Laura | X-23-23 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
shoplifter) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
riverviewlogs2017-09-19 01:48 am
shoplifter) wrote in riverviewlogs2017-09-19 01:48 am
[OPEN LOG] Someone should have gave her a Xanax first
who: Laura and you.
what: A hospital check-up gone very very wrong.
when: ~9/23/17 at the hospital, ~9/25/17 elsewhere.
where: The Riverview Hospital.
warnings: Some non-suicidal self-harm from a fast-healing child, traumatic reactions and panic attacks, loss of family, emotional stuff, etc. Lots of juicy introspection and diving into her mindset atm. Feel free to jump in wherever you'd like to contact me on plurk for plotting if you're unsure where to jump in! I've bolded potential things to have your character react to, as apology for getting so goddamn prose-y, but feel free to find whatever spot you wanna wedge into.
Laura has been in Riverview for quite a number of weeks now -- and on top of another one or two weeks from home, it's also how long she's been outside of a laboratory as its subject. She's a stubborn creature, and so taking on a whole new world outside of those four cement walls has been quite an experience. She's visited zoos, she's met robots she's liked, and there are people here like her, people who help her steal hats or take her for milkshakes. But there are also things she's faced that have continued to be... unfortunate hurdles.
Making friends her age has been... difficult, and she's not even sure she wants them yet. After all, there's a horrible ache in her chest when she things of the friends she'd been separated with back home. She's not remotely faced the death of Gabriela, nor of her father or Charles, not since the very moment they've died; she has dreams, terrible dreams, the kind where bad men are hurting her, but worse, the kind where Logan and Charles and Gabriela are alive. Alive and walking with her. Going out for milkshakes. Going to stores, or walking pretty forest trails without the threat of soldiers and withering bodies. Her father is healthy and strong in all of them, even if his beard is still salt and pepper.
The dreams always feel real for a ridiculous moment when she wakes in the early morning, but she pushes the wrenching pain in her chest down, dresses, and goes out to try and be a person. She'd promised her father without saying a word: Don't be what they made you. And yes, she's shoplifted (he hated that, even though he did it, too), she's used her claws for silly things, she's distrusted and used force where she felt it fair, and she'll fight in self-defense to the death if she must, but she has not turned into a weapon here. She's kept her promise. That is key. And yet, every time she thinks of the promise, she feels like her chest is going to explode. She's not sure what the feeling means, nor the feeling she gets when she thinks of her hand in Logan's, but she hates it. It makes her bitter toward him in a way she equally hates. She doesn't want to be angry at him for leaving so soon.
She doesn't even have any pictures she can look at, to remember him.
... Except the comics. She keeps them under her pillow and looks at them for Logan and Charles. Sometimes her floormates may find her sitting on the bed, a hand on one of the panels, carefully smoothing the page with Wolverine's face on it. It had only been a week with her father, the one week she'd wanted with her family, her daddy, but sometimes she wonders if it was better to not be with him at all. After all, look where it led them all -- for her. She has not once forgotten what he'd said about Caliban or Charles. They hadn't asked for that. Neither did the Munsons.
When she tells Linda she's never visited a 'pediatrician', the case worker is flummoxed. She schedules her an appointment, and the moment they enter the Riverview Hospital, Laura feels... a shift within herself. Her pupils dilate, her hands clench, and she feels needling memories trying to wriggle their way to the forefront of her mind. The place is bigger, more sterilized and impersonal, with uniformed nurses and doctors in familiar long coats.
"Watch the video, X-23, or we'll have to restrain you."
She didn't understand how wrong the videos were, in that room with Dr. Rice, until she stepped into the real world and didn't find corpses and blood and destruction outside where she walked.
She's nearly breaking the bones in Linda's hand as she's lead to the waiting room. She sits, twitching, and waits for a number of minutes as Linda fills out more paperwork for her. All the people in the room are horribly calm, bored even, and she tries to remind herself of that little homely doctor's office she'd dragged her father to. Not all doctors are bad. She knows. They just may be 'wolves in sheep's clothing'. They're often not who they seem to be. People thought Dr. Rice and the others were just doctors curing cancer, after all. Poor cancerous children, in need of saving, that's the talk she's heard from bitter nurses who hated Transigen.
Finally, after some time, she's called into the room, and the doctor gives her a little smile. She pulls away from the bloodpressure machine, but she relents to letting him check her tongue and throat. "You're a very healthy kid, Laura," he says cheerfully, "You are lacking in your shots. Are you scared of needles?"
She says a clipped no, but her eyes are staring distantly, away from him.
Around the time he presses the needle into her skin is when things go very wrong.
"Are we sure this is wise? Why not wait until X-23's mutation develops naturally?"
"It could be an added number of years, gentlemen, and we've little time to dawdle our budget on normalcy. Raise the radiation levels."
