Flu Event: An Initial Reaction (JD, RC)

[JD Paerson]

It had come on quickly, and it had come on hard.

When JD went to bed the night before, he was feeling a bit off, but he had thought something was wrong with the sausage. But that might have just been the fact that it was doused in three layers of barbecue sauce and ketchup before being stuffed into a slice of bread and swallowed almost whole. JD liked his food quick, not necessarily healthy.

But when he woke up in the morning, he was sure something was wrong. His head was hurting and his stomach felt completely topsy-turvy. Still, he managed to force himself out of bed and was getting ready for his first class. He was half in his jeans when the effort of bending over send blood rushing to his head and him rushing to the bathroom.

He ran into the restroom and slammed the door behind him, just reaching the toilet in time. He sent his regards to the king of the porcelain throne and was kneeling in front of the bowl, heaving, when there was a knock on the door.

"Gimme..." he wheezed, then tried again. "Gimme a minute." This time at least the person on the other side might have heard him, though his voice was still weak.

He heaved again, then stood shakily, putting his hand out to steady himself against the wall.

"I don't think you want to come in here," he said to whoever was on the other side of the door. "It's not exactly pretty."

[RC Manne]

“Trust me dude, I totally do.” RC said ominously on the other side of the door. He too looked particularly green around the gills. His symptoms had started late in the night when he’d woken up in a cold sweat.

Granted, sweating (or just dripping, really) wasn’t something that RC wasn’t used to, but this was different. RC had been freezing cold, yet burning hot to the touch. He had lived in a house full of enough children to know what fever chills were, how they felt, and what they meant.
RC, much to his dismay, had the Flu.

The spaghetti he’d had for dinner wasn’t competing well with his churning stomach, and if he didn’t get to the bathroom soon, the door was going to be painting a charmingly revolting shade of vomit pink.

“Otherwise its not going to be pretty out here either.” He groaned, clutching his arm against his stomach as best as he could to keep the contents inside for just a bit longer. Honestly, he was embarrassed enough being the slightly moist roommate…he wasn’t really down on being the one who puked all over everything too.

[JD Paerson]

JD opened the door slowly to see RC, swaying and holding his stomach. Wordlessly, he stood back so that his roommate could rush into the bathroom.

"Christ," JD said, leaning against the wall and sagging to the floor. "Today is going to suck."

He wearily rolled his head over so that he could look at RC. He didn't know much about the guy, other than the fact that he had a bunch of siblings, a couple who were at Hammel and sometimes stopped by, and he that he had a kind of stupid power. Really? A sentient puddle? But to each their own, and not everyone was lucky enough to get one of the more super-sounding powers.

"Think it might've been the food?" JD asked, though a part of him knew it was wishful thinking. He'd gotten food poisoning a few times, and it sucked, but it didn't come with the fever he could feel himself getting now. He was fairly certain he was coming down with the flu, but he didn't want to think about that right now. It took ages to get over the flu.

"I'm gonna sit in the living room and watch some television." JD eased himself to his feet and leaned heavily against the wall for a moment before straightening fully and trying to push outside. He got dizzy again, though, and had to catch himself against the sink. "Or...not." He sank back to the floor of the bathroom, which was entirely disgusting.

"When was the last time we cleaned the bathroom?" he asked vaguely, glancing around. He was starting to wish that someone had at least swept sometime within the last month. It was going to be a long wait if they had to sit in here when it looked like this.

[RC Manne]

Rush RC did. He stumbled into the bathroom mostly, but JD was too close to the toilet. The sink was too shallow. Without another thought, RC dropped to his knees and chucked the contents of his stomach into the bathtub. Gross. Groaning, RC dry heaved for a bit, his eyes squeezed shut. If for some ungodly reason JD had been looking closely, he probably would have noticed something that wasn’t sweat rolling off RC’s and seeming to disappear again

“Oh no…” RC moaned, flopping back against the wall near the tub, turning on the water to rinse the rubbish down the drain. “Can it get any worse?” He whined, cursing God for a moment for having made it so difficult to keep his powers under control when he was sick. As if he wasn’t going to get dehydrated enough if he didn’t watch out. Nodding in agreement to JD’s admission of suckery, RC nodded and swallowed hard.

