sixthiterationlogs | Everything Comes to a Head

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Everything Comes to a Head

WHO: Riza Hawkeye & Ravi Chakrabarti
WHERE: Ravi's House #18
WHEN: January 6th (backdating this)
OPEN TO: Ravi Chakrabarti
WARNINGS: Blood
STATUS: Closed

Riza fell to the dirt, hard, and pushed herself back up quickly. It was behind her and she had not forgotten how fast the crabs could move. It had been six days or so since the visions had begun, though sometimes she still wasn't fully convinced it was all in her head. Harry's appearance at the Fountain had been so real and tussling with the crab in the inn--well--she'd felt its weight on her chest. And then there had been Pride, though at least her time with Peggy had convinced her somewhat that his appearance had been a hallucination. But then what was real and what wasn't? She hadn't seen Pride since that day, though sometimes she swore she saw red eyes in the darkest of shadows of the inn. It had gotten to the point where she was barely sleeping. Of course, Harry hadn't returned either, but she tried not to focus on that one as much. She wasn't sure what was worse: holding out on the hope it had been real and he couldn't get to her or resigning herself to the fact that Harry, like everything else the past few days, had been a figment of her imagination.

One thing she wished was that the crabs would follow their example and stop appearing to her. She had thought it was over because she hadn't seen one in the past 24 hours but, no, it was back and now with a vengeance. She thought the thing had been adept at maneuvering in the streets of Manhattan, but apparently it had no trouble at all adapting to the forest. She had tried fighting the creature, but if it was a hallucination its attacks felt all too real and she was already sporting several bruises and scrapes to prove it. Were those real? They felt real. Was she inflecting them on herself without knowing?

God, she really was losing her mind. Riza gasped for air and stopped at a large tree on the outskirts of town. Shit, she hadn't meant to run back towards this place. On the off chance it was real she'd meant to lead it away. She could have sworn she had been...but how could she trust anything any more? Her tired eyes darted around, looking for a safe haven, but it was too late. The only warning she got was an unearthly shrieking sound before something hit her from behind. She was slammed into the dirt and before she could even cry out she felt familiar mandibles digging into her skin, breaking the flesh, and drawing blood from her shoulder.

She was bitten.

No. Oh God no not again, she thought, reaching for a nearby fallen branch and swinging it behind her. It connected and the monster crab shrieked as it was struck, scrambling away from her with that weird clicking sound. Riza gripped her shoulder, trying not to panic. Forcing herself not to panic. The crab hissed at her, clicking its blood covered mandibles furiously. She swung at it again and the crab skittered backwards, but the branch was long enough and heavy enough that it made contact. The crab's head cracked and it literally dropped dead. Riza choked back a sob as she dropped too. Her shoulder was throbbing and she pulled her hand away to see blood staining it. Her vision swirled. How could she be sure if she was really seeing blood? If this pain was even real? It felt so real and she could feel herself starting to become overwhelmed with it all: the doubts, fears, concerns, and terror all swirling around.

She was bitten and if it wasn't all in her head she was so screwed. She couldn't risk it -- she couldn't trust herself. She had to find someone, to confirm her suspicions. If it was in her head, great, she would live and just have to suffer being crazy. If it wasn't just in her head though...if the bite was real. Well, she'd get it cleaned up, say her goodbyes, and then handle it.

She would not let Project Daisychain continue here.

Riza's vision blurred, but she could be stubborn. She focused herself and headed into town for the one person she could think of that might be able to help her right now. A few minutes later she was pounding on his door, hoping he was home instead of at the inn. She couldn't bring herself to go there--not like this. "Ravi! Ravi please!"

When he eventually answered the door, he would find a strange sight indeed. From his perspective, he would find Riza clutching her shoulder like it was wounded. Her hair was a mess, fallen from its usual bun, and she was scratched up and bruised like she'd been running. No major wounds though, at least, not like she thought. Her ragged breath and sweaty brow might further attest to a run or roll in the woods. However, she was a physically fit person, as he would know, and so none of that would account for the fact that as soon as he opened the door she collapsed--blacking out entirely, but not before saying five words that Ravi probably never wanted to hear:

"I think I was bitten."

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Ravi's just spent the last few hours in immense worry, not really for the sake of the village, but rather for Riza herself. Once she'd blacked out, he'd carried her inside with little struggle and laid her out on the couch, taking care not to remove any clothes, but he still wanted to do a cursory inspection. He fetches his kit and tends to the scratches, makes sure the bruises aren't awful, and then he looks for any marks of bites. He doesn't find any, so he moves on to the scratches, inspecting the shape of them in case they're nail marks, but thankfully, they're not.

