![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xp_daytripper posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
xp_logsPost Sins of the Father. After Marie-Ange posts proof of life from the medlab, Amanda goes straight down to check for herself.
She'd spent so much time in the medlab recently, Amanda wasn't exactly keen to come back, even for a visit. But Marie-Ange was apparently back in the land of the living (which was apparently France, to go by her journal posts) and Amanda needed to see for herself how her friend was doing. So here she was once again, knocking quietly at the door to Marie-Ange's room and trying to get her breath back after coming down here. Her own injuries were healing and she didn't need the cane any more, but renewing the blood she'd lost was taking time.
"I am... " There was a pause, a hacking cough, and then Marie-Ange cleared her throat. "Awake. And finally have all of the gauze out of my sinuses, ick." She was sitting propped up by hospital bed and pillows and someone had finally raided Marie-Ange's own closets, because she had a worn-out cotton pajama shirt and the hems of some faded and threadbare plaid pajama pants stuck out from the blankets. "If I am exceptionally well behaved I get to take a shower from the neck down." Her hair was disgusting, what hadn't been clipped off on the one side.
"You're a sight for sore eyes. Even without the shower." Amanda moved faster than she had for a while to the side of the bed, wrapping Marie-Ange in a careful hug. This wasn't something the two of them did much, so it was a clear indication of how glad Amanda was to see her roomie. "I'd have been here earlier, only they wouldn't let me in."
Marie-Ange hugged back, with the arm that was not still full of IV tubes. "I think no one was let in, until they were sure no infections would make my brain even more broken than usual, and I was asleep for most of it." She had vague memories of the medical staff in the sterile white paper suits, and not much else. "This is the most consecutive nights of sleep I have had in years. Almost worth it just for that."
Amanda snorted a laugh into what was left of Marie-Ange's hair and pulled back, eyes definitely damp. "Some might say it was a pretty fucking extreme way to get a decent nap," she replied in the same vein while wiping her eyes with her sleeve. "How many parrot jokes have you gotten yet?"
"Not a one, but Angelo offered to hire pirate strippers." Marie-Ange said, laughing. "I think. He said performers, but I think he meant strippers." She wiggled around a bit to give Amanda more room. "I hope so because as soon as I am allowed to leave and have real clothes and a shower I am having a belated birthday party, and since I cannot have alcohol until I am off antibiotics, I should get strippers."
"Hell yes, you should." Amanda scooted onto the bed, wincing at little as some stitches pulled. "Strippers and treasure and making people walk the plank. And for all I know, Jubilee's already working on a crochet parrot for you. Possibly a whole outfit."
"She is the first to walk the plank, if there is any itchy yarn in my future." Cute parrots were acceptable, 1970's era parkas, even pirate parkas, were not. Marie-Ange made a face, half annoyed and half thoughtful. "Although one of those very warm wool Irish fishermen's sweaters. That I would not make her walk the plank for." She was clearly still a little medicated, because Marie-Ange giggled.
"I'll be sure and let her know," Amanda promised with her own grin. Giggly Marie-Ange, even medicated, was adorable. "Any word from the docs about when you're allowed out?" she continued in a conversational tone
Marie-Ange waved a hand at the tablet computer not-hers that sat on the nearby table. "I have a whole list of things I am required to accomplish before I can go sleep in my own bed but mostly they are done. I think it is just medical things, making sure the inside of my head is not inflamed or infected or something else disgusting." She carefully touched the bandages covering the side of her face. "And then I get to come back all the time, because of healing and plastic surgeries and..." She rolled her visible eye. "and prosthetics and I do not even know what else. This being injured is quite a lot of paperwork."
"There's a whole insurance industry based 'round it," agreed Amanda. "But you're better off here than with the NHS, at least at the moment." Her look grew apologetic. "I might be able to magik things along faster with a donor or two, but I don't think I can regrow the eye. It'd take too much and there's no-one here I hate enough to want to kill." The last was obviously a joke.
