Julian and Sue (Backdated to Apr 16)

[x-invisiblegirl.livejournal.com]

When Julian wakes in the medlab a familiar face is waiting.

Julian wasn't sure what day it was when his eyes fluttered open, or even if it was at day at all as the lights were still kept dim.  The bedside lamp was on though, and he wondered if it was just one of those fevered moments between doses of painkillers or if he was in fact lucid and seeing his friend...no, best friend...at his bed-side.  His voice was gruff, but he managed to croak out, "Come here often."

Sue's eyes fluttered open from from the half-sleep daze she'd been and she caught sight of Julian's gaze, "Oh, well you know me, I can't get enough of the hospitals. It's the sterile white decor and the smell of antiseptic, I just can't get enough of it," she quipped with a wry smile, feeling a little guilty at being caught napping. "How're you feeling sleepy-head?

He scoffed in response, "You ever have one of those dreams where you lose a body part or two?  I just had the strangest one of those."  He waved his wrists in front of his face and mocked shock, "Oh no...it wasn't a dream at all," he said flatly.

"No, can't say I've ever had that one," Sue replied matching Julian's flat tone of voice, "I've been stuck in this nightmare of finding out your best friend was injured and breaking several laws to get back to the mansion where I've stayed awake the best part of 2 days with your girlfriend cause neither of I could barely even think straight cause of worry. That was horrid enough for me," the blonde noted her voice quivering ever so slightly.

"I feel like Tandy and I already talked," Julian shook his head slightly, but all this did was remind him how much the skin beneath the inhibitor collar itched and how he couldn't scratch it.  "I may not remember us talking either, so if you have anything you'd like to confess, now would be the time."

"Umm, that time when we were 15 and your mother's ming vase ended up broken when we got back to your house and she blamed you? Yeah, that was me kicking off my shoes. And lets see, I'm still deeply and hopelessly enamored with you and can't get you off my mind, Oh and I never really liked those polo shirts you were and I've secretly been feeding them to the puppies while you're not home. I think that about covers it, man I'm glad to get all that off my chest."

Julian rolled his eyes and tapped one of the metal caps on his wrists against the inhibitor collar, "Could you take this thing off for a second?  It itches something fierce."

"Sure," Sue reached out for collar, her hands pausing in mid-air. "The doctor's don't need you to keep this on or anything do they?" she inquired as she looked over the controls, trying to figure out how to deactivate the collar."

"No idea," he tilted his head to give her a better look at the device, but caught her hesitancy, "I'm guessing its for when I'm sleeping.  I used to have...well, things would happen when I was unconscious with my powers."

"Wait," Sue paused and gave Julian a long level look her hands resting on the control panel of the collar, "What kinda things? I'm remembering a sleepover 6 years ago where someone threw my clothes all over hte place and drenched me in water. That wasn't your subconscious taking revenge for pushing you into the lake was it?" she asked as she deactivated hte collar and pulled it away.

"Subconscious, so it couldn't <i>technically</i> be considered revenge," he said weakly, reaching up to scratch the itch only to be met with the rough surface of the gauze.  His brow furrowed and his eyes closed, his wrists falling back to his sides.

"Your subconscious therefore still part of you," Sue objected as she leaned forward to scratch her friend's neck for him near the spot it seemed he'd been aiming for. "don't think this doesn't mean I won't be looking for revenge, I really liked that top and it was completely ruined," she teased lightly.

Julian's gauze wrapped wrist slapped away her hand from his neck, and he met her surprised expression with one of steely determination.  "Who do you think you're scratching?"  A faint green glow appeared around his neck, and the fine hairs there began to move as if something was manipulating them.

"Well," Sue tilted her head to one side and shook her head at Julian, "Ok so that is one way to do it. You know, if you got it might as well use it, that seems pretty useful too," she allowed, "I didn't know your control was that good though."

As if on cue, a bruise began to form on that area, but despite the malformation, the glow did not immediately diminish.  Finally, "Damnit!"  Julian stopped hurting himself and held his bandaged wrist against the self-afflicted wound.

"Almost," Sue stood up and made her way to a nearby fridge, grabbing an icepack and wrapped it in a towel before holding it out silently to her friend.

"I blame the pain killers," he let her press it against his neck, avoiding eye-contact.  For a brief moment he looked up at her, then sighed and placed his wrist onto the ice pack.  "Did the docs tell you anything?"

"Not much, I had to go trawling through the reports to figure out what happened," Sue said apologetically perching herself on the edge of his bead, "The doctor's just told me the basics, don't stress you too much be quiet thing. and that you were really lucky that Sharon was there, I need to get her something nice. And you need to heal up fast so I can beat the living hell out of you for worrying me like that. Tandy rang and said that there had been an accident and you were I the hospital and i thought you were dead." Sue scrubbed the back of a hand over her eyes, "You're never allowed to do that again, you hear me Julian Keller, or so help me I'll come up with the worst punishment that and human has ever thought of!"

Julian nodded and reached out a hand to hold hers, but met only air.  A moment of silence passed between them, "It's never going to be the same again...."

"No," Sue's face fell and she looked down at her hands and clenched them into fists, "it isn't." she agreed sadly. "I'm sorry Julian, if I could..." the blonde's voice trailed off and she looked up at her friend,. Sue had never felt so helpless, she didn't even know the words to say to make Julian feel better.

Julian nodded in response, and let another beat of silence fill the room before he finally put on a pathetic smile.  "You sure you can't just grow them back with super-science or something?"

"Not yet, you know how the government is with cloning," Sue replied with her best mock disgusted sniff, "you try to clone an otter in a high security lab once and they ask you to never clone anything ever again, and I really wanted a pet otter too." Sue shook her head, "We'll figure out something, cloning or we can get some cyborg hands for you."

The machinery whirled to life, and a hiss indicated another dosage of something wonderful being fed into Julian's IV.  The sudden burst of cold liquid entering his body gave him a jolt, his heart rate rising, until the drugs began to take hold and the world seemed unimportant...and fuzzy.  "Well, I leave that to you, Doctor Storm.  Clone me some cyborg otter hands and we're square for...for...."  His eyes started to close.

"Cyborg otter hands, that sounds like something out of science fiction. I knew I'd finally get you into it one way or another," Sue noted to herself as she reached forward to brush Julian's hair out of his eyes. "Square for nothing, it's all I can do."

Julian's eyes remained closed, but he heard her and mumbled something incoherent in response before fading into unconsciousness.