Cammie & Barflies; Cammie & Jake; Cammie & Jean: Stitches

[x-scorpion.livejournal.com]

One of Cammie's ritual nights out ends badly when someone tries to pick her up and a fight starts instead. For once, it's not her fault. ((ooc: thanks Ryan for the socking, updated the last for cont. issues. :3))

It was getting late, and Cammie was winding down for the night. She had drunk a few guys under the table, lifted a couple wallets and had generally enjoyed herself. She wasn’t drunk at all, but the taste of liquor left a pleasant air on her tongue. It was almost time to get a cab back to the Institute.

She took a deep breath of the bar’s muggy, smoky air one more time. Cammie’d have to come back some time.

On the other end of the crowded back, Frank Wolzniak, known to his friends as Sidecar- due to an unfortunate incident at Sturgis three years ago that he was not going to ever bring up again- was finishing his fifth pint of liquid courage. He'd been watching the green haired chick across the bar since she'd come in. She was obviously a mutant- and Frank had a thing for mutants. Unfortunately, this fascination wasn't shared by the rest of his crew- their leader Jack "The Blade" Clark was a rabid supporter of the Friends of Humanity.

Fortunately, The Blade was not as sharp as his name would otherwise imply. Any attempt to pick up a "filthy" mutant could easily be written off as a moment of hilarious drunkenness, which could earn him a new nickname, but would be worth it. Grabbing his jacket, "Back in a flash, Jack," he grumbled, taking a stumble toward the bar- perhaps five pints had been a bit too much on top of the shots of bourbon.

Slowly, he approached the girl who seemed to be getting ready to leave. "Hey, hold on, lil' lady...wher' ya off to in such a hurry?"

Cammie had finished pulling on her leather jacket and turned around to face the voice. She didn’t recoil at the overwhelming smell of alcohol, but raised an eyebrow, “Not that it’s any of your business, but I’m heading home. You know, the place most people sleep? Unless you live in the bar, that’d be a novel experience, don’t you think?”

He was in! After a loud and rather rucusome laugh, Frank smiled through his scraggly, gray beard. "Yeah, that'd be a helluva time. You, um...need a ride home...or back to my home, maybe?" 'Slow down, Frank, maybe she's not that kind of girl. But who cares?' The imaginary angel and demon on his shoulders were duking it out.

“Yeah….. no, I think I’m fine, really. ‘Sides your friends seem like the kind that’d miss having you around. Trust me, I’m a poison girl,” Cammie said, not backing away, just shaking her head. This happened from time to time and she couldn’t understand it.

"Awww, they won't miss me one lil' bit, Green." He reached up to feel her hair- checking to see if it was real. "What's up with that anyway? Poison?"

Cammie took a step back, the message was a clear ‘hands off.’ Or, it was clear if you were sober, “What’s up with what? Poison is poison. I’m not your kind of girl. So back off.”

"Yeah you are, Greeny," Frank drunkenly smiled. "I think you're exactly my kin'ah gal...see I like mutant chicks." His eyes gave her an appraising look, "Oh yeah."

Cammie started laughing, “Then go pick yourself a hooker from the X-District, before I lay your ass on the ground, and not in the way you want it.”

"Oooh, I like a girl with a little fight in 'er." Frank took a step closer, reaching out to grasp the bar to either side of her, cutting off her escape routes. From the other end of the room he could hear the rucus laughter of his brothers.

“Look. This really wasn’t what I was looking for tonight, so move your ass,” Cammie said, her tone carrying the threat that if he didn’t, she’d be glad to move it for him.

He chuckled again, leaning closer to whisper- albeit loud enough to be heard over the noises around the bar- "I'm what every girl here tonight is looking for." One of his hands came up from the bar, slipping inside her jacket to seek out her breasts, thick fingers clumsily groping her.

The reaction was immediate, and only her training with Logan kept it from being uncontrollably deadly. It would just hurt like a bitch. She pulled back her left hand and punched. Hard. “Let go.”