"I would have to turn you down in any case." And with that, Marie-Ange's expression switched from light to serious. "Sacrifices do not count if you get to grow the eye back, and I probably owe with interest a bit, no?"
"Yeah, probably." The witch sighed, but she knew how things were. She lowered her voice a little. "Tho' I'm thinking Xorn has a bloody nasty sense of humour, what with all this. You and Odin, me and Rack. Talk about rehashing old history."
Marie-Ange scowled, and made one of the warding-off gestures she'd seen Amanda and Topaz do from time to time. "Xorn can sit on a spear and rotate, that is the expression? I think this was not him though. All Odin, and my own vanity putting off fixing my very stupid precognition." She poked at the bandages. "I am probably due for birds and an email from the god of thunder any moment now telling me his father has something unkind to say about my procrastination."
"First thing I did was make sure Rack is still the fuck dead. Since him turning up and all would just be the cherry on the shite sundae. Magic does love its coincidences, so I wouldn't put it past the powers that fuck with us to decide it would be a great old joke." Amanda was trying to keep her sense of humour, but this had been the straw that broke the camel, it seemed. "So, fixing your pre-cog - that's something you want to do now?"
Amanda had probably heard Marie-Ange's sheepish cough, and seen the Frenchwoman glance off to the side hundreds of times before, probably more than anyone alive. "May have done already." She said. "No migraines and fifteen hours of unmedicated sleep, and the doctors had me all covered in those sticky monitoring tabs. Nothing to indicate any of the, ah." She tapped her bandages. "Thalamus? I think? One of those parts of the brain I never memorized in university, ah, whichever part it is, it is not causing little thunderstorms."
"So all it needed was losing an eye? Between you and Summers, you'll be putting ideas in the docs' heads. Powers wonky? Out with the eyeball. Migraine? Time for the scoop. Stubbed toe? Let's fit you out for an eyepatch." Amanda snorted. "But seriously, Odin is a wanker. Just because he had to lose an eye to gain cosmic wisdom doesn't mean every other precog has to."
"I think it is a side effect of having cosmic power. They are all wankers." Marie-Ange offered. "Too much of that kind of power means you start thinking you can decide what other people have to do with their powers and make deals with teenage girls, and change universes and make everything topsy turvy and frankenberry cattywumpus."
Amanda giggled. Yes they were talking deep and serious topics, but Marie-Ange's expressions combined with her accent were just too silly. "The least they could do would be to give us a handbook. You know, 'So You're Living in Another Dimension For Dummies', that sort of thing."
"Handbook for the Recently Dimensionally Displaced. It can read like VCR instructions." Clearly Marie-Ange had been watching a lot of old movies if she was making Beetlejuice references. "This is a stupid universe, I want a refund on my cover charge. Too many psychotic foster brothers, they need a better bouncer."
"Psychotic foster brothers, resurrected dead mothers, orphans from the dark dimensions and a smart-arse geezer moving us all around like pawns on a chessboard... definitely not what I signed up for," Amanda agreed. "Still... we broke it, so we've bought it,yeah?"
"We watched it break, and it was left on our lawn with blocks under the wheels and a nest of rats under the hood." Marie-Ange said, with a frown. "I refuse to accept that any of this was any of our faults. We are just stuck with the messy ends of someone else's decisions." She shook her head, and patted Amanda's hand. "Not your fault, not mine, certainly not Topaz's, though, that one is going to blame herself for all of this three times over."
"Still, better than the alternative." Which was dying horribly as the world disintegrated. "And yeah, she's already started with that. You wouldn't have seen the post she made apologising to everyone. So much like me as a kid, but I'm not telling her that. Kid's already got a complex about being my mini-me."
"And we can use our own disastrous bad decisions as a guideline to prevent some of the worst." Marie-Ange tapped, every so gently, the bandages covering half her face. "Plus I intend to cheat. I intend to cheat a great deal. If I have to suffer pirate jokes and Odins' meddling, I will make sure I at least get some good out of it for everyone I care about." Or the world, or both if she could manage it.
