[MINGLE] Worried/Sick 1: Symptoms Manifest & Reaction

[sixthiteration]

WHERE: Anywhere; multiple locations
WHEN: Apx. 13-18 November
OPEN TO: ALL - MINGLE
WARNINGS: Serious illness and reactions to such

IMPORTANT NOTES: This is the first of two mingles. Please see the timing and general event details here.

Illness Presents and Putting Heads Together will have their own top-levels in this post, but you may make separate top-levels for whatever you like! Anything is welcome, as long as it tangentially relates to the Worried/Sick plot.

Please keep in mind the established plot details, but creative license is welcome and encouraged as long as it doesn't step on toes.

Comments

Illness Presents

[sixthiterationevents]

7 - OTA & Locked to Eddie

[to_defend]

Early On - OTA

It had been a slow, subtle rise of various symptoms that 7 originally dismissed. She wasn't certain that anything was really wrong until the cough started. She tries her best to continue in her routine despite that, taking quick and quiet meals at the Inn, scouting a perimeter of the village, and spending some time sitting on the roof of her house to watch the goings on of the other residents.

Catch her here anytime to question her healthy lifestyle habits.

Grounded - Locked to Eddie

The symptoms get progressively worse, until she's lost the energy and motivation to make it out to the Inn for meals, and eventually gives up her routine entirely to spend her time in bed. Early on she'd dragged the mattress over to the fireplace in the living room in an attempt to keep warm, but now she was even running out of wood for that.

She's hot, but she's cold, there's little pink spots dotting her neck and shoulders, and she's been coughing so much her ribs hurt, which compounds the abdominal cramping that keeps her curled up in a tight ball. She keeps hoping that it'll turn around - that all she needs is a little extra sleep - but denial starts to slip into realization that she's in deeper than she can manage.

At this point, she's not even sure what to do, so hearing the knock at her door is something of music to her ears. She tries to croak out a reply, tries to rise, but she feels leaden and distraught.

"Come- in."

Hospital - OTA

She's resting at the hospital now, and she's got access to fluids, including the springwater, but she's not out of the woods yet. Though stable for the moment, the symptoms persist and she's nowhere near her house-scaling, bola-throwing, tree-hopping self.

Still, on top of the symptoms, she's vaguely uncomfortable being here with other people around and not able to return to her own, familiar space. She could use a distraction, before she tries to crawl herself away.

[imareporter]

Eddie checks on 7, (odd name still) because he understands what it's like to be from a place that's different and strange and have...less. Have no control, be suddenly moved. When he noticed she stopped meeting him for meals he hadn't given it much thought. This is a big place. She needed friends.

Then she stopped all together.

Is this a thing humans do? Take care of the weakest in the group

"...Yes." He keeps his voice low. "She's not weak but if she hasn't been here something might be up. Soup is a good excuse."

...You should just eat her. It will save on resources.

Silence for a moment. Then.

But when we're not bonded to you we're weak. We're weak here because Is that why you are taking care of us?

"Yes."

Her cough makes him pause, "Under the weather?"

Vasquez | OTA | Sickness Strikes

[quinientos]

For Vasquez, feeling like shit is something that's fairly normal to him. After all, he'd lived in the West where things weren't so easy and he'd been an outlaw, past that. You have bad days, and you get used to them. What he's feeling now, though, it's worse than he's felt in ages and it's why he drags himself with three layers of clothes towards the south village to find someone who might be a good doctor to take a look at him.

His trip diverts when his stomach decides to speak for him. He's too cold and too hot at once, his head pounding, and he doesn't think he feels so well. He finds himself stopping when he would have been able to walk easily and it's not good.

"You got any liquor?" he asks someone when they pass him, hunched over where he's sitting on the fountain, heart sluggishly beating while his head aches something fiercely. If he's feeling this bad, then he just needs a good drink, yes?

Or not, because he doesn't make it to getting a drink so much as he slips from his seat and ends up pressed against the stones, rubbing a hand over his face, which is getting hotter and hotter every second, it feels like. Maybe he's sicker than he expected, but he's definitely not going out without a fight.

Let me know if this works

[onesyllable]

Getting Vasquez into bed, settled under the blanket, with a wet rag on his brow, and Joshua is telling himself this is all okay. People get sick. He's seen a lot of people get sick in his day. Many of them lived.