On the other end of the bar, Jack and the rest of the gang had been watching Sidecar make a damn fool of himself. The mutant bitch obviously wasn't interested, but Frank was drunk. Suddenly, the green haired whore crossed the line, knocking Frank to his ass- his head hitting a table on the way down. Immediately, Jack motioned two of his men to the door to make sure the bitch couldn't rabbit- no one hit one of his boys and got away with it.

Breaking his bottle, Jack created an improvised weapon and started toward the bar with two of his biggest enforcers behind him. As Frank had fallen, the bar had become deathly still- people realizing a fight was inevitable were starting to leave. The bouncers were staying out of it and the bartender was clearing off the bar to save the glassware.

Cammie looked around. There was something about this that screamed old west, only without the guns. It had all the staples: a scared bartender, guys blocking the door, the sudden silence; it was all there. Cammie quickly pulled the bandages off her left arm and shoved them into the pocket of her jacket. The bikers were huge, but that didn’t mean anything if she could touch him.

“Jesus, can’t you guys just leave me alone tonight?” she hadn’t even wanted a punch out.

One of the enforcers started to drag Frank away as Jack stood a few feet away, bottle dripping the last vestiges of beer onto the wooden floor. "See, I'd hoped we could, but then you had to go and knock out my boy here." He started to appraise her weak points and was less than surprised that the mutt didn't seem to have any. "So you wanna fight, how's about you fight someone who's ready for ya?"

“I don’t know what he expected when he tried to stick his hand down my shirt,” Cammie returned, wary of the bottle, but her stance didn’t show it. Nature was 9/10ths bluff, and that was the same with people too, “Took ‘im down one hit, I’ll do the same to you.”

Jack snorted, "That so? Typical fuckin' mutant overconfidence." He motioned to the burly man who had been slowly making his way to the end of the bar. "You don't like how some innocent drunk is behavin', you're really gunna hate what we do with ya, you filthy mutie slut." The fatman rushed her, Jack stayed stock still, waiting to see how this would turn out.

The first punch was easy to dodge, so was the second. Even before all the training this would’ve been two easy. The third swing the fatman delivered, Cammie used it to weave around him and put her left hand on his neck, delivering a fatman-sized dose of poison. He turned a sickly shade of green and she took a few steps back to avoid being puked on.

“You know, that’s not fair. You don’t know anything about my sex life. I could be a filthy mutie virgin.”

As the fatman collapsed and vomited on the floor, Jack motioned two more of his boys forward, "Watch that disgusting hand of hers." One of them had a pool cue, the other, a switchblade- they slowly approached her, flanking either side. "In my experience, freak, muties ain't known for their chastity."

“Aw, but I’m the Virgin Mutie Mary,” Cammie returned, watching the weapons. The switchblade was the most dangerous; she had a scar to prove it. “And you must have a case of gene fever to be saying that,” she returned. After a moment of thought she went for the pool cue first. Figuring if she could get that she had a bit more range than her arm could cover.

As the mutie decided to bring religion into it, Jack decided to get involved. She was going for Donald, the man in a jean jacket wielding the pool cue. This gave him the opportunity to reverse his grip on the bottle and dart forward with the practiced skill of a bar room brawl veteran. "Don't insult the holy mother!" he screamed as he brought the bottle down towards her bare upper chest.

She had the cue in her hand and was trying to wrest it away from the man in the jean jacket when she turned, her mouth open slightly in surprise. Not that he was all up in arms about her insulting a girl who had been dead some two thousand years (if she had ever lived at all) but at the fact that the glass hit, and stuck, in the bare skin, cutting deep.

The second the skin was broke, the bar was overtaken with a foul order and Cammie’s blood oozed out black as pitch and about as fragrant.

The foul odor attacked Jack's nostrils, triggering his gag reflex. He doubled over to the floor, vomiting his recent liquid diet across the floor boards. He was vaguely aware that the other members of his gang were doing the same, or trying to get out. As one of them crashed through the window, scrambling for fresh air, Jack lost consciousness.

