xp_logs | Laurie and Maddie

Laurie is evil and gives Maddie fodder for Kyle torturing. (All in good fun, I assure you)

The fact that the Medlab was literally right downstairs was supremely awesome in that Maddie didn't have to venture out to a doctor's office and wait forever in a waiting room filled with highly contagious children who had not yet learned how to sneeze into their elbows. What wasn't awesome was that the place still felt enough like a doctor's office to have her antsy to leave; her leg was bouncing with restless energy and she kept looking around the room anxiously. But she couldn't leave until she had her wrist examined. She had hurt it the night before at practice, and she was sure it wasn't broken, but it was still all painful and swollen and tender, and she had promised Sue that she'd see someone all medical if it wasn't feeling better in the morning.

Now if someone could only come and examine her, that'd be great.

"So, did the world end?"

Laurie smiled as she entered the room, popping her mobile phone into her pocket. Luckily for them all, one of the first things Forge had done was make it so use of mobile phones in Med lab wasn't going to break or interfere with anything. Which meant anyone spending any amount of time down here didn't go completely mad via lack of technology.

"Wha-?"

Maddie frowned slightly as she looked at the intruder of her zone out, trying to bring her mind back around and figure out what was going on. Her first thought was "I thought we got over all that 'end of the world' nonsense', but then she realized that Laurie was talking about The Confession (or that was how she referred to it; it was a big deal, okay?). Well, probably. That was the first thing that made actual sense.

"Oh no." The redhead smiled. "I'm figuring it's more a 'First Sign of Impending Apocalypse' kinda thing, you know? Dogs and cats running around together, snow in the summer time, penguins going extinct, those sorts of things."

"Good to know. Although I've got to say that cats and dogs get along quite well if properly socialised, so I never did _entirely_ understand what they were going on about, except perhaps bad pet owners living in the same space. Which, I suppose would be a sign of bad things to come."

Laurie moved closer and gestured for Maddie to place her hand and subsequently her wrist in Laurie's hands so she could manipulate it. Jean had asked her to do the honours considering it was a fairly mild injury and she'd been asking for a chance to practice more procedures.

"So, what seems to be the problem here?"

The redhead winced as Laurie took hold of her swollen wrist. "Cartwheel," she said. It hurt to move her wrist, and somewhat less so to flex and ball her fingers, but it was bearable. "I'm not as strong leading with my right side so I was practicing, and I must have placed my hand wrong or twisted it or something because it was like a jolt of pain. Now it's mostly throbbing... ow!"

"Maybe save the cartwheels for the gym next time? Or at least a grassy spot"

Laurie manipulated Maddie's wrist the other way gently, watching the girl's face as much as feeling the limb to make her diagnosis.

"A mild sprain at least, although luckily nothing more serious."

"I was in the gym. On mats even." Maddie scowled in annoyance as much as she did from the pain of being prodded. "But when your wrist goes one way and your body goes another they don't help much. It's like a semi jackknifing on the highway."

"So R.I.C.E.-ing. And what else? Wrap only? Sling it up? What?"

"Wrap only, a sling isn't necessary for something this minor. I can give you some pain killers if you need them but otherwise I'll just..."

Laurie was interrupted half-way through by the sound of her phone ringing with the tune 'What did the fox say' and she grinned, pressing the 'hangup' button so it would go to voice mail, she'd call Kyle back after she'd finished with Maddie.

"Sorry about that, never a dull minute around here. So, as I was saying, we'll wrap you up and feed you some pain killers and you should try to keep it as rested as possible for the next week but other then that, you'll be fine."

But Maddie wasn't paying attention. Instead she was tapping her left foot in the air, forming an invisible beat, and humming the melody from Laurie's phone. Dang that thing was catchy. "Huh, what?" She looked up, confused, having only caught maybe an eighth of what she was being told.

"Oh no need to hang up on your secret mystery boytoy on my account," Maddie said. She grinned mischievously.
"He's gonna think you don't like him. Or that you've run off to marry a Saudi Prince."

"I think Dori would sick a horde of squirrels on me if she heard you calling Kyle my boytoy."

Laurie pulled out a sterile roll of bandage and positioned Maddie's arm and wrist gently in her hand as she started wrapping the bandage around it. Saudi Prince might sound interesting and exotic in romance stories but without knowing anything about the actual culture of the region, she wouldn't be running off to there any time soon. Not that she wouldn't consider it for the right Prince, but he'd have to give her a whole lot of reading time beforehand, and maybe a character reference or two.

"I'm thinking a Prince would be a high maintenance boyfriend anyway."