Amanda snorted. "Topaz won't know what hit her."
She'd spent so much time in the medlab recently, Amanda wasn't exactly keen to come back, even for a visit. But Marie-Ange was apparently back in the land of the living (which was apparently France, to go by her journal posts) and Amanda needed to see for herself how her friend was doing. So here she was once again, knocking quietly at the door to Marie-Ange's room and trying to get her breath back after coming down here. Her own injuries were healing and she didn't need the cane any more, but renewing the blood she'd lost was taking time.
"I am... " There was a pause, a hacking cough, and then Marie-Ange cleared her throat. "Awake. And finally have all of the gauze out of my sinuses, ick." She was sitting propped up by hospital bed and pillows and someone had finally raided Marie-Ange's own closets, because she had a worn-out cotton pajama shirt and the hems of some faded and threadbare plaid pajama pants stuck out from the blankets. "If I am exceptionally well behaved I get to take a shower from the neck down." Her hair was disgusting, what hadn't been clipped off on the one side.
"You're a sight for sore eyes. Even without the shower." Amanda moved faster than she had for a while to the side of the bed, wrapping Marie-Ange in a careful hug. This wasn't something the two of them did much, so it was a clear indication of how glad Amanda was to see her roomie. "I'd have been here earlier, only they wouldn't let me in."
Marie-Ange hugged back, with the arm that was not still full of IV tubes. "I think no one was let in, until they were sure no infections would make my brain even more broken than usual, and I was asleep for most of it." She had vague memories of the medical staff in the sterile white paper suits, and not much else. "This is the most consecutive nights of sleep I have had in years. Almost worth it just for that."
Amanda snorted a laugh into what was left of Marie-Ange's hair and pulled back, eyes definitely damp. "Some might say it was a pretty fucking extreme way to get a decent nap," she replied in the same vein while wiping her eyes with her sleeve. "How many parrot jokes have you gotten yet?"
"Not a one, but Angelo offered to hire pirate strippers." Marie-Ange said, laughing. "I think. He said performers, but I think he meant strippers." She wiggled around a bit to give Amanda more room. "I hope so because as soon as I am allowed to leave and have real clothes and a shower I am having a belated birthday party, and since I cannot have alcohol until I am off antibiotics, I should get strippers."
"Hell yes, you should." Amanda scooted onto the bed, wincing at little as some stitches pulled. "Strippers and treasure and making people walk the plank. And for all I know, Jubilee's already working on a crochet parrot for you. Possibly a whole outfit."
"She is the first to walk the plank, if there is any itchy yarn in my future." Cute parrots were acceptable, 1970's era parkas, even pirate parkas, were not. Marie-Ange made a face, half annoyed and half thoughtful. "Although one of those very warm wool Irish fishermen's sweaters. That I would not make her walk the plank for." She was clearly still a little medicated, because Marie-Ange giggled.
"I'll be sure and let her know," Amanda promised with her own grin. Giggly Marie-Ange, even medicated, was adorable. "Any word from the docs about when you're allowed out?" she continued in a conversational tone
Marie-Ange waved a hand at the tablet computer not-hers that sat on the nearby table. "I have a whole list of things I am required to accomplish before I can go sleep in my own bed but mostly they are done. I think it is just medical things, making sure the inside of my head is not inflamed or infected or something else disgusting." She carefully touched the bandages covering the side of her face. "And then I get to come back all the time, because of healing and plastic surgeries and..." She rolled her visible eye. "and prosthetics and I do not even know what else. This being injured is quite a lot of paperwork."
"There's a whole insurance industry based 'round it," agreed Amanda. "But you're better off here than with the NHS, at least at the moment." Her look grew apologetic. "I might be able to magik things along faster with a donor or two, but I don't think I can regrow the eye. It'd take too much and there's no-one here I hate enough to want to kill." The last was obviously a joke.
"I would have to turn you down in any case." And with that, Marie-Ange's expression switched from light to serious. "Sacrifices do not count if you get to grow the eye back, and I probably owe with interest a bit, no?"