The last time she had bled like this it had been outdoors so the power of just the odor had been lost on her. Her own head was swimming, and not because of the smell. But because she had a bottle stuck in her tits. She leaned against the bar, grabbed it and pulled, leaving a couple pieces of glass in there, but she’d worry about those later.

Cammie started stumbling towards the exit, shedding her jacket and putting her arm bandages around her chest in an effort to stop the blood. She had to get out of here. Not because she was worried about them calling the cops, but because she knew what her blood could do. She knew though someone she could stumble in on that wouldn’t be affected in the least by her blood. And maybe have a needle and thread so she could take care of this gash.

“Sorry boys,” she muttered, “this garbage pail kid’s gotta go.”

---

Wounded in New York, Cammie drops in on the one person she knows for sure won't feel it and demands a patch job. Of course when you call on a hack, a hack job is what you get. Cammie and Jake and stitches and trash bags. All in all a wonderful evening.

It was around two thirty in the morning when Cammie found herself picking he lock to Jake's apartment. She had taken the bandages from her left arm and had them haphazardly wrapped around her chest. The bottle cut against the bosom was a nasty one and it smelled like a toxic waste dump. The smell didn't bother her so much anymore.

But Cammie knew that other people took offense to it. Not to mention other effects of her blood. But she knew she could bleed all over in here and it wouldn't bother Jake in the least. The door clicked open and she wandered in.

"Hey, Ballless, got a medical emergency here! Where's your needles and thread that you sew your prissy dresses with?"

Jake blinked at her, then said something quickly into his phone in German before hanging up. "What the hell?" The smell hit him first, then he caught sight of the black stain spreading across her shirt. He swore under his breath in German. "Stay there," he ordered, tossing her a towel, "and don't touch anything." He headed for the fire escape, swearing some more, and making a mental note to thank Jean-Paul for making him buy more towels.

"Already touching the floor," Cammie said, the pain didn't even bother her at this point. "Just take your time."

He crossed over to Wanda's, rooted through her medicine cabinet until he found her first aid kit, then came back. "What happened?" he asked unhappily as he set the box on his coffee table. He didn't wait for an answer, but instead headed to the bathroom to find a larger towel, then to the kitchen for some garbage bags. The last thing either of them needed was for her to accidentally poison the Brownstone--like that would go over well.

"A beer bottle," Cammie called after him, picking at the soaked bandages, "I think there's some left in my boob, the glass that is. Cheap shooting moronic barflies."

He shook his head, returning with a box of extra-large trashbags. "Insert whatever lecture you're supposed to get here," he said with a sigh, opening one bag and putting it on the floor. "Stand in that," he pointed, opening another. "Bandages in here." He stood back as she peeled the bandages away from her skin. "Ew," he said, looking a little green himself as the wound was revealed. "And you expect me to do what again?"

"Yay, I get to stand with the garbage," she said with falsetto cheer, "Stitch me. Or if you can't, I will. They just end up crooked that way. If I go to a hospital... well, you can imagine what will happen then."

He definitely turned green at that. "What?" he tilted his head like he hadn't quite understood her. "You want me to...Ew," he repeated. "Can't we just put some gauze over it or something?" He picked through Wanda's overly large first aid kit; there were enough supplies in here to patch someone up on a battlefield if necessary--which was great if you were on a battlefield and had some idea what you were doing, but overwhelming if the extent of your medical training involved once serving as a makeshift IV pole and trying to not pass out.

"No, we can't just put gauze over it. My blood is toxic. And not just a little," she said dryly, "kills on contact, poisons water supplies, has to be stitched shut. If you won't do it, I will. I'm out of super glue."

