't know what I'm talking about most of the time, either."

Re: Sunshine awake / Autor

[sunbaked_baker]

Sunshine nods, sagely. Possibly exaggeratedly. "I always suspected. It feels good to be so vindicated in my suspicions."

Re: Sunshine awake / Autor

[herr_bookman]

"That is so rare for you, isn't it," he says, just as sage, and quite possibly just as theatrical. "Very well, I'll let you have it this time, pried from the cockles of my black little heart. Are there any other ways I can light your path or are you set for today?"

Re: Sunshine awake / Autor

[sunbaked_baker]

"Your black little cockle-y heart could light my path in more metaphorical ways," she suggests, wry. "I'm... kind of out of reading materials."

Sunshine doesn't often get the opportunity to just lie about and read... the problems come when she finishes what's readily available. And there are few people whose tastes in literature she trusts.

Re: Sunshine awake / Autor

[herr_bookman]

And now the boy feels inexplicably nervous. He could offer her Aerin Firehair, but she's probably read that a million times before. She's mentioned gormless Other fiction, but he's not sure what that means. And he has no idea what sorts of vegetarian magazines she'd like to scan through.

He has her canon locked away in his sylladex of course, but that will never, ever see the light of day--bottled or otherwise--if he's still breathing.

"Um," he says, as the phrase out of your league tickles his ear, "well, I've recommended Mademoiselle de Maupin by Pierre Jules Théophile Gautier to Oswin before. The titular lady is an opera star who cross-dresses, has unparalleled skills with the sword, and sets fire to a convent because she loves one of the nuns. True story."

He taps his chin. "There's also Six Thousand Years of Bread: Its Holy and Unholy History, which you might find funny."

Re: Sunshine awake / Autor

[sunbaked_baker]

Sunshine grins. "Both of those sound fantastic, actually. I'd like to see what they mean by bread's unholy history."

Because of course that'd be more interesting than the holy side of its history.

Re: Sunshine awake / Autor

[herr_bookman]

"Maybe they made it with unholy water," Autor smirks, "which is really just regular water that hasn't had the hell boiled out of it."

Re: Sunshine awake / Autor

[sunbaked_baker]

It's a terribly lame joke - utterly lame! - but she wasn't expecting it. And that's why the delighted laughter bursts forth before she can stop it.

But the laugh doesn't last long, as Rae suddenly curls both bandaged arms across her abdomen, curling in on herself as the laughter turns to rough, violent coughs, her face paling.

Re: Sunshine awake / Autor

[herr_bookman]

"Rae!" the boy cries, floundering for a moment. He reaches out to rub her torn shoulder, and pulls back; reaches out and back again, hands shaking.

Utterly useless, he draws his knuckles to his mouth and bites down, waiting for her seizing to subside.

Re: Sunshine awake / Autor

[sunbaked_baker]

Sunshine ends up mostly curled up on her left side, arms held tight against herself, skin clammy with sweat, her head down and breathing heavy, trying to get her heartrate back down to normal.

Re: Sunshine awake / Autor

[herr_bookman]

Autor's breath hitches twice. He eases up from his seat on the bed so as not to bounce her. Though he's reluctant to leave, he returns within moments with a wet, warm rag and a cup of water.

"Rae," he murmurs, holding the cloth near her cheek if she wants it, "will water help? Can you keep it down? I'm so sorry, Rae, I'm so sorry."

Re: Sunshine awake / Autor

[sunbaked_baker]

Her hand, when she does eventually reach for the cloth, shakes. Rae presses the cloth to her face, wiping her eyes and cheeks while trying to clear her throat without requiring extra effort from her ribcage.

"I'm..." she croaks, "I'm fine."

Re: Sunshine awake / Autor

[herr_bookman]

"Oh, would you be quiet!" the boy snaps. "How dare you say you're fine? Don't lie to me, you've got a concussion!"

Autor sets her cup down near a sun jar and paces, nails digging into his palms. "I know you have to do this sort of thing--that it's a part of your life you never asked for--but you can't say things are fine when they're so clearly not," he says, and his speech is pressured, disjointed, curved around a ball in his throat. "'Fine'. Of all the words to choose... It's just as bad as 'fell', and you know it."

He can't even see her anymore. Sunlight, refracting off of a hot film of tears, stings his eyes.

Re: Sunshine awake / Autor

[sunbaked_baker]

Sunshine breathes in the faint, laundry-fresh smell of the cloth, facing away from Autor. She focuses more on breathing slowly and keeping herself from coughing than on the boy's indignation. The entire right side of her torso hurts like she's on fire.

Rather than argue, rather than even acknowledge Autor's rant, Sunshine occupies herself in making her way back towards what, for now, must be considered 'fine' simply on the merit that things haven't become suddenly worse.

Re: Sunshine awake / Autor

[herr_bookman]

The sound of her breathing--measured, slow, and not too deep--steadies his own. Autor listens, and nearly bites through his lip.

The boy melts into a sun jar-free chair, turning his toes in. "Shit," he whispers, clutching the back of his neck and lowering his head. "You're not even up for an argument."

It's between what have I done and what I should have been that he chokes another apology out. "Is there anything I can do for you?"

Re: Sunshine awake / Autor

[sunbaked_baker]

By 'I'm fine,' Rae had only meant that she wasn't in any direct and immediate danger, that the coughing fit was past and wouldn't cause any lingering complications. Not to insinuate that the situation as a whole was anything other than thoroughly messed up.

She suspects he knows this, on some level. Even just turning back to face forward and sit normally is a trial, requiring gentle and carefully balanced coordination between what limbs she hasn't yet injured.

"You could hand me that water," she suggests.

Re: Sunshine awake / Autor

[herr_bookman]

And he does, somewhere, buried deep, drowned out by the fear vibrating painfully beneath his skin. But it's not an excuse, and he knows that, too.

The penitent boy lifts the water--holy or unholy, who can tell--gingerly, and places the cup in her hand without touching her skin. He releases it as soon as he's sure she's got a good grip.