She can't remember exactly what happens, but she hears Linda scream her name as she's up on her feet, claws bursting from her skin -- claws that meet skin, but the doctor is at least fortunate enough to throw himself back from the wild swing of her arm before she can potentially kill him. The wound on his shoulder will need stitches, and despite the sight of it, a surprisingly brave Linda moves after the girl with a hand out and a worried, "Laura! Stop!"
"Raise the levels again. I want this surgery done as soon as possible."
Her father's claws came to him when he was thirteen; Laura does not know this.
What she does know is hers came in when she was ten.
Laura bursts forward with a scream and cuts the door of the patient room into pieces, shoving through the fragments and onto the main floor. Nurses and doctors all scramble at the sight of her, one claw with blood on it, the other glinting dangerously in the fluroescent lighting. She's not all there in the eyes, driven by something raw and instinctive while she goes rushing through the hospital. One may have the misfortunate of running into her there, panting and rabid, so lost to whatever's in her head that she can't differentiate the exits.
Maybe you'll have luck in apprehending her. Or maybe she'll hurt you. Just be careful, huh?
Either way, maybe it's better to show her how to leave, than trying to keep her put.
Whatever happens... Eventually, Laura will end up escaping her confines, or otherwise escape capture altogether. It's really not too hard, when you heal easily and can cut through anything that's not adamantium. She doesn't return to her home for a few days, too anxious that someone will be waiting there for her, to tell her she's unfit for the outside world. They could lock her up again. And she's not sure she could stomach solitary confinement as a home and life, not after french fries and awkward hugs, or foul-smelling fireworks, or... or toy stores... So she finds herself pacing through alleyways, trying to stave off an overwhelming feeling in her chest... The same she felt when her father comes to memory in the dead of night. Don't be what they made you. Don't be what they made you.
She's trying so hard not to be, but the claws almost have a mind of their own. They move when she can't find the mind to, ready to fight, ready to defend her, even against things she doesn't need to be saved from. Like... pediatrians. But he could have been poisoning her all over again. The serum made them stronger, and stronger means being used for 'nefarious plans'. It means breaking her wordless promise. With an impressive amount of energy, she cuts angry lines across the brickwork on some of the buildings, slicing up dumpsters, and eventually, she can be found sitting against a wall there, her expression worryingly blank as she runs her twin claws over the back of her arm and watching it heal up.
She's mentally drained from this past two months, and more than willing to listen to people now.
At the end of the week, she'll finally return to the apartment. Probably thanks to helpful words, really.
Linda will greet her nervously -- but she doesn't abandon her, and offers a kind smile that mirrors Gabriela's. "I'm sorry," she tells her quietly, and Linda surprises her by stepping timidly forward and pulling her head into her bosom, hugging her very gently; Laura hugs her back with blood-stained knuckles and closes her eyes, relinquishing control for just a moment.
When her head hits the pillow, she dreams about forest trails again.
Feel free to come find her after her hospital freak-out, these coming days.
what: A hospital check-up gone very very wrong.
when: ~9/23/17 at the hospital, ~9/25/17 elsewhere.
where: The Riverview Hospital.
warnings: Some non-suicidal self-harm from a fast-healing child, traumatic reactions and panic attacks, loss of family, emotional stuff, etc. Lots of juicy introspection and diving into her mindset atm. Feel free to jump in wherever you'd like to contact me on plurk for plotting if you're unsure where to jump in! I've bolded potential things to have your character react to, as apology for getting so goddamn prose-y, but feel free to find whatever spot you wanna wedge into.
Laura has been in Riverview for quite a number of weeks now -- and on top of another one or two weeks from home, it's also how long she's been outside of a laboratory as its subject. She's a stubborn creature, and so taking on a whole new world outside of those four cement walls has been quite an experience. She's visited zoos, she's met robots she's liked, and there are people here like her, people who help her steal hats or take her for milkshakes. But there are also things she's faced that have continued to be... unfortunate hurdles.
Making friends her age has been... difficult, and she's not even sure she wants them yet. After all, there's a horrible ache in her chest when she things of the friends she'd been separated with back home. She's not remotely faced the death of Gabriela, nor of her father or Charles, not since the very moment they've died; she has dreams, terrible dreams, the kind where bad men are hurting her, but worse, the kind where Logan and Charles and Gabriela are alive. Alive and walking with her. Going out for milkshakes. Going to stores, or walking pretty forest trails without the threat of soldiers and withering bodies. Her father is healthy and strong in all of them, even if his beard is still salt and pepper.
