9317/Blood and Ichor... Two

Blood and Ichor... Two
Date of Scene:	25 September 2019
Location:	Wellness Office - Xavier's School
Synopsis:	Shannon makes a bold attempt to heal Jeremy's magical wounds.
Cast of Characters:	Loki, Nightingale
Tinyplot:	Asgard's Requiem

---

Loki has posed:
As the night wore on, the injured teenager was re-bandaged, his case discussed... and since he's relatively stable (perhaps because of the healing that did get done), he's left to try to rest in the darkened medical facility. He has still refused having any needles or leads put into him at all, but did drink orange juice.

The room is still dark, but the boy is restless there, turning to his other side, uncomfortable in the wraps of bandaging. He sits up again, and starts to quietly peel the dressings off his right hand.

Nightingale has posed:
While she was a healer in training, Shannon was, after all, still a student. With Jeremy stable for the moment, she scurries off to her dorm for an hour or two to get a little studying in, as well as get a bite to eat. When she returns, it's with a small tray, bearing a covered dish that gives off some tempting, savory aromas. She pokes her head through the doorway, knocking lightly on the side, and balancing the tray in one arm. "I come bearing gi... hey... come on, what are you doing?"

Loki has posed:
"I don't like them, I can't move my hands," complains the boy as she arrives. He does look with aloof curiosity to what may be on that tray; he can't see it from the angle he's laying on the bed at. That also means he sits up more to try to get the angle to see what the gifts are. He does stop peeling bandages off his right hand, but there is a pile of evidence next to him showing he was removing a lot. "It's Shannon, right?" Jeremy asks.

Nightingale has posed:
Shannon nods, and smiles, pulling a rolling table over by his bed, depositing the tray on top of it. "That's right. And it's... Jeremy, right? Come on, let me get some fresh bandages on your hands there." She nods towards the tray, uncovering the plate; a turkey sandwich on wheat, and what looks like a bowl of chicken soup are revealed, with a spoon off to one side. "How are your hands feeling? Think you'd be up to eating that?"

Loki has posed:
"Sure. There's nothing wrong with my stomach," Jeremy assures her. When he's not zonked out from having thrown himself at the edge of the Xavier campus or barely awake, there's an intelligent quality to his light blue eyes. He then extends his hands, palms up, towards her: like one would if there were shackles around the wrists. There may as well be, he has a lot of dressing on his hands. More on the left than the right, obviously.

Nightingale has posed:
Shannon nods, and retrieves some fresh wound dressing supplies, bandages and all, and a pair of gloves. She slips these on and pulls over a small bio disposal bin, as well as the stool she used earlier. She sits down, reaching over towards his hands, and finishes the task he started with the right hand. "I feel badly about not being able to do more for you... there's still a lot to learn, plus nobody's got any idea what even hurt you."

Loki has posed:
"Awful magic stuff moving around inside my body. It's hard to describe. Like magic that...." Jeremy pauses, as if realizing that describing it that way won't make sense to her. "Like burning from the inside out," he explains. He looks down at her working on his hands, and then looks aside and away. If he's blushing it doesn't show, he has too much bloody smears on his face for that, since there's no good way to bandage the ones near his eyes.

"I feel like if I make it move, I'll bleed out. I tried on my hands a little, that's why they are so awful now."

Nightingale has posed:
Shannon nods, and sighs softly, easing the last of the bandages away from his mess of a right hand. "That has really got to suck. The very thing that's causing you so much pain is also keeping you alive." The smell of the chicken soup does a little bit of good, chasing away some of the miasma and acrid medicinal smells that always seemed to linger in a place like this, and offering a bit of familiar comfort in its place. "We had to stop the healing because don't want to risk sealing that stuff inside you for good. Are you sure you won't let us call this... Doctor Strange?" She smiles gently, reaching for the fresh bandage and unrolling it. "It can be embarrassing as hell, feeling like you've failed in front of your mentor. Especially if it's always been your dream to work with them. But the best ones will stick with you."

Loki has posed:
"What if you tried healing while I attempt to remove it?" suggests Jeremy, considering the idea while he stirs the soup around. He uses just his index finger and thumb with the spoon, minimal use of his hand overall. He's being careful and gentle with them: for pain reasons, most likely. He seems to intend to want to use his hands to eat; they can be re-bandaged afterwards.

"I mean, he could kick me out. He's not very friendly, to be honest, but he's one of the best wizards, they say, so he should be able to teach all sorts of things. I'm trying to coax him to trust me, and it's been years."