Better than that, she still has a pulse and is breathing, her hair isn't shock white, and she hasn't lunged at him for brains, so he can rule out his particular variety of zombies. Carefully, he covers her with a blanket and fetches a glass of water, sitting himself opposite Riza so that he can wait patiently for her to wake up.

Something is definitely going on, but until he gets some answers, he's in the dark.

She doesn't dream and for that she is grateful.

As she starts to return to consciousness, she draws a blank on what happened. Everything is hazy and a blur. That obliviousness lasts for all of a few seconds before it all comes crashing down on her: the crab attack, her encounter with Harry at the fountain, Selim in the woods, the talks with various people (none of whom had seen or heard anything), the visits from Selim and the monsters over and over again, and then the bite. She sits up, throwing the blanket off and reaching a hand to her shoulder, but even as she does so she realizes there's no pain.

She lowers her hand and looks at it, only to find no sign of the blood from before. She's sore, sure, but not in the "I just got bit by a monster crab" kind of way. It's only when this sinks in that she starts to recall the last thing the remembers and then her eyes fall on Ravi. She glances down at the blanket she'd knocked off herself and the glass of water. She's speechless for a second, knowing that she's going to have to explain all of this and really not wanting to. She closes her eyes and looks away, "I'm sorry....thank you for taking me in."

"When someone passes out on your doorstep in this temperature weather, it is a bit in poor taste not doing that," is Ravi's response, giving Riza a compassionate look as he pushes the water towards her, with just a little more insistence for her to take. "Besides, you weren't exactly in prime shape to be going about out there," he points out with a shrug of his shoulders.

"When you're ready, tell me what happened," he says. "There's no rush. If you want to tell me a few days from now, that's fine too."

Riza accepts the offered water. She'd forgotten, really, how kind some people could be. She hadn't experienced it like this in awhile. It was touching really and while she didn't want to drag Ravi into whatever messed up things were going on in her brain -- he was probably one of the few people here she trusted not to immediately look at her differently. He was a doctor, right? Perhaps he was used to working with dead bodies instead of live ones, but still.

She drinks the glass of water, careful not to just gulp it all down at once. The water helps her steady herself, helps her think.

"No. I need to at least talk about some of it now. I probably should have come by sooner but I--," she is scared, she hates to it admit but she is. She rephrases her statement quickly though, hoping Ravi won't notice, "I wasn't sure how to explain it." She looks down at the glass in her hand, studying it carefully, "For a few days now I've been seeing things. More accurately, I'm being chased by these creatures and when they're here they are very real. I can feel them, hear them, it's not just sight is what I'm saying." Her gaze drifts back up, steady now, almost daring Ravi to call her crazy, "I don't know what's happening. If it's this place or...something else. No one else has witnessed them though and there has been no evidence of their presence afterwards."

Her hand drifts to her shoulder -- the shirt isn't even torn -- and she clenches the fabric, "Today was the worst I think. I thought I was bitten by one of those things from my time in Project Daisychain. I thought I might be infected again and you were the only person I could think of that might know something." Of course, even then she had figured he would only confirm her suspicions and be helpless to stop her. She's glad it hasn't come to that--but she can't help but be shaken by the thought of going through all of that again.

This is a lot to take in at once and definitely not something Ravi had been preparing himself for. Truthfully, he'd sort of expected more of a physical ailment, like dehydration or some sort of bad reaction, but this kind of mental issue is something that he wants to help with, but worries that he's not the expert. "Slow down," he advises. "This is a lot to take in and I'm primarily a medical doctor, not a psychologist," he warns. "Go back to the start. When you said that you were being chased by creatures, were they touching you? You seemed to think that you'd been bitten, was there a physical accompaniment of pain," he asks.

"Think clearly," he coaxes, because if the brain is convinced enough to interpret pain, then the hallucinations might not be so harmless. "I'd be happy to take some blood, if you're truly worried, but I don't even know the first thing I'd be looking for."

She hadn't intended for it to all spill out like that. Riza gave him a weak, apologetic smile, "Sorry...it's all been sort of building up I think. You were just the closest person I could think of whom I also trust."

Riza's gaze drifted down to her lap and she considered his question, replaying the incident in her head, "At the time...it felt real, that's why it was hard for me to chalk it up as just seeing things, because I could feel it too. There was pain. But thinking back on it now, it doesn't compare to the actual pain that would accompany a bite like that."

She looked back over to Ravi, "I'm not sure how much help that would be either. Do you even have the kind of equipment necessary to look at my blood?"

He's glad to hear that she trusts him, because if there's something that he genuinely takes pride in, it's that he's got his friends' backs. Even if it means you take a winding road to get there when you occasionally think they might be a mass murderer in the process. Bumpy roads, that's all. "If there was pain, that could mean that there's something going on in your brain," he advises, because if that's the case, he also can't guarantee that it's over. Without proper medical equipment, all that he can do is try and treat her as best as he can in this moment.