He is not accepting that Vasquez is not gonna live.

So he gets that bottle of whiskey he had, mixing it with a lot of water because damn he's already running low, and uses a rag to drip some of it on Vasquez's tongue. More water than whiskey, but he knows he would drink more if he thought it was whiskey.

Dragging a chair close, he settles in to watch over him, praying that he'll be okay even if Josh isn't sure he still believes in God.

[oorah]

The question gets a bit of a start from Frank. The croc-dog at his heel lets out a reptilian little squeak like he'd also been surprised, but Frank's already patting down his pockets. For once, he actually doesn't think he has any liquor on him, but then Vasquez is falling and he reaches forward to try and catch him by the shoulder.

"Maybe... that isn't what you need right now." His voice is soft, but caring, hand firm on the other man's arm so he doesn't topple completely to the ground.

Peggy Carter | OTA

[womanofvalue]

While 'stubborn' is certainly a word that can best describe Peggy, she feels like she ought to be rather proud of herself in this instance. When she'd first started to feel a touch ill and awful, she'd ignored it.

Not her best first move.

Where it starts to deviate from the norm is when she'd kept feeling worse and her symptoms couldn't be written off as a simple cold. That's when Peggy had dressed herself, marched herself to the hospital, and checked in to be diagnosed and treated. Well, more of the first than the second, because it seemed that while she was most certainly not the only sick one, there didn't seem to be a cure. The fever had started to truly set in and the coughing only aggravated the abdominal aches, her fever causing her strife.

And then, once it got so high, all that stubbornness came flooding back, which is why Peggy is currently trying to escape the hospital, clad in nothing more than her socks, sweatpants, and a sweater.

Re: Peggy Carter | OTA

[houmaprotector]

Alec is not well.

That in and of itself is disconcerting but he is coughing. If he weren't a plant, he'd swear he has a fever.

This feels, in it's own way, like being rotted again. Devoured and rotted. He managed to stay away for a day and then another, but then he started to look rotted. His normally healthy green leaves took on a darker hue and then went brown and dead, a few of his leaves became dotted with spots.

For the first time in a long time he was afraid. A long time. So he'd hobbled to the springs to try and heal. Nothing.

For the first time in a long time.

What the fuck.

He wished Abby were here. At the very least she could have sensed the rot, interceded with him on behalf of the parliament, except...except he was just sick right?

He had to be sure so he's trudging to the hospital, a large brown rotting mass of plant matter and leaves when he spots the woman in socks and cold weather gear.

"...Ms. Carter?"

It was hard to think.

"...Don't go out in just your socks. You'll get sick."

[alittlelonger]

Rinoa has no idea what to do. This is so over her head. It didn't stop her from immediately volunteering to help. She's been moving around giving water and changing bandages, cleaning up as much as she can. She's afraid of getting sick, of course she is, but normally her reaction to fear is to run right at it. She's not sure what any of this is, she's heard of plagues and fevers, but not witnessed it this way. She really wishes the doctors and technology of her world could be teleported there too; everyone would be fine if that happened. Rinoa's a teenager surrounded by knowledgeable adults at the moment. She's just doing what the doctors said at this point.

She's taking a breather when she sees Peggy start heading out, dark eyes widening in concern. She doesn't know all the names of the people in the village, let alone currently sick, so she can only rush after her with a "ma'am!" Rinoa steps in front of her, anxiously smiling. "Ma'am, the doctors said everyone really has to stay in there for now."

[ex_assertiveness90]

Stella has been living with Peggy long enough that she'd noticed when the other woman had started to feel under the weather, even without Peggy having to tell her so. It's not the first time either of them have been ill here, but previously, those illnesses have passed with time — so while of course she's concerned, she's expecting this to be like those previous instances.

It's not, and it takes almost half a day of Peggy being gone from their house for Stella to realize she's not come home per her usual routine. On top of that, not a few of the other villagers have started to fall ill as well. It takes a little asking around before she finds someone who's seen Peggy headed towards the hospital, and a little more to come to the conclusion that whatever mystery disease has befallen them this time, no one seems to know how to cure it yet.

She does what any police officer would do, and goes towards the problem rather than away from it. Not only does she need to know what's going on, but she needs to find Peggy to be sure she's all right.