“It absolutely will.”

RC watched with mild curiosity as JD tried to heave himself out of the bathroom. He was almost rooting for him when JD sank back to the floor. Looking apologetically over at his roommate he gave him a weak smile. “Nice try dude, but I think we’re both stuck in the bathroom.”
A rumbling in RC’s made him groan, but only a vulgar burp escaped. He coughed slightly and shook his head. “Ew. S-sorry man.” He murmured, clearing his throat. “And…come to think of it…” RC let his eyes dart around the bathroom. He couldn’t remember the last time anyone had bothered to clean. “I don’t remember. Which is weird…cause usually I’m so clean.” He pointed out.

Living in a big house, it was important to be clean. How did the bathroom get like this?

[JD Paerson]

JD realized too late that he was still standing in front of the toilet, meaning there was no room for anyone else. He winced as RC chucked into the bathtub. That would have to be washed now. Thoroughly.

"Don't say stuff like that. It can always get worse," he told his roommate. "Now we're going to get lice or something on top of it."

The stench in the room was becoming overwhelming, but there wasn't much to do about it. After collapsing on the floor again, JD glared up at the switch for the fan. "This is the moment when I want to discover an ability to use the force. All right, switch, on!"

The burp from RC added to the stench, but there wasn't much he could do about it, and JD knew it. He shrugged half-heartedly at the apology.

"I guess it was partly me. Mom was always the one who cleaned at home. I don't really bother. Do we even have cleaning supplies?" He frowned, thinking.

If they were going to be stuck in the bathroom, JD figured he may as well try to start some sort of conversation with RC so this didn't end up too awkward.

"So. What classes are you missing today?" he croaked.

[RC Manne]

RC pulled the shower curtain closed and reached in, turning the shower on cold to at least wash the vomit properly down the drain. He was not okay with puke smell. Baby smell, sure. He was used to that. But vomit was just…wrong.

Squinting at the light switch, RC took a deep breath and shimmied up the wall. The movement was dizzying, but he’d emptied his stomach recently enough that he managed to flip the switch by practically falling upon it. “Ugh…” He moaned, flopping back into place. “M-mission accomplished.” He stammered, closing his eyes and heaving a heavy sigh. “Pretty difficult though. Maybe we should see a doctor?”

RC scratched the back of his head, wiping the dampness that came away on his pajama pants. “Classes? Christ…I don’t even want to think about them.” He scowled. “I’m worried about Swim practice.”

[JD Paerson]

JD was glad that RC was able to turn on the shower and the fan. "Doctor? Pshaw. We're only chucking up everything in our stomachs and too dizzy to stand up. That's nothing to go in about." Now completely serious, he frowned and said, "Maybe we should go in, but that would first require standing up and getting dressed."

He was surprised to hear that his roommate was with the swim team, though. "You swim? I didn't know that. Does that cause problems with your ability at all?" He was only a little biased in favor of certain powers. Namely speed or anything that allowed someone to be fast, such as shapechanging into a cheetah.

"I'm not too worried about my activities or anything. It's not like the band absolutely can't run without me. I'm more worried about falling behind in Chem class. I have certain people I need to stay ahead of in there."

[RC Manne]

RC managed a very weak, but surprisingly amused half smile. It hurt to laugh, his sides cramping from the vicious vomiting session that had just passed. It wasn’t like it was hard to keep the laughter at bay anyway. He was feeling miserable enough that any signs of glee were just…too much effort. “There’s an on-call nurse, you know. I bet if we called the front office we could get one of the med staff to come to us…I hear Doctor Prideaux does it for kids whose side-effects make them immobile.” He pointed out, clearing his throat, which was beginning to become sore from dryness.