The dreams always feel real for a ridiculous moment when she wakes in the early morning, but she pushes the wrenching pain in her chest down, dresses, and goes out to try and be a person. She'd promised her father without saying a word: Don't be what they made you. And yes, she's shoplifted (he hated that, even though he did it, too), she's used her claws for silly things, she's distrusted and used force where she felt it fair, and she'll fight in self-defense to the death if she must, but she has not turned into a weapon here. She's kept her promise. That is key. And yet, every time she thinks of the promise, she feels like her chest is going to explode. She's not sure what the feeling means, nor the feeling she gets when she thinks of her hand in Logan's, but she hates it. It makes her bitter toward him in a way she equally hates. She doesn't want to be angry at him for leaving so soon.
She doesn't even have any pictures she can look at, to remember him.
... Except the comics. She keeps them under her pillow and looks at them for Logan and Charles. Sometimes her floormates may find her sitting on the bed, a hand on one of the panels, carefully smoothing the page with Wolverine's face on it. It had only been a week with her father, the one week she'd wanted with her family, her daddy, but sometimes she wonders if it was better to not be with him at all. After all, look where it led them all -- for her. She has not once forgotten what he'd said about Caliban or Charles. They hadn't asked for that. Neither did the Munsons.
When she tells Linda she's never visited a 'pediatrician', the case worker is flummoxed. She schedules her an appointment, and the moment they enter the Riverview Hospital, Laura feels... a shift within herself. Her pupils dilate, her hands clench, and she feels needling memories trying to wriggle their way to the forefront of her mind. The place is bigger, more sterilized and impersonal, with uniformed nurses and doctors in familiar long coats.
"Watch the video, X-23, or we'll have to restrain you."
She didn't understand how wrong the videos were, in that room with Dr. Rice, until she stepped into the real world and didn't find corpses and blood and destruction outside where she walked.
She's nearly breaking the bones in Linda's hand as she's lead to the waiting room. She sits, twitching, and waits for a number of minutes as Linda fills out more paperwork for her. All the people in the room are horribly calm, bored even, and she tries to remind herself of that little homely doctor's office she'd dragged her father to. Not all doctors are bad. She knows. They just may be 'wolves in sheep's clothing'. They're often not who they seem to be. People thought Dr. Rice and the others were just doctors curing cancer, after all. Poor cancerous children, in need of saving, that's the talk she's heard from bitter nurses who hated Transigen.
Finally, after some time, she's called into the room, and the doctor gives her a little smile. She pulls away from the bloodpressure machine, but she relents to letting him check her tongue and throat. "You're a very healthy kid, Laura," he says cheerfully, "You are lacking in your shots. Are you scared of needles?"
She says a clipped no, but her eyes are staring distantly, away from him.
Around the time he presses the needle into her skin is when things go very wrong.
"Are we sure this is wise? Why not wait until X-23's mutation develops naturally?"
"It could be an added number of years, gentlemen, and we've little time to dawdle our budget on normalcy. Raise the radiation levels."
She can't remember exactly what happens, but she hears Linda scream her name as she's up on her feet, claws bursting from her skin -- claws that meet skin, but the doctor is at least fortunate enough to throw himself back from the wild swing of her arm before she can potentially kill him. The wound on his shoulder will need stitches, and despite the sight of it, a surprisingly brave Linda moves after the girl with a hand out and a worried, "Laura! Stop!"
"Raise the levels again. I want this surgery done as soon as possible."
Her father's claws came to him when he was thirteen; Laura does not know this.
What she does know is hers came in when she was ten.
Laura bursts forward with a scream and cuts the door of the patient room into pieces, shoving through the fragments and onto the main floor. Nurses and doctors all scramble at the sight of her, one claw with blood on it, the other glinting dangerously in the fluroescent lighting. She's not all there in the eyes, driven by something raw and instinctive while she goes rushing through the hospital. One may have the misfortunate of running into her there, panting and rabid, so lost to whatever's in her head that she can't differentiate the exits.
Maybe you'll have luck in apprehending her. Or maybe she'll hurt you. Just be careful, huh?
Either way, maybe it's better to show her how to leave, than trying to keep her put.
Whatever happens... Eventually, Laura will end up escaping her confines, or otherwise escape capture altogether. It's really not too hard, when you heal easily and can cut through anything that's not adamantium. She doesn't return to her home for a few days, too anxious that someone will be waiting there for her, to tell her she's unfit for the outside world. They could lock her up again. And she's not sure she could stomach solitary confinement as a home and life, not after french fries and awkward hugs, or foul-smelling fireworks, or... or toy stores... So she finds herself pacing through alleyways, trying to stave off an overwhelming feeling in her chest... The same she felt when her father comes to memory in the dead of night. Don't be what they made you. Don't be what they made you.
She's trying so hard not to be, but the claws almost have a mind of their own. They move when she can't find the mind to, ready to fight, ready to defend her, even against things she doesn't need to be saved from. Like... pediatrians. But he could have been poisoning her all over again. The serum made them stronger, and stronger means being used for 'nefarious plans'. It means breaking her wordless promise. With an impressive amount of energy, she cuts angry lines across the brickwork on some of the buildings, slicing up dumpsters, and eventually, she can be found sitting against a wall there, her expression worryingly blank as she runs her twin claws over the back of her arm and watching it heal up.
