Just a little blood ( Tag: Kieron )

[Benton Barrett]

He hadn’t been here a week. Not a single week! How, on earth, had he managed to cut his hand open in his first week. Honestly, he played Soccer. He could catch a ball flying at his face. He wasn’t particularly clumsy. So how had he managed to do something as stupid as cutting himself open in less than a week?!

Those, of course, were the panicked thoughts of a teenager who frankly, had not really figured out what he should be doing. Thankfully he hadn’t nicked any arteries or anything, but he’d managed to gash his hand open quite effectively. The only problem was, he had been in his room, and when he’d accidentally smashed the mirror, he didn’t exactly have a bunch of paper towels to clean it up with.

So, as he finally ( why did this place have to be so big? ) made his way to the nurse’s office, the plain white tee shirt with the target on the front was now mostly a plain red tee shirt. He was a little more pale than he would normally be – but honestly, he was discovering new things. Apparently, he didn’t like blood at all. Whether it was his, or someone else’s.

One hand pressing firmly on the shirt that kept the other one from bleeding profusely, the boy put his back to the door, and pushed it open, with a bit of maneuvering.

Carefully, inside the nice clinical room, he swiveled his head around uncertainly.

“Hello? Sorry to like, barge in, I just… uh… fileted myself.” Which was an exaggeration, of course – he hadn’t cut any skin off. But it still hurt, a lot, wasn’t exactly the prettiest of things… and frankly, he felt like maybe he should be put in a bubble to keep himself safe from… himself.

Gritting his teeth, he realized, with a bit of a groan, that this was going to be a cold day – in his rush, he hadn’t put on a sweater of any kind, and was mostly just in pajama pants and a simple tee shirt. That’s what he got for trying to do anything at all while he was also trying to read. Multi-tasking was far too dangerous for how innocuous it sounded.

Well, at least this was a little quicker than going to the hospital. His mom would have had a full blown panic attack and insisted rushing him to the emergency room, where he’d have to sit and bleed out in the front room for however many years it took for them to respond. ( No, he didn’t have many particularly fond hospital memories. )

Now if only he could convince whoever it was that the gash on the side of his hand nearest the thumb didn’t need stitches, despite how deep he thought it felt. He didn’t know, he got to look at it all of three seconds before he smashed his clothes on it and ran out the door. Anyone who looked at it with a professional eye, of course, would be able to tell it was nowhere near as bad as Benny was assuming - Benny just saw the blood ( more than he normally dealt with solo ) and assumed that he was going to need stitches, or a skin graft, or something equally terrifying. 

[Kieron Sharpe]

It had been a relatively quiet day in the infirmary so far, which had both its good and bad points. The quiet gave Kieron time to play catch-up; reading the student files, maintaining the cleanliness of the space, doing a stock take of the supplies and generally doing his part to keep it running smoothly. Of course, it also meant that he had far too much time in which his mind could wander and when it wasn’t doing that, it was actually boring.

Now he thought about it, it was a little morbid in a way, sitting around waiting for someone to get sick or injured so he could swoop in to the rescue. It put him in mind of a story he’d read once, about an over-protective boyfriend who was actively looking for the bullet to take to save his girlfriend’s life and prove his love to her. Eventually desperation had caused him to incidentally create the bullet himself. Whilst Kieron highly doubted he would ever go on a horror movie-esque spree with a machete through the halls of Hammel just to give himself some patients, it was a rather interesting thought.

For the moment, however, he sat in one of the little examination rooms with the door open but the light off, idly chewing on the lid of a pen as he stared at the scrap of paper on the table in front of him. He’d been pondering over it on and off all day, jumbling the words around as he had cleaned, organised and dispensed bandaids.

Now the sun is set beyond the mountains,
There lights a sea of sapphires on the flowers kissed by moonlight.

No matter how long he stared at the words Kieron found himself unable to add to them or to improve them in any way, and he had all but given up on being able to do anything with them. Perhaps they were unable to be completed because there was no end – they were just a fleeting moment in the moonlight in a hidden meadow, gone as quickly as the time shared with the Hammel gardener had been.

A voice pulled Kieron from his thoughts, the obvious worried tone of it causing him to stand quickly and navigate his way through the dark examination room towards the main infirmary. As he stepped out into the light Kieron winced hard, quickly pulling the shades down from the top of his head so they shielded his eyes. Able to see once more, he made his way towards the boy with purposeful strides, taking in the blood-soaked shirt and clearly pained expression. “Okay, I’m sure it’s not as bad as it feels right now.” If it was, the kid would undoubtedly be making a hell of a lot more noise.

“Follow me, please.” Kieron walked back towards the examination room he’d just come out of, flipping on the light and untucking the stool from under the table, gesturing for the boy to sit before scrubbing his hands in the small sink. “Would you like to tell me what happened?” Knowing the cause of the problem always helped make cleaning up the resulting mess that much easier because he’d know exactly what to keep an eye out for. Hopefully the damage wouldn’t be as bad as it currently seemed, otherwise he’d have to disturb his boss’ break and he hated doing that. She worked hard enough as it was. Hopefully it wouldn’t come to that…

[Benton Barrett]

He was met pretty quickly - the guy pausing for a moment to lower the curtains. It made a thought bubble in his head - did everyone get migraines here? He really was looking forward to that in his future, wasn't he? He almost pouted - or at least, added to his already unhappy expression. His hand hurt, and he wasn't a fan of... any of this. Not that it was the other guy's fault, not even a little. But he still wasn't a fan of having to be in an infirmary. Like most people, they made him uncomfortable.