He nodded slowly. “Yeah I swim.” He scratched the back of his again, tugging nervously at his mussed up hair. “I wouldn’t say it causes problems, I can pretty much get things under control when I’m in the water. It just takes me forever to dry off.” He wrinkled his nose and curled his knees up to his chest, resting his chin on them. “I used to have problems though, sometimes I wouldn’t be able to solidify after a really hard swim…What do you play in the band?”

Looking at his roomie with confusion, he tilted his head. “Stay ahead of? Like how? And who?” RC had taken chemistry already, but didn’t bother retaining much of it. He much preferred physics. Really anything with numbers and formulas. There was always an answer to achieve, a goal to work towards, rather than the open ended questions of English and history.

[JD Paerson]

JD looked at RC, a bit surprised. "Really? I never heard about that...but I guess I never really thought about it either. How do you even know things like on-call nurses for the school? You have to call for someone, or a friend?" Only after a moment did he actually get the point. "Um. My cell is in my room. But I could probably go get it and make a call--it might be a good idea."

"I guess it's helped with your training then." He thought of RC trying to dry off and winced. How would you know that you weren't wiping off part of yourself, just the water? He decided not to think about it too much. "I play trumpet. Second chair. Which isn't saying much--the band isn't really big." He smiled half-heartedly.

"I'm in advanced chemistry with Zac. We're trying to get up on college courses and get as much done now as we can. Since I am more intelligent, my grades are higher. But if I miss too much school, he might pull ahead, which I can't let happen." He debated trying to explain his entire rivalry with the Asian billionaire but decided it was too much work. If his roomie asked, he could try to go into more detail.

"I'm doing well in science, so I guess I'll probably go into something there, but I haven't really figured out what I'm going to do. What about you, planning to be a swimmer your whole life?"

[RC Manne]

RC nodded. “Well, my little brother has a heart condition that he likes to pretend he doesn’t have. I wanted to know who to call if he suddenly got hurt or his heart starting going haywire.” He explained, patting himself down for his cell. He didn’t get many texts, so he hadn’t bothered to grab it before he’d puked his guts out. “Yeah…if you think you can, it might be best.” He grumbled.

Hugging his knees tighter, RC grimaced deeply and almost hissed. “You’ve got to be talking about Zac LaRousse…he brags about his advanChem grade all the time at swim.” He grumbled, turning his head away from JD to sulk slightly. Zac was notoriously foul towards RC for no reason other than something made Zac feel superior. Normally RC just brushed it off, since he never really had to talk to LaRousse outside swim.

“Anyway, its not hard to get the makeup work upfront in advanced classes. I did it when I took advanced geometry freshman year and was sick.” He explained, glad for a change of subject. “If we get the nurse to preemptively excuse us, we can get in touch with our teachers and grab our work.” He nodded slowly, wondering if he’d be able to even do the work in his state.

RC shrugged slightly. “My oldest sister is deaf, and I’ve known sign language the whole time I’ve been with my family.” He said, turning back to face JD again. “I think maybe someday I’d like to be an interpreter or something. Maybe translate French for the U.N…I’m not really sure.” He sighed heavily. “Everything’s happening so fast, I’ve been wanting to graduate early but I don’t know what to do with my life. Velma’s---that’s my big sister--- a teacher, and she’s so good at it.” He shrugged. “I’m not sure I could be that good, y’know?”

[JD Paerson]

JD glanced up at RC, surprised. He hadn't realized that the little brother had a heart problem. He had seen the kid come around a few times, but he seemed totally fine. "You must be a pretty good brother, then, always watching out for your family." He nodded at the request to get his cell phone, deciding he would try in a few minutes when he felt less dizzy.