"I've got a microscopes and slides, so I could analyse, but I'd have nothing to compare it against," he says apologetically. "So the best I can do right now is offer you some more water and a quick physical examination, now that you're awake."

She nodded, taking what he says and rolling it over in her mind. It seemed the only thing they could do was keep an eye on her then. How would she be able to trust herself now? And what if it got worse? Most of the time the visions would pass after a few minutes and, while they'd eventually return, they never lasted long. She hadn't hurt herself yet, but it seemed to be only a matter of time before things grew more serious. The thought terrified her -- almost worse than having an actual crab bite.

Riza drank more of the water, forcing herself to calm down. She couldn't start letting herself slip now. Hadn't she already been through so much? Riza set the glass down, "Let's do what we can then. I'm fine with an exam."

He gives her a nod, wishing that he could actually try and see what's going on, but sadly, unless this place can fit a full CT machine in a box, Ravi is going to be permanently out of luck. "I'd like to do a general physical, if you'd let me," he says. "I'd like to rule out some obvious things like tumours or other things that might be somehow causing an imbalance and possibly contributing to what's happening."

He really doubts that's the case, but a man has to start somewhere. "That will require my hands on you," he says apologetically.

If it is one thing Riza has mastered it is keeping her composure. She may be scared or worried about what is happening to her, but she lets a mask come into place that hides all of that. "I understand," she says, taking a breath. "Are you going to need me to strip down as well?" She asks because if he's going to be conducting a physical, it's likely he's going to want to be able to see her skin a little more clearly that what would be apparent from just feeling over her clothes. She doesn't seem overly concerned by this, but she also isn't just going to start taking her clothes off unless it is necessary.

"Not just yet," Ravi says, because he can look for what he needs to without needing skin on skin contact, which is good, because that's a bit weird. "For some parts, I'm going to have you touch yourself under my guidance," he advises, because even if there isn't a looming HR department, he also knows better than to do something that might be problematic.

He leans over and starts at the simplest place -- around the head and neck, the shoulders, moving to the back. Nothing feels out of the ordinary and as he works, he finishes at her toes and there's nothing strange. "I'll have you do the rest," he says. "Turning my back," he adds. "Just tell me if you think anything's amiss."

Riza appreciates the professionalism Ravi is showing. She knows there are men out there that would fully take advantage of this situation, but if she had thought Ravi to be one it was likely she wouldn't have dropped on his doorstep in the first place. She'd said it before, she trusted him.

"All right," is all she says prior to the exam beginning, acknowledging that she understands. Once Ravi has completed his part in it, she nods.

"What do you need me to do for my part?"

"Have you ever done a self-breast examination before?" Mainly, he's suspecting that there's a very long shot that a malignant tumour could be causing some of the symptoms, but it's a strange situation to be in that he's hoping it's not, because imagining things and potentially having cancer really leaves you knowing exactly which of those two outcomes you'd prefer.

He turns, a little, and tries not to look like he's anxious or worried, because he's not. Right? This is just a very, very long shot. It just scares him to think it's a possibility at all.

"Yes," she says, calmly. The question worries her because it's obvious what he's thinking. She knows it's a risk, but to have it happen here and now -- well, that would just be beyond cruel of fate. But when had fate ever been kind to her? She glanced over to make sure he was still keeping his back turned. She caught his eye and nodded, trying to look reassuring, but also to signal that he should turn back around. Unless he was changing his mind about how to conduct the exam.

As soon as he was looking away, Riza removed her top, the tattoo and scar on her back fully exposed. It'd been awhile since she'd felt so exposed like this. She performed the self exam as quickly and efficiently as possible. There was some relief when she felt nothing unusual. "There's nothing," she finally said.

Ravi breathes out in relief, even as the frustration mounts. It's good that she hasn't found anything, but at the same time, it would have been an explanation. He's starting to feel like that's the constant modus operandi here. Things happen and he's got theories that would add up to a very bad result, but then he doesn't find proof.

"No physical symptoms leads me to believe that it's psychological," he says, once he turns around. "Have you experienced severe PTSD in the past? Highly emotional periods in your youth?"

She knows Ravi can't know what she's been through, but the question still makes her want to laugh bitterly. Severe PTSD was one way to put it. The Ishvalan War had left it's scars on her in more ways than one. She'd lost her mother and father at a relativel young age, though she didn't necessarily consider those as "highly emotional" periods per say. She'd been so young when her mother died and her father, well, it had been hard but he'd been distant for a long time and his death had not been unexpected given his health.