To say she's surprised to find the other woman trying to escape the hospital, looking haggard and feverish and dressed in clothing entirely inappropriate for the weather, would be incorrect. Stella isn't surprised. The last time she was this ill herself she'd tried to run away, too.

"Peggy—" She goes to her, without hesitating. Stella's not worried she's going to catch whatever Peggy has; if it's contagious, she's probably caught it already, and if it's not or she's somehow immune, there's no danger. She puts her hand on Peggy's forehead and comes very close to pulling it back sharply like a woman who's accidentally touched a hot stove, startled as she is by how actually overheated Peggy feels. "Jesus, you're burning up." And then, more seriously, "When were you planning to tell me you were going to hospital?"

She's not expecting a good answer, but she's trying to delay the other woman while she figures out how best to get her back in bed where she belongs in a state like this.

OTA

[spoileralert]

Steph has never really done 'sick' well. She takes care of herself, sure. Having a nurse for a mother tends to do that to a person. But being sick is miserable, and she hates being grounded when she can muscle through it instead. Like any reasonable person, she thinks to herself.

She's been going about her business more or less as usual, though a great deal grumpier than normal. A cough, a headache, the occasional chill, an overwhelming feeling of exhaustion, none of this is very alarming. But it is, of course, exhausting. So she takes breaks when she can.

She falls asleep just about everywhere she lands. She sits in a chair in the inn after dropping off her kills from the day and falls asleep in it. She sits under a tree after a very sad workout and falls asleep on the ground. She even sits down on a random doorstep on the way home and falls asleep against the door.

Everything hurts. Let her sleep?

Kat ~ Open To All

[mediumhoodie]

FIGHTING A HOPELESS BATTLE | INN

The sensations came on gradually and for the first few days, they were easy to ignore. Kat continued her work, transposing as much of her garden inside as she could while also collecting seeds to plant come spring. She was nearly finished her work and she wasn't going to let a little fever get in her way.

That had been her first mistake.

Kat sat at the inn with a bowl of stew sitting in front of her. She always came to the meals at the inn. It was that or she wouldn't be able to feed herself. She tried to bring herbs and spices but with the oncoming chill, her plants were dying or hibernating.

Her stomach rumbled but she'd lost her appetite. "What's wrong with me." She mumbled softly to herself before rising to her feet. Kat wasn't going to waste the food and had planned to offer it to someone else, when the room suddenly tilted.

She staggered and then collapsed. Her skin was burning to the touch and her breathing quick and try as she might, Kat couldn't stand.

YOU CAN'T BE HERE | HOSPITAL

Kat faded in and out over the course of the fever. Her skin was hot and then cold, her blanket rotating between being pushed down around her thighs to be pulled up over her shoulders. She had never been sick like this before and she didn't know if there was anything she could do about it.

"I'm fine." She mumbled and tried to push her up, only to find herself back in bed a few moments later.

It was late night when the hallucinations first hit her. Kat woke from a nightmare and within the shadows of the room, she saw her father. Kat screamed.

[ooc: Day or Night. Come see her at the hospital. I plan to get super creative with her hallucinations but let me know if you have a preference. Most of her hallucinations will suck with the whole living in a world of demons and having a pretty crappy life.]

Wynonna Earp | OTA

[unraisehell]

She'd thought it was just enough hangover to start. After that, food poisoning or a flu. Nothing she'd need to see a doctor for. Just seal herself in an empty house, pray for death for a few days and get the hell over it like she did anything else.

That plan isn't working out so well. She doesn't even know how she got to the hospital, when, or who dragged her sweaty, barely lucid ass in for medical attention, but she will grudgingly owe them a favor for it later, since she'd been on the verge of dehydration.

"You gotta find her if I die," she slurs. "Get her ready for the curse, Doc. It'll call her back. It called me back."

Neither her daughter, nor John Henry Holiday are here, but that isn't registering for her right now. She seems pretty convinced that whoever she's talking to is in fact her great-great-grandfather's best friend.

Tony Stark | OTA

[nonstopnarcissist]

Springs

He's done this song and dance before. The feeling poorly, the sensation of something not quite right. Warmer than he should be, thing taking more effort than they ought to. Tony knows a dip in the springs will help and the walk in the cool air feels better than stifling himself in the forge. Soaking or, well. Attempting to soak. He gets down to his scrub pants before deciding 'fuck it' and sliding in, breathing a little better once he's in the water. Just a little while. Just until he feels better, then? Then he'll check in with Bruce.