"I don't know." Maddie watched carefully as Laurie wrapped her wrist, thankful that it hadn't been her left side that had gotten injured; bandaging with one hand was hard enough without the added complication of doing so with your non-dominant hand. Not that that hadn't happened to the redhead before. Multiple times, actually. But a sprained right wrist? Pretty much an ideal injury, if such a thing existed. "Princes are people too. And have you seen some of them?" She fanned herself with her free hand in a dramatic fashion.

Before redhead could explain why she was getting all hot and bothered (not really, but some of those Persian Gulf princes were quite attractive), Laurie's phone burst out in song again. "That your boytoy?"

"No, that's Dori's tune."

Laurie frowned and pulled her phone out of her pocket, reading the text message for a moment before tapping out a reply and putting it back. She turned back to Maddie's wrist and finished off the bandage with a small clip that would keep it fastened.

"I've got different tones for everyone, mostly I just choose something that reminds me of them, much easier then wondering who's calling me till I pick up the phone."

"So, why 'What Does the Fox Say?'" Maddie cradled her bandaged arm close to her breast. The pain in her wrist, while not gone completely, seemed to have lessened, at least a little. Perhaps that was more psychological than anything. Like the placebo effect. And maybe a little bit of her wrist being stabilized and not having to support itself. "Is it cause he's blonde? Cause not all Norwegians are blonde." That was the extent of her knowledge of the song, which she only knew about because they used it in a cheer. She refused to watch the video on principle.

"That's racist, Laurie."

"Because Kyle's a fox?"

Laurie blinked as Maddie's last comment registered and she laughed, shaking her head. She headed over to a cabinet recessed into one of the walls and pulled out some Advil before heading back over to her patient.

"The Advil should help with the pain."

"Um, yeah he is." Maddie downed the pills dry, a skill honed from a lifetime of injuries. "I mean, have you seen him with his shirt off? Whew." The redhead fanned herself with her hand so as not to be overwhelmed with the vapors. "I don't have any 'hots for teacher' thing going on, but that man with his shirt off is an enjoyable sight."

"I mean, dude's ripped. But not in that gross over-muscled-droid-shooting-'so many muscles my muscles have muscles' extreme body builder way," Maddie may have been being overly familiar, but she didn't care, "cause let's face it those folks tend to look kinda gross. But Kyle's shirtlessness is pleasing on the eyes."

"Yes, I have in fact, plenty of times."

Laurie may not be attracted to Kyle in a 'I want a relationship with you', as they had always been much, much better friends then anything else, but she certainly wasn't blind as to the man's charms. Hot was an understatement; she felt, and Dori was a very lucky woman.

"But I meant that his mutation is specifically vulpine in nature."

"Vulpine?"

"It's the scientific name, or specifically Vulpini is the scientific name for Kyle's species of feral, otherwise known as the common, garden variety fox."

Laurie was always willing to elucidate on any and all esoteric knowledge she happened to contain in a mind that she would be the first to admit was filled with the random detritus of many years as an epic swot. Apart from that, she was not above giving Kyle's students the means to tease him unmercifully as long as it wasn't hurtful, or a major confidentiality breach.

"Considering he's also a male of the species, you could probably get away with also calling him Reynard if you really wanted to push your luck."

"Wait wait wait." Hands waving madly and bouncing in excitement, Maddie continued to speak, very slowly as if she were still piecing the pieces of the puzzle together. "So you're telling me that Kyle, Kyle Gibney, is a Fox-Fox? With the face," she raised her hands scrunched up her own face in demonstration, "and the tail, and the ears," she said, still demonstrating what she meant by cupping her hands on either side of her head.

"And the 'Tally ho!'-ing with the dogs chasing them in the hunt, and the 'Fox and the Hound', and and and...."

"Shit. I ran out of fox things."
"And the 'What did the fox say' and the Robin Hood from the Disney cartoon, yes."

Laurie couldn't hide her amusement now, Kyle was going to absolutely murder her later on but it would be so worth it. It was very rarely that she got to play pranks these days, especially not ones that had no chance whatsoever of back firing on herself.

Suddenly Maddie was very still, eyes wide in excitement, her mouth forming a small "o". She remained that way, frozen in time for several moments. You could practically see the gears in her head turning. "O. M. G.," she said, sounding as though she had just discovered something wondrous and magical and impossible; like the answer to the eternal question of how much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood. Then, unfrozen, she jumped off the table and made a beeline for the door.

"I have to go now. Thanks for fixing me up, Laurie. I'll, um, see you later."

But before she had made a clean break, Maddie stuck her head back in the exam room. "Oh, and can you do me a favor and not tell Kyle or anyone about this conversation? Thanks again!"