She's mentally drained from this past two months, and more than willing to listen to people now.
At the end of the week, she'll finally return to the apartment. Probably thanks to helpful words, really.
Linda will greet her nervously -- but she doesn't abandon her, and offers a kind smile that mirrors Gabriela's. "I'm sorry," she tells her quietly, and Linda surprises her by stepping timidly forward and pulling her head into her bosom, hugging her very gently; Laura hugs her back with blood-stained knuckles and closes her eyes, relinquishing control for just a moment.
When her head hits the pillow, she dreams about forest trails again.
Feel free to come find her after her hospital freak-out, these coming days.
no subject
"He used magic to hold me. I pretended to die and surprised him so I could run."
It's painful, but she was trained for that sort of thing. Pain is secondary now.
"... I can find places. If I need to."
no subject
"Does he know...? Did he see that you survived?"
There could be a huge difference between someone that saw her get up and run and someone who might think she's dead now, only to find out the truth to be angry about it later.
"Okay." He'll let that slide, for now. Trust that she has it covered. "You know how to reach me if you ever need anything, right?" They had talked on the network, she had his information. He might not be the first person she'd go to, but if there ever came a point where she felt she had no one else to go to, Ed wasn't the type to ever turn his device off.
no subject
It must surely be a good sign, that she feels kind of bad about that; before, when she'd been in Transigen? She wouldn't have thought twice about kicking the shit out of someone to get away. But things have been... complicated, and a little different to deal with. She finally does look up at him when he mentions reaching him -- and yeah, she looks a little confused by it.
"Why help?"
It's an age old question she'll probably be asking a lot in this place.
She did something terrible, after all.
She doesn't expect people to defend her from the outcome; she'll fight for herself, but she doesn't want to drag anymore people into her problems. Just look at the Munsons. Was it fair of them to suffer because she had been there? She's certainly ready to hide away on her own if she ends up facing some dire consequences.
Alone.
no subject
"Because we're friends, right?"
Maybe Laura didn't think of them as friends, Ed didn't really care if she did. He'd watch out for her either way. "Look, you don't really know anything about me, do you? Let me tell you a secret."
He doesn't wait for a reply, pulling his glove off to reveal his right hand. If she has retractable claws a metal hand can't be too much of a shock for her. "When I was your age... I lost my arm and leg. It's going to sound a little weird, but by the time I found them again? Some kid had them, and he tried to kill me a few times." He doesn't explain why, at least that much seemed overboard.
Ed pauses here, just long enough to let her kind of absorb that. "The next time I saw him? It was in that place with no sun I told you about. He didn't have anyone else, so I took him in."
Another pause, a slow smile as if he's uncertain he should smile here. "He's the one I used to- sit on the roof with. A kid your age, who used to try to kill me with my own hand, who had no family and just lost his mom..." Ed takes a moment to tug his glove on again before looking at Laura once more, watching her carefully.
"So, if I can help someone like that, why not you?"
no subject
She stands with her head bowed slightly, but she keeps her eyes on him.
She can't disagree with him, really. It all makes sense to her.
"... People get hurt, when they help me."
no subject
"Me too, kid."
That was true enough, and he's reminded of Hughes. The dangers that he'd put people in because of how close they'd gotten to the truth. Everyone back home, he still wasn't entirely sure what had happened with Mustang - but there were instances in Purg, too. Times that didn't exactly result in death, because death was never permanent, but others becoming a target because of the things they'd done.
no subject
"What do you do, knowing this?"
She'd really like some goddamn points, Edward.
no subject
That was really all there was to it for him, there wasn't a choice in it anymore. There wasn't anything they could do except keep living as best they can.
"If someone wants to help you knowing the risk, that's up to them. Trying to protect them by... Not telling them, staying away from them. Any of that? It doesn't work in the long run. The only option we have is to keep living, keep finding a reason to live, and if other people choose to be a part of that life, knowing what that might mean, that's their choice to make. You have to let them make that decision, though. Hiding the truth or trying to avoid people only gets more of them hurt in the long run. People know which dangers they're willing to face and which they aren't, so we have to learn to trust that they know what they're doing."
It wasn't easy, and not everyone knew what they could handle so sometimes people were hurt that maybe should have been avoided instead of trusted to take care of themselves. The truth was that Laura was going to have to learn not to hold herself responsible for everyone person that she came across, but that would happen over time.
no subject
She purses her lips.
Keep... moving forward. She's doing her best to do just that. But perhaps she can try a little harder.
"You believe that? Completely?" Everything he said, it makes sense; she just wants to make sure he's not just saying whatever flies to mind without the most sincere of beliefs. It just. Makes her feel a little better, to know it.