"Yup, that's the one. And I wouldn't be surprised, either. He likes to show off all the time." He was either unaware or choosing to ignore the fact that he himself flaunted his grades on a regular basis and made no secret of the fact that he was in all the advanced classes. "Whatever, he's not that smart. You should tell hiim to go dry his ears out next time before the water starts to get to his head. No offense." JD still had a slight hydrophobia, and it tended to color his opinions of all members of the swim team.

"That's good to know. I never missed class before, so I never bothered to figure it out. But do we have to go pick up the assignments or would they send them to us? 'Cause I'm not sure I could go down there..." he said contemplatively.

RC sounded like he had his whole life plotted out--or at least it felt that way to JD, who still couldn't decide even on a basic career path. "I'm sure you'd be fine as a teacher. Probably little kids, though. I don't think you could stand up to older kids." He wasn't trying to be necessarily rude, just honest. RC didn't look like he had the balls to stand up to anyone over the age of 5. "But you might do good as a doctor or something. I mean, sounds like you already know some stuff about taking care of people. Hospitality and all that. Maybe you could be a heart doctor and help people like your brother." He shrugged. "You don't have to do whatever the rest of your family does."

Thinking about it, JD realized that he would probably be better to try to phone the doctor now than try to put it off. So he rose unsteadily to his feet, then slowly walked down the hall toward his room. His head was still spinning, but by keeping his hand on the wall and counting door frames he was able to pick the right door. He shuffled inside, then lurched toward his cell phone. Grabbing it, he stumbled in a half-run back toward the bathroom, where he stood in front of the sink, breathing heavily. When his stomach settled again and he was sure it was safe to move, he settled back to the floor. "Right. Doctor. Do you know the number?"

[RC Manne]

RC waved his hand, shaking his head. “I’m just a brother.” He corrected. RC really didn’t think he went above and beyond to be a spectacular sibling, he was just pretty sure Jean (and Velma, and Mark and Roger, and Conrad, and pretty much everyone he knew) would drop dead if he wasn’t careful. Nothing wrong with a little extra watch-keeping in that regard.“Water in his ears isn’t the problem. It’s the sound of his ego buzzing.” He grumbled, shaking his head. He really didn’t want to talk about this anymore. Zac just made him feel so…so shitty. Shittier than usual.

Looking mortified, RC shook his head. “God no. They send someone down to us…usually the nurse herself comes out. If they hear the world “contagious” they really don’t want you out around the other students.” He explained. “Apparently there are a lot of metapowers that diminish the immune system as a side effect. People could die or something.”

Wilting slightly at JD’s incredibly accurate analysis of his personality, RC nodded. “Yeah. I don’t really want to teach older than elementary schoolers, to be honest. I’m not good with crowds. Or people in general. But I like kids and stuff…My mom says I’m good with my little sister.” He shrugged again, watching with a bit of fright as JD stumbled out to grab his phone. He was honestly a bit worried his roomie wouldn’t make it back. When he did, he managed an encouraging smile. “That was impressive dude, I don’t think I could have made it.” He complimented.

RC screwed up his face in thought. “Buhh…I think I do.” He held out his hand. “Miss Ish-Shalom recognizes my voice…I’ll call her.” He said, pausing for a moment before adding “She’s the on-call nurse.”

[JD Paerson]

"Really? People die over a flu? I thought that all stopped with penicillin and stuff. But I guess if it's part of your powers. Some of the side effects really suck." Which reminded him of his own potential fate, one that he didn't often like to think about. He knew from some research that a lot of speedsters died early from medical problems. But he didn't really like thinking about his death. "If it's really bad, why do they put everyone together? Like, all the dangerous people right next to the people who can get hurt easy? It always seemed like it might cause more problems to me."

JD simply nodded when RC explained some of his personality traits. It was not news. But once again there was more evidence of this guy being a good sibling. "How many brothers and sisters do you have?" he asked, a bit surprised. So far RC had talked about 3 and JD knew of at least one more. The parents had gone loopy on adoption rates, it seemed. "I only have one brother, and we don't get along nearly the same way you do with your family."