"Yeah, probably." The witch sighed, but she knew how things were. She lowered her voice a little. "Tho' I'm thinking Xorn has a bloody nasty sense of humour, what with all this. You and Odin, me and Rack. Talk about rehashing old history."
Marie-Ange scowled, and made one of the warding-off gestures she'd seen Amanda and Topaz do from time to time. "Xorn can sit on a spear and rotate, that is the expression? I think this was not him though. All Odin, and my own vanity putting off fixing my very stupid precognition." She poked at the bandages. "I am probably due for birds and an email from the god of thunder any moment now telling me his father has something unkind to say about my procrastination."
"First thing I did was make sure Rack is still the fuck dead. Since him turning up and all would just be the cherry on the shite sundae. Magic does love its coincidences, so I wouldn't put it past the powers that fuck with us to decide it would be a great old joke." Amanda was trying to keep her sense of humour, but this had been the straw that broke the camel, it seemed. "So, fixing your pre-cog - that's something you want to do now?"
Amanda had probably heard Marie-Ange's sheepish cough, and seen the Frenchwoman glance off to the side hundreds of times before, probably more than anyone alive. "May have done already." She said. "No migraines and fifteen hours of unmedicated sleep, and the doctors had me all covered in those sticky monitoring tabs. Nothing to indicate any of the, ah." She tapped her bandages. "Thalamus? I think? One of those parts of the brain I never memorized in university, ah, whichever part it is, it is not causing little thunderstorms."
"So all it needed was losing an eye? Between you and Summers, you'll be putting ideas in the docs' heads. Powers wonky? Out with the eyeball. Migraine? Time for the scoop. Stubbed toe? Let's fit you out for an eyepatch." Amanda snorted. "But seriously, Odin is a wanker. Just because he had to lose an eye to gain cosmic wisdom doesn't mean every other precog has to."
"I think it is a side effect of having cosmic power. They are all wankers." Marie-Ange offered. "Too much of that kind of power means you start thinking you can decide what other people have to do with their powers and make deals with teenage girls, and change universes and make everything topsy turvy and frankenberry cattywumpus."
Amanda giggled. Yes they were talking deep and serious topics, but Marie-Ange's expressions combined with her accent were just too silly. "The least they could do would be to give us a handbook. You know, 'So You're Living in Another Dimension For Dummies', that sort of thing."
"Handbook for the Recently Dimensionally Displaced. It can read like VCR instructions." Clearly Marie-Ange had been watching a lot of old movies if she was making Beetlejuice references. "This is a stupid universe, I want a refund on my cover charge. Too many psychotic foster brothers, they need a better bouncer."
"Psychotic foster brothers, resurrected dead mothers, orphans from the dark dimensions and a smart-arse geezer moving us all around like pawns on a chessboard... definitely not what I signed up for," Amanda agreed. "Still... we broke it, so we've bought it,yeah?"
"We watched it break, and it was left on our lawn with blocks under the wheels and a nest of rats under the hood." Marie-Ange said, with a frown. "I refuse to accept that any of this was any of our faults. We are just stuck with the messy ends of someone else's decisions." She shook her head, and patted Amanda's hand. "Not your fault, not mine, certainly not Topaz's, though, that one is going to blame herself for all of this three times over."
"Still, better than the alternative." Which was dying horribly as the world disintegrated. "And yeah, she's already started with that. You wouldn't have seen the post she made apologising to everyone. So much like me as a kid, but I'm not telling her that. Kid's already got a complex about being my mini-me."
"And we can use our own disastrous bad decisions as a guideline to prevent some of the worst." Marie-Ange tapped, every so gently, the bandages covering half her face. "Plus I intend to cheat. I intend to cheat a great deal. If I have to suffer pirate jokes and Odins' meddling, I will make sure I at least get some good out of it for everyone I care about." Or the world, or both if she could manage it.
Amanda snorted. "Topaz won't know what hit her."