Benny followed as instructed, because that's what you did when you went to someone for help. The man produced a chair, and indicated that he should take a seat. He dropped in to it unceremoniously, wincing because the jarring shock of just dropping on the chair made him move his hands, which, of course, hurt. 

Vicious cycle. 

Would he like to tell him what happen?

"Mostly I'm dumb. I broke a mirror in my room, and did it in the perfect way to..." He lifted his hands awkwardly. "Well, like I said. Fillet myself." He set his jaw a little bit, not really willing to do anything about the situation. He was perfectly content to sit here his shirt clamped firmly on his hand, so as to not... well... bleed all over the place. 

He couldn't help but be tense, as he watched the other guy scrub his hands, and he almost almost whined. No way was he going to let his hand get all scrubbed, when he already thought it was too painful. 

"I'm sorry. I'm just..." He let out a whimpering sigh. "I really don't like blood. It doesn't make me pass out, but I get sick to my stomach and it's dumb, because my dad's a nurse. I've never thrown up because of blood before, though, so there's that at least. I haven't eaten anything yet today anyways, so it works out? Nothing to throw up. But..." Benny realized that he'd retreated into the familiar form of talk until the problem goes away. 

"I didn't get a good look, I just kind of ran here. Except not - I just walked fast because, rapid heart beat and bleeding out together are bad..." 

Yeah, no, he'd never be a nurse. He could take care of other people for the most part, but active bleeding? Totally not his thing. Benny just pressed it tighter, and wondered why he couldn't have gotten a cool, Wolverine-type power instead of the spazzy heat-vampire thing he had going on.

"Please tell me I don't need stitches." He added, mostly as a gentle request - and of course, without realizing he hadn't actually done anything to reveal his injury to the nice nurse who was hopefully going to fix everything with a wave of his meta-human healing sparkle-wand. Because they had those, right? 

[Kieron Sharpe]

It had taken Kieron a long, long time to be able to settle to that fact that, if he wanted to be a nurse, he’d have to be able to work with the lights on. The side-effects of his ability left him all but blind in bright light but, as has been pointed out to him many times, most patients were very uncomfortable sitting in pitch darkness while they got patched up.

The examination room that Kieron tended to frequent was generally the most shaded though, which did massively help. A large tree not far from the window prevented an over-spill of daylight from entering and, with the bright table lamp off, the only light in the room came from the not overly affective light overhead. Perhaps a touch too dark for the comfort of most medical workers, but as close to ideal as it could get for Kieron.

The nurse listened closely as the boy explained what had happened, drying off his hands with paper towels. He spoke softly, trying to keep the mood a little lighter than it might otherwise be. “Breaking a mirror is supposed to give you bad luck over seven years. At least yours is out of the way now.”

Disposing the paper towels into the waste bin, Kieron put some fresh ones down on the table so it didn’t get too blood-coated and fished out a pair of medical gloves so that he could examine the wound safely. He gave the boy a reassuring smile as he babbled, completely understanding the kid’s nerves. He used to get exactly the same way. “It’s okay, a lot of people don’t like blood. Do you know what it is about it that upsets you – the smell, sight?” Whatever it was, Kieron knew of ways to help ease the discomfort and hopefully make this go a little smoother.

Giving a soft chuckle as he sat on the wheely chair and rolled over to the table and the boy on the stool, Kieron nodded. “Clever. Most people panic and flail, not realising that can just make the bleeding worse.”

Kieron’s hand gently tapped on the pile of tissues on the table and he slid his sunglasses properly up his nose, making sure they would stay in place while he examined the appendage. “Put your hand on here and I’ll take a good look at it.”

[Benton Barrett]

At the remark about the seven years bad luck, Benny couldn't help but cock a half-grin. There was that, at least. 

"Think that's how it works? One big lump of bad luck instead of seven years? I'll take it." He managed, between the half-smile, the hurt slipping just a bit. The less he thought about it, the less it felt like his hand was cut. He nibbled on his lower lip, trying to keep his eyes focused on the nurse as he moved. It made him almost homesick - he'd seen his dad work on several occasions, and the motions were similar enough. He was too young, of course, but that didn't change the fact that he could associate it with a familiar memory. 

He was asked a question about the blood thing, and it took him a second to latch on to it. "I'm not sure." He replied, voice holding just a small bit of the discomfort. "I've never tried to tell what caused me to feel like that." No reason to tell a lie - he legitimately didn't know. Was it possible that he could just hold his breath around blood and be fine? It posed an interesting question - one he could test out now, considering the whole 'bloody wound' thing. 

As to his cleverness, he shook his head. "Nah. My dad just taught me some stuff. I kind of wanted to be an EMT for a while. I thought it would be cool." Of course, then the blood discomfort thing reared its ugly head, and the boy wasn't entirely sure he could continue down that particular path of interest. But it was nice to be able to take care of minor things. Basic first aid skills were handy!

"Besides, my heart was already racing. If I started running I might have just exploded or something. That's a mess no one wants to clean up." Following Kieron's lead of trying to keep the mood light, the teen tried to help that along. The tension in his shoulders was deep enough to make him want a hot shower, instead of a hand examination. 

Shaking his head, he tried not to whine too much as he put his hand on the indicated towel. Noting the sunglasses, he decided to focus on those, instead. He moved the shirt, sucking in a quiet breath as he did so. "So, um. You get the migraines, too? I heard that a lot of metas get them as a side effect." He asked, carefully not looking down at the blood. 

The wound itself wasn't terrible - it looked worse than it was, thanks to the blood that had welled up. It was certainly deeper than a scratch, but it wasn't a monstrous gash, like he'd thought he'd seen. It wouldn't need stitches, but Benny couldn't discern that from a single glance - as he staunchly refused look.