He accepted the compliment silently, just resting again. He held the phone out to RC so he could dial in the number. "You call the nurse a lot? Or just go in to check on things?" he asked. JD knew none of the nursing staff and couldn't have even told you where the nurse's office was off the top of his head. Somewhere in administration...he guessed.

[RC Manne]

“People die over stupid easy stuff every day.” RC pointed out. “Malaria, preventable by cheap mosquito nets. The flu, preventable with simple proper care. HIV, preventable with a condom and abstinence…Cholera, Tuberculosis…” Shaking his head solemnly, RC shrugged. “We take a lot of things for granted in the States.” Not that RC had seen any of those things first hand (except HIV), but his parent’s charitable hearts had definitely touched him, and he knew how fortunate he was.

“Two Sisters, Oldest and Youngest of the brood. Then Four brothers, Conrad, Jean, and the Twins. Conrad and Jean are here in town.” He explained sheepishly. “My parents wanted a big family, but decided to adopt…Its kinda like the island of misfit toys at my place.” RC coughed weakly and tilted his head at JD. After a long pause, he finally decided on what to say: “I’m sorry to hear that.” He couldn’t fathom not being close to his brothers and sisters.

Gingerly taking the phone, careful to hold on to it and not let it slip from his fingers, RC began to dial the number. “I used to call her a lot, when Jean first came here. He liked to show off, and sometimes he would need her. And she knew Conrad already, so when she heard our last name, she just…I dunno reached out I guess.” He said, holding the receiver up to his ear.

“Hi Miss Ish-Shalom…No. No Jean is fine. There’s no real emergency. Its just that—“ RC trailed off and looked at his roommate. “—What’s your last name again?—“ He asked JD before returning to the cell conversation. “My roommate and I are really really sick. I’m pretty sure it’s
the flu…Can’t keep anything down…Fever…Fever?” He repeated, inquiring as to JD’s symptoms.

“Y-yeah. That whole bag of tricks.” RC was chewing his cheek in thought, starting to look a little green around the gills again. “Is there a way we can get an exam in our room…or a note? So we can have our work delivered?” RC choked down a burp and nodded slowly. “Thanks Miss Ish-Shalom, we’ll see you s-soon.”

[JD Paerson]

JD had never really thought about all the sicknesses in the world. Despite having lived in different countries, it was usually in another first-world country. America preferred to send families to nice bases in places where there wasn't much trouble, and his father hadn't really objected. So he listened in silence to RC's rant, stunned more than anything else that his roommate could become this upset over something in another world, practically. But someone had to care...just not JD. He didn't comment other than to say, "Yeah, I guess we do."

Two sisters and four brothers? Plus RC made seven. Wasn't that supposed to be a television drama or something? "It's not that bad. I do just fine without having a really close family or anything." He didn't know how he would have survived in such a huge family as RC was describing. That just sounded like a circus, not a real family.

He listened to the phone conversation, filling in appropriate information. "Paerson. Yeah, fever. Dizziness, all that." The conversation seemed to have gone well, so it looked like they were going to get all their assignments sent up. Hooray. Now he had homework to look forward to. But at least he wasn't going to fall behind and risk his grade dropping.

Stretching out his hand for the phone, JD said, "Thanks. I guess she'll be here soon, then. I should probably head to my room, or at least the living room. I don't want to spend my whole day in the bathroom." He stood again and rested against the sink. As he reached the door he turned around. "I guess we'll be seeing more of each other, if we're both gonna be sick. Tomorrow I'll probably try to make up some soup or something. You're welcome to have some if you're up for it." Then he stumbled into the living room and crashed on the couch. He fell into a light sleep almost immediately and was only just conscious enough to shout a "come in" for the nurse when she arrived.

He hated being sick.

[ooc: Late, and not so good. Apologies.]