"So instead you're going to poison my entire building," he said dryly, trying not to be queasy. "Great plan. Piss off the superspies." He shook his head, digging through the kit for a needle and thread. "You know, everyone here is way more qualified at this than me, except that it would kill them," he complained, pulling out supplies. "It won't kill me, but I might kill you trying to fix this. I hate everything."

He turned to Cammie again, looking anywhere except at the ragged wound. "Did you get all the glass out?"

"I'm not pissing off superspies," Cammie returned. She didn't know what they did here, and she didn't care. She shed her shirt and started pulling stick and black bandages away from a chest wound that was still bleeding pretty well. "Look, I'm starting to get woozy so I have no fucking clue. So if you can't do this, captain wussy, I'm going to pass out and die here." It wasn't that bad, but there were times it felt like that.

"You will if you make them sick, or die here," he returned. Dammit. "Sit down," he indicated the floor, then sat next to her. "You realize I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing, right?" he asked, picking up the needle and thread. "This...is crazy."

Cammie sat down, almost falling, "That's fine. I learned from experience too. I don't care what it looks like it just has to stop bleeding, you know?"

"Dammit, Ishmael," Jake swore under his breath. Now that he had a better look, the wound was jagged and just deep enough to make him worried. He pulled a pair of gloves out of the first aid kit--while he didn't need them, he wouldn't have to worry about having to wash his hands after. Gingerly, timidly, he poked at the wound. "I think there's still some glass here."

"Yeah, I think so. Or at least I feel like it," Cammie said, "I figured you'd like to have some blood on the floor so I stopped by."

"Thank you for thinking of me," he said sarcastically. "I'm so glad I was your first choice." He dug into the wound with a pair of tweezers, wincing as he fished out a shard of glass. "Gross," he said, dropping it on the bandages in the second trash bag.

She hissed as he pulled it out, "Yeah. And it felt great too. I remembered you don't get poisoned. It was you or Logan and I don't think I could've made it back there without passing out and/or having fumes kill the cabbie, you know?"

"I need a new mutation," he muttered, digging out another shard. "There. I think that's got it all." He looked her in the eye briefly, then back down at the wound. "Um. I really don't think I can stitch you up. Are you sure I can't just put some gauze on it and tape it down really tightly until we could get you to Dr. Grey?"

"No, I'll just do it," Cammie said. "You can't teleport, I can't teleport, no need to make a teleporter sick," she held out her hand, "Gimme needle and thread. Gauze won't work."

He sighed. "I'll do it. Really. It'll be fun." He took the needle and thread, keeping a piece of gauze to wipe the wound clean. "Just...Hold still." He bit his lip, concentrating, and took a deep breath as he brought the needle up to her skin. And pushed it through. "Weird," he muttered, pausing a moment to collect himself. He was not going to pass out, dammit.

"Look, if it bothers you, I can stitch it," Cammie said through clenched teeth. She wasn't immune to pain. "But it has to be done."

Jake blinked a couple of times, taking a deep breath. "I can do it," he said faintly, eyes flicking up to take in the pained expression on Cammie's face.

He tried not to think about the fact that he was pushing the needle through Cammie's flesh, and instead concentrated on trying to make the stitches even. "Talk to me about something--distract me. Distract you."

"I would, but all I can think about is my belief that only assholes use a weapon in a fist fight," Cammie said, hardly relaxing at all. "And that this was supposed to be fun, damnit."

"Did the other guy know that?" Jake asked through gritted teeth, pulling the thread tight. "That it was supposed to be fun?"

"Me, tiny little punk girl. He big biker," Cammie said, "I'm not supposed to set off the threat meter enough for weapons. Fuck weapons. I hate weapons. So much," there was a sharp intake of breath right then, "Holyfuckingshit."

"Ow," Jake breathed as Cammie's hands wrapped around his biceps and squeezed, hard, her head dropping almost to his shoulder. "I...need my arms to do this."

"Ring 'round the rosie..." Cammie started, the kids' song just ludicrous at the moment, but all she could think of through the haze of pain.