The war though...and then Project Daisychain's monsters, followed by the events that transpired leading up to and during the eclipse. Well, it was a wonder she could still sleep some nights.

"The short answer is yes," she finally says. "But why would something like this manifest now? I've experienced a lot in the past and never had anything quite this vivid or intense. Not while I'm awake."

"Something may have triggered you without realizing it?" he offers. "Anything I say is just my opinion," he first says, wanting to be clear on that. "I'm a medical examiner and a doctor, I'm not a shrink, but there could be any number of stressors here that might have triggered this sort of reaction. Maybe it's something that you didn't even realize, that occurred and hit you subconsciously?" he points out, because he knows that this place is nefarious in its seemingly innocent ways, all the while killing things and hurling down obstacles at them.

"You could be suffering a break with reality because of your past experiences," he admits. "On the other hand, this place also delivers boxes from nowhere. It could be a trick."

So essentially they were back at square one. Riza doesn't find that reasssuring, but it isn't Ravi's fault so she keeps her disappointment mostly to herself. At least it isn't cancer -- as far as they can tell. "Well, I appreciate your opinion all the same...and for looking after me," she finally says.

She looks down at her hands, at least they aren't shaking and she feels safe here for the time being. She knows what she'd seen out there was just in her head, but it was hard not to shake that feeling of paranoia and worry. She wonders if she'll ever be back to normal.

"I'd advise you to seek psychiatric help, but it's not like we have a phone book listing off possible options in that regard," Ravi says, his joking tones falling away, because the truth is that he thinks that this genuinely might be something she has to confront and deal with, head on, if she's going to actually find some sort of resolution. "Do you need anything else?" he offers.

"Feeling better? Or still like something is lingering outside your peripheral vision?"

Riza isn't sure where to begin or what to do now. She has a feeling that she can't explain, but like the worst of it is over. She brushes her hair back over her shoulder, but doesn't move from Ravi's couch.

"I think I'm okay now. Nothing's popped up since I woke up here...though I'm not sure I want to leave just yet," she felt safe here, and she wanted to enjoy that for a moment. She looks over at him, "If that's all right?"

"I wouldn't let you even if you tried," Ravi says seriously, seeing as she had collapsed on his door, giving him one of the most panicked moments of his life. If she thinks that she's going to get away from him so easily, she doesn't know Ravi Chakrabarti half as well as she thinks she does. "We'll get some more water into you, see if you're seeing anything in a few hours," he determines, vowing to head back and make some notes when he can.

"Maybe my walls are some sort of protective shrine," he says. "Shame there's no realty business here, that would look excellent on a listing."

While she isn't too pleased at the idea of staying here several more hours, she can't honestly blame him. Still, it must be a trait she inherited from her father because she does not make the best of patients. You would think she would have learned to be, since that stubbornness had more than likely led to his death. But that was in the past. "I have to warn you though...I'm not exactly the best patient."

She decides not to make a comment about probably being able to take Ravi out -- that would hardly be the thing to do after the man had just helped her out. Even if it would be in a joking manner.

"Doubtful. It's more than likely just run its course," she replied, but then again what proof did she have that Ravi's house wasn't somehow special. It wasn't like Harry hadn't been able to put up wards and the like around the Strand back in Manhattan. Although, he'd been a wizard and Ravi was, well, much more scientifically minded.

"I've had my fair share of awful patients, you won't be the first and I doubt you'll be the last," Ravi informs her, seeing as he can't even begin to list how many awful patients he has to deal with, feeling like Blaine is worth at least four spots on that particular list. "I'm just saying that if it doesn't run its course and this is something we need to worry about, if my home turns out to be magically protective, you won't be laughing then, will you," he points out.

"Don't bother laughing at my incredible humour," he jokes, "you should rest. Do you want anything to eat?"

"No. I'm not hungry," she replied. She wasn't sure if it was lack of appetite or that she really wasn't hungry at the moment. She supposed she'd find out in a few hours once her nerves settled a little more.

She supposed now all she could do was wait. At least she had patience for that. Though there was a difference in waiting around an office or for a target to appear and waiting to find out if you were going to have another hallucination.

"Rest up," Ravi coaxes, trying to make it so that she isn't trying to vault out of bed and try and perform miracles. He may look like he has excellent upper arm strength, but the sad truth is that he's sadly lacking in that department. "We'll see how you feel in the morning and whether I'm willing to let you back on your own."

Riza eyed him, thinking along similar lines. Honestly he wouldn't be able to stop her if she really wanted to leave. But, then again, he was offering his home to her and being very supportive...not to mention he was a doctor. It would be both rude and idiotic not to at least follow his advice for the time being.

"All right. I think I can agree to those terms"

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Everything Comes to a Head

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