En route

Or. Well. The Springs helped for a little. Killing the fire and focusing, or trying to focus, on the sketches on his wall is a bitch when his breathing is slow and his heart seems to thud like it's pumping syrup not blood. Maybe he should skip Bruce and head straight to the hospital. He means to be on his way, he truly does, forcing himself upright and staggering along through sheer force of will. One foot in front of the other and, okay. Just. He stops to lean against a tree on the way, slumping to a stop, sliding to the ground to sit. Breathe. Rest a hand against his chest and stare at the hospital not that far from him but-

It feels like an impossible task to stand up and make it the rest of the way there. Maybe after he rests his eyes for a moment. Just. A moment...


Hospital

He's not sure when or how he ended up in the bed- but it's unpleasant. Hospitals are always unpleasant, being laid up like this, lungs and veins thick, fever beading sweat on his brow its stifling. When he can focus the world is- it's. Hes not sure between one blink to the next who's actually here or who's- sometimes he looks at the people around them and watches as their skin starts to crackle and flake, drifting away in a breeze he can't feel. Sometimes he starts and it's the cave, the first word out of his mouth a warped, ragged- "Yensin?"

Alec Holland | OTA

[houmaprotector]

He is rotting.

That's the only explanation he has. The rot has found him, his triumph has been stolen. Arcane is back, somehow, and the last battle he fought was finished. He feels like he's dying but the symptoms...there's something familiar about it. Something that makes him think as one big green hand clenches against his chest before he stumbles to his knees like a falling tree before the hospital.

Just leave him. I've died so many times. Except...knowing that this doesn't feel like death. What else could it be? His leaves are brown and spotted and he's coughing. It sounds familiar.

If he were rotting however his Abby would be there and...

"...Abby"

He's a lump of leaves and dirt with a face that looks heartbroken. There. His angel approaches.

"...Call off your father...please. Abby...I'm sorry." The emotion in his voice is palpable, "I shouldn't have left you with him. I should have come sooner. I shouldn't have left you with him. Abby...please."

One hand reaches out for whoever is nearby, "...I don't deserve your comfort after what I've done but please....Please make it quick. My love."

Altaïr - OTA

[eaglesonofnone]

Springs:

There were things he thought of that he could do. He was no doctor, but he'd learned through years of experience, of patching his own wounds and nursing sicknesses in his family and amongst the Brotherhood, of reading through the Canon of Medicine, of listening to what the Apple could teach him. Here, so many of these rules went out the window.

But there were things he could do. One was walk to the springs carrying buckets of the water, careful each way to watch, to take a slightly different path, to look for herbs that would help. There was a flower that could help breathing in small doses. There was a root that could do the same. Porous stone could help scrub the sick sweat from people's skin. He kept all of that in mind as he traveled back and forth.

Hospital:

Altaïr was one among many. Not ill, but doing what he could. The buckets he took to the fountain were carefully kept separate from that of the healing springs. The cooler water would help with the fevers, and he spent time at many a bedside, mopping brows and necks and faces. Urging people to lay on their stomachs and let him swab their back. He gave slices of peach that he was told would help, and he had no reason to believe otherwise. And, to the delirious, he was careful to give reassurance that could be mistaken for nothing else.

Every person deserved kindness. Kindness, he had in spades.

Steve Rogers | OTA

[ex_enlisted288]

Inn

[ Steve hasn't been sick -- really sick -- in years. Not since 1940-something, right before or right after Pearl Harbor. He remembers feeling wretched when the news of the attack broke, but it's one of those times in his own history that he remembers imperfectly. Either because he was well on the way to become real sick, or just coming down from it. There are patches like that littered through his childhood, when the fevers struck so forcefully, they blotted some things out.

So he remembers the headaches, the dizzy spells, the stomach cramps. Problem isn't acknowledging something might be wrong. No, the problem is that, operating according to standard procedure, he ignores every single symptom. Head hurts? He drinks more water, spends more time fishing to sustain himself. Knocks a few minutes off his daily jogs. He even tries to limit contact with other people.