Carefully, he pried the fingers of her left hand from his right arm, wincing as she dug them into his thigh instead. "I'm almost done," he lied, making another stitch and trying to remember to breathe. "You know, there are easier ways to get me to look at your breasts."

"Really?" Cammie returned, "Word 'round town is you're gayer than the sugar plum fairy," she said, wishing for the millionth time she could use pain pills.

"Not...exactly," Jake said, pulling the thread tight again, enjoying the momentary respite it gave him despite Cammie digging her fingers into him again. "I mean sure, I'm a snazzy dresser and I have excellent taste in food, and I have been known on occasion to fuck guys, but--" Another pull on the thread; this was getting easier. "That doesn't mean anything, right?"

"No," she said with short laugh, "But the fact the rumor mill says you're sleeping with the guy that cooks for me, does. 'Least something 'bout coming outta a cake."

One of these days, he was going to call in that favor with Nathan, and it was going to be for something very big. He pulled the thread tight again, pausing to wipe away a trickle of blood so that he could see better.

"Sleeping with the literature teacher, yes," he admitted, "but that doesn't mean it's my default state. Jean-Paul's an exception to the rule."

"Yeah, well, you're a bit too wussy for me, so take what you can get as far as my chest goes," Cammie returned, "So I guess you'll have to stick with Jean-Paul. Wear a kilt for him, he'll totally dig it."

Jake frowned, trying to figure out how to tie off the stitches so that the whole thing didn't come unraveled before he got Cammie to a real doctor.

"He's French Canadian, not Scottish," he replied absently. "And he doesn't like girls at all. I don't think he wants to see me in a skirt."

"Nonono," Cammie said, trying to stay conscious, "Trust me. We had a long talk 'bout this. When we take over the world, all the hot men hafta wear kilts."

Jake cut the thread carefully; he'd reached the point where continuing to tie knots didn't seem to be making much difference anymore. He taped a piece of gauze over the wound, not trusting his attempt at stitches to keep her from bleeding further. "Done," he sighed with relief.

"Great. 'm gonna pass out now. That okay?" Cammie asked, blurry eyed.

"No!" he replied, slightly panicked. "Not until I get you down to the car."

"Look, just need a short nap..." she explained. Really, this wasn't nearly as bad as it looked. "Then I can bleed all over y'car."

"Or I can take you now and you can not..." He trailed off as he realized she was already asleep on his shoulder. "Dammit."

He eased her to the floor, being careful not to jostle the bandage on her chest, then peeled the gloves off and deposited them in the bag with the bloody bandages and her shirt. He quickly disappeared into the bedroom and grabbed an already packed overnight bag, then pulled his least favorite button up shirt out of the closet, which he awkwardly wrestled Cammie into. She woke enough to mumble swear words at him, which he took as a good sign.

There was no way he was going to wait around for her to bleed through her stitches. He'd carry her downstairs, and call the mansion from the car.



---

Jake drops Cammie off in the medlab, under the care of Jean. At least here, she can get straight stitches.

It wasn't that Jean thought Amelia couldn't handle things at the school on her own while she was staying with Yvette, particularly not during summer when half the students weren't even there. But as the days dragged on it became more and more apparent that the medical staff at the hospital in Bosnia were doing all that could be done and it was becoming a waiting game - waiting for Forge to finish the inhibitor, waiting for a new donor to be found, waiting for anything which would change the situation.

Jean hated waiting. At least back at the mansion she could still be useful. It hadn't been hard to convince Clarice to give her a lift back to New York, or to promise to come get her the moment there was news. And what had been a little thought about giving Amelia a break turned into deepest relief that the other red-head wouldn't have to deal with this problem as Jake stumbled through the door with Cammie.

It took only moments to get her settled in one of the back rooms, and she was conscious, sort of, but Jean was more talking to herself as she said, "You know, you really need to stop getting into bar fights, sweetie. They never play fair with you." The bandages, foul where the wound had continued seeping, were telekinetically pealed away and Jean frowned at the uneven line of stitches. "Almost looks like you wanted a new scar..."

“Blame Ballless, he did the needlework,” Cammie muttered. She had been almost awake for awhile now. She hadn’t thought that Jake would actually drive her back to the school, "‘n this one isn’t my fault, I swear.”

"Ballless? Jake?" Jean asked, picking up the image from Cammie's less than guarded mind. "I can't believe he's actually telling all of you about the time he spent stuck as a woman." There wasn't much she was going to be able to do about the stitches without pulling them all out and starting again, but she did brush her fingers against Cammie's temple and mentally deadened her pain sense before she began neatening them as much as she could, thread, scissors and a few pieces of gauze and tape floating back and forth over the girl.

“Is this what morphine feels like?” Cammie muttered as the pain sort of floated away. Any high she had was still being woozy from blood lost. It was trippy, to watch everything floating around as Dr. Grey worked. “’Should be illegal, y’know, using beer bottles.”

"Well, I would say it's, if not precisely like, then not entirely unlike. I take it you mean illegal to use them for purposes other than holding beer?" If pressed, Jean would have admitted that, for an ameture, Jake's work could have been worse. But probably not much worse, and there were a few places she did have to simply undo his work and resew; the edges weren't neat enough and that was where the seeping was worst.

“Yeah,” Cammie said, “Or everyone gets cans from now on,” she said, “doesn’t taste any different. ‘least not to me,” she said. For the first time in a few hours she wasn’t in pain, that was nice. It hadn’t been comfortable by any stretch of the imagination.

"I am in favor of this plan," Jean said, not looking up from where she was tying off the last of the re-done stitches, her attention absolute as she looped the thread about itself telekinetically. "Cause I'm fond of you, Cammie, and would generally prefer your blood inside you, for the betterment of you and everybody else."

“Awww, you like me,” Cammie said with a weak laugh, “You think everyone would be like that, with the way it smells. I got some bad blood. Sorry… for the stitches, didn’t plan on getting cut up tonight.”

"The best laid plans of mice and men..." Jean said, gently propping Cammie up so she could begin wrapping gauze around her torso, tight enough to compress the wound but giving her enough space to breathe.

“Yeah, but I’m not a mouse or a men – I mean a man,” Cammie said as the wrapping began, “I’ll need new bandages for my arms. Sort of bled all over mine. Real messy.”

The red-head smiled. "No worries, we can keep you in a steady supply of gauze. And you know I'm planning on keeping you down here as well, at least for tonight, or whatever's left of it."

Cammie grumbled. She hated being stuck in one place but there was the thought of walking up to her room that just made her want to fall over too. “Fine, just for tonight. Only ‘cause I’m tired,” and had lost a bit of blood. “I just don’t want to be here all weekend. Even tho’ it’s only tomorrow that’s left, huh?”

"Not all of tomorrow, I think that's doable. We'll see in the morning. For now, do you want me to wrap up your arm now or would you rather sleep and do it for yourself in the morning?"

“I think it’s safe right now,” Cammie said, looking at her green arm, “’m not going to be touching anyone while I sleep. I can do it in the morning, just need new bandages. That was my last set, I think,” she said, really having to think about it. “This one really wasn’t my fault, you know.”

"I know," Jean said, easing her back down on to the bed. "And don't worry, I'll make sure the volunteers in here tomorrow know you're back here and don't stumble in and do something stupid. For now, just sleep."

“Sleep’s good,” Cammie agreed, she wouldn’t even need any telepathic nudges to get her that way, she was exhausted. “Yeah, just keep ‘em away. Going to pass out now,” she said with a yawn. “Thanks ‘n stuff.”

"Any time," Jean said, brushing Cammie's green hair back away from her face in a tender gesture. "Just, you know, let's not make it that often. Sleep well," she added as she turned and slipped out of the room, the ruined bandages floating behind her in a tightly contained telekinetic ball that went straight into the bio-waste container.