Unfortunately, the symptoms just keep getting worse. And one morning, his headache is so bad that he can't quite navigate the entryway into the Inn for lunch, and ends up curled against the side of the building. Just resting his eyes and maybe hoping someone will bring some water. ]


Hospital

[ The fever is in control now, with Steve trapped in memories and delusions better left to the past. Sometimes he babbles in English, asking for water, asking for soldiers and comrades and arms now dead. A few times he mentions Bucky, begging forgiveness for letting the other man fall.

Sometimes he asks for someone named Sarah. Pleading with God to spare her, or begging the woman herself not to go. A few times he babbles in Irish Gaelic, snatches of conversation and old arguments. Promising he'll be more careful next time, he will. But someone has to stand up to the neighborhood bullies or they'll keep pushing people around. ]

Kira Akiyama | Closed to Ty | Nov 13

[3ofswords]

Colds can be risky in a place like the village, with limited supplies and the burden of work being redistributed, but they do happen. They make sense, this time of year: he'd been out in a corn field in capris for half a night, drinking himself into oblivion. It's a wonder it hadn't started that morning.

Kira starts with tea, avoids the drafty underground bunker and the trip through the lake it requires, and sleeps for long hours under his dog. When that doesn't resolve the aches and cough, he sees what's left of the first aid, what Mark has to offer--

But he's not a doctor, and he's not about to boil down Hoshi to see if crow soup is anything like chicken, so he sticks to the house and complains less and less loudly as the symptoms wear on, and wear him down. After a few days, it's only after several hoarse calls to an absent Mark, and repeated knocking on the door, that gets him to roll out of bed and attempt the stairs down to check it. Most emergencies wouldn't require him in the slightest, but a lot might require Mark, and village-wide disasters tend to send someone to every door.

There's a lot of rail hugging and feeling his way down steps that swim and double for his eyes, the splashing halos of a migraine prompting him to go blind, but he eventually makes it to the ground floor and yanks the door open.

"What," he asks, holding the edge of the door and leaning into it to help him stay upright. Eyes barely slit, he isn't sure who exactly he's beckoning into his house. "Mark isn't here."

Squall | OTA

[awall]

Squall hated being sick, and he hated being in the infirmary. Dr. Kadowaki had gotten to see him more than a few times over the years because he tended to push himself too much, but he was mostly in for injuries. He hadn't gotten sick--seriously sick--in a very long time.

He wanted to ignore it and shake it off, but once Rinoa started helping at the infirmary, there was no way he could fight against her. He certainly wasn't in the physical condition to do so.

But being this ill was starting to take a mental toll that stripped away most of his hard-earned self-confidence.

He was supposed to be the one protecting people. But here he was, feverish and aching, unable to protect anyone. He heard the voices of Seifer and the Sorceress in his head, mocking him. Weak. Useless. Alone.

He wasn't sure if the delusions were a part of the sickness or his own personality, but he needed desperately to get out of his own head. Being alone with nothing to do was no good for Squall. He saw his fellow SeeD and his companions from Traverse Town, and he desperately tried to cling to that, but the voices seemed to grow louder, telling him that he was going to die here, just when he had found Rinoa again.

"No," he groaned, trying to sit up. He cast his attention around, seeking any distraction.

Putting Heads Together

[sixthiterationevents]

Samantha Moon | OTA

[thegreatexperiment]

While everyone was sniffling and sneezing and aching and leaking, Sam found herself doing math. Simple math, really. The kind that any fan of zombie movies could do, let alone someone with her IQ. It was based on the number of people who'd complained about being sick, or manifested some kind of symptoms. And the rate at which they were appearing. Even assuming the shortest possible incubation period...the math didn't work. She tried it again and again, on every napkin she'd swiped from every party they'd had. Front and back.

The numbers didn't make sense.

"Fuck," she sighed, leaning back. She was sitting in her favorite chair in her favorite corner of the Inn. No point in brewing vodka with everyone already feeling like hell.

The funny thing was, she'd only been trying to divert herself. Play a little game. She liked tinkering with algorithms and formulas. She was the only fucking person she knew who filled out Punnett Squares for fun.

What the hell was she supposed to do with this?

She found herself looking up at the ceiling. She didn't know why, but she always assumed that the hidden cameras had to be up there somewhere. "Not cool, dickheads," she said. "So not cool."

beverly crusher | ota + closed to bruce

[ethnobotany]

WORKING FOR A CURE - ota

None of this has been easy. Finding so many people showing signs of this typhoid-like illness has done nothing for Beverly's sense of comfort in this place. It's like the Observers just know exactly how to make them worry and fight, just how far to push them. There's every chance that they may not have the answer to cure this illness and their patients may suffer needless and painful deaths as a result, but Beverly isn't about to give up. She's working alongside a handful of others, chipping away at what she can, working with the other suggestions around her.

Eventually, she has to take a small break to get something to drink and breathe lest she start falling apart in there. She won't be like some people she knows and work herself to death, though she also won't rest fully until they have the cure. Or until she has personally given up. So she can also be found in another room, on her feet still with her back against the wall and the back of her wrist pressed against her forehead. Her eyes are closed and for the moment she looks the most vulnerable and weary, maybe even afraid, that she's ever looked here.

If anyone runs across her, she simply offers, "I'll be right back in. I just need a minute."

TESTING THE CURE closed to Bruce

It's a long shot. Maybe even one of the longest shots in Beverly's career, which is saying something at this point. It's still something she finds herself giving actual thought to. It also reminds her of Worf, how she had agreed to the spinal replacement despite her misgivings and he had nearly paid the ultimate price for it. He would have if not for his Klingon body, the backups for everything in his system kicking in to save his life. She sighs heavily and glances at the nearest person, who happens to be Bruce.

"I don't like it," she admits, running a hand through her hair. But what choice do they really have?

Alex Price | OTA

[cryptoherpetology]

Dr. Price's animal handling classes have been postponed until further notice, for obvious reasons.

He is, however, still making use of the schoolhouse and the time he'd set aside for what should be lectures about keeping predators out of chicken coops and the nutritional needs of herd animals for more pressing matters.

He's started to copy some of his own notes out onto the chalkboard. Symptoms, timelines, and several theories, many of which contradict each other, with the arguments for each underneath in hastily scrawled point form.

"I haven't seen any symptoms in any of the livestock, pets or wildlife. We can probably rule out this being zoonotic," he says, as much to himself as anyone else with him. "Unless they've adapted into asymptomatic carriers. Which I doubt since I've had more contact than most with some of our unique wildlife, and am, so far, uninfected."

And by that he means there has been an entire litter of prematurely abandoned peakittens sleeping on his chest for several nights now, and sticking his head into everyone's livestock pens, examining injured pets and otherwise making himself a lightning rod for animal-borne diseases, no matter how often he washes his hands.

Of course, he can't rule out this being something related enough to a disease he's been inoculated for, and so he's included a handy list of those on one section of the board for terrifying things to consider, like hantavirus and the other usual suspects the CDC advises anyone who works closely with animals to be vaccinated against, as well as something called lycanthropy-w. At least that one has a note next to it that says unlikely, viral infection w/direct fluid transfer needed for transmission, see: rabies.

Eddie Brock | Venom OTA

[imareporter]

This place smells sick.

That's Venom talking and Eddie is sure one - it can't tell, and two -does sick have a smell?

Of course it does. Dead and dying animals always do

"Nobody's dying."

Everything dies Eddie. It is important that we protect ourselves...

"Nobody's dying Venom...trust me. People would know. Hell stark'd know. There's doctors here too. Banner's here."

...Yes but they are humans. we are venom. We will be better off on our own because if this village is dying

"Nobody's dying!"

It's shouted and Venom is nonplussed, confused. It sends back images of dead and dying planets that their hosts could not save-

And Eddie sends images of human beings clearing brush, holding hands, doctors healing, hugs and love and parents and all the things he believes in wholeheartedly and Venom...

"Nobody's dying." He grits his teeth heedless of anyone near him, "Nobody's dying."

[locum_tenens]

Niska can't get sick. David Elster hadn't programmed her with that ability, which means that she's been lingering around the patients and helping where it suits her, but it's still annoying to be surrounded by so much suffering and not be able to provide a cure. It's not out of the good of her own heart, it's just that she's frustrated by it.

She prefers when things are smooth and efficient.

"Everyone is dying, just not at a pace that will happen immediately," is her bored response, eyeing the man warily. "I'm beginning to think you may also be sick." And she's also not entirely sure it's the same disease wrecking its way through the community.