Nightingale has posed:
Shannon raises her eyebrows, keeping an eye on Jeremy's hands to watch for signs of further bleeding. "Part of me is tempted to try. I hate feeling this helpless when I know someone's hurting. But the sensible part is saying to wait till Mr. McCoy can get here." She cants her head slightly to one side, considering this. "Maybe when he gets here, we could see what he thinks of the idea. I've learned to trust him so far." She nudges the tray a little bit closer to Jeremy, and smiles somewhat. "So how did this blue stuff get into you? Maybe knowing that would help us figure out what to do about it."

Loki has posed:
"How long will he be? This is really, /really/ painful," Jeremy says, swallowing a little, and looking at the soup. He gestures some with the spoon, indicating that it can be slid closer still, if she wants to help out. Not in his lap though. There might be some undiagnosed gashes on his thighs he hasn't mentioned yet. He manipulation of the spoon takes focus, and causes the boy to sweat as he ends up giving up on it and having some sandwich instead. Easier to manhandle with trembling hands.

"I think we could try. You're a healer, I'm magical. Doctors just use needles, and I'm not really for the needle plan," Jeremy coaxes. "Magic energy hit me. Now I have blue stuff."

Nightingale has posed:
Shannon shakes her head, a single tear trickling down her cheek. "I wish I could. But if I try to heal that, one or the other of us could bleed out. Even if you didn't, I'd be better off having Mr. McCoy on hand." Though her pale azure eyes glisten, she does her best to offer a smile. "I don't know a thing about magic. What could give out that kind of energy, and leave you with the blue stuff?"

Loki has posed:
"You won't bleed out. I can heal other people," Jeremy says quietly. "Don't let that get around, though, okay? I'm trying to have an image as something more of a badass mage." Jeremy seems to be losing some of the sandwich out the back, but just leans it forward to let the innards fall out. He's eating, though slowly. "Well. Bad wizards or objects can often give out that kind of energy. I haven't had blue stuff in me before, but I've seen some horrible cursed wounds. It could be a kind of curse."

Nightingale has posed:
Shannon frowns a little bit and glances over Jeremy's wounds. Most of them were pretty deep. But perhaps... maybe... just maybe, there were one or two of the cuts that could be healed. "Could you show me where whatever it is hit you the -least-? Something small to test your idea on, maybe." She nibbles her lower lip, and for a moment, one can almost picture the old cartoon trope of an angel on one shoulder, a devil on the other. The question is, which one will win?

Loki has posed:
"Probably the face," Jeremy answers. "Lucky me, right?" he asks, and then laughs uncomfortably. He isn't a great looking boy: he's average, really. Which has suffered a lot from the big cuts on his cheek and some on the chin. "Or my leg. The worst of it is my hands. That's where I was exposed. Shot. You know. I was trying to grab onto the demonic thing to stop it, I wasn't thinking. I was trying to save someone, and... sorry, I'm focused." He shudders, needing a minute, eyes closed. Perhaps the memory is too painful to go over.

Nightingale has posed:
Shannon nods, reaching over to very gingerly rest her hand on his shoulder, the warmth of her skin seeping through the glove to offer a bit of human comfort--albeit thinly shielded. "Hey... hey, it's okay. I'm sorry I put you through that all over again. You're safe here." It -does- look as if the cuts on the face are the smallest; perhaps if she were to attempt healing some of the smallest among even those, it would be that much less pain for Jeremy to suffer through. "We could maybe try a few of the tiny ones on your face. At least if those start to bleed, it's probably nothing some pressure won't stop."

Loki has posed:
"How does what you do work? Maybe if I know more, I can help figure out what to do, too," Jeremy asks. It's a clear attempt to get out of his own head and away from his own problems, and he opens his eyes to appeal to her, with a brief softened smile.

"You said you don't do magic, right? Is it something else?" Jeremy lifts a hand to the side of his face, but avoids the cuts. He does get some mayo on his face from the sandwich, though. He doesn't know, he eats more of the sandwich while looking at her.

Nightingale has posed:
Shannon shrugs, and offers an apologetic smile. "It's something I'm still learning to understand and work with myself. It's not something that's very easy to describe or explain. I just know that it works. It's like somehow... I'm a sponge for wounds. Once I touch the wound, it becomes part of me. The cuts on your face would be on mine, and not yours. There's a lot I still don't know, though, and I'm really reluctant to try anything bigger than those little cuts before Mr. McCoy gets here." Her smile grows a little wider and she laughs softly, taking a napkin from the tray and reaching over to dab the mayonnaise away from Jeremy's face. "You're supposed to eat your food, not wear it," she teases, her eyes twinkling with mirth.

Loki has posed:
"So, it would be really very bad if I touched your arm with my hand, for example," Jeremy asks. He lifts his hand some to show he's not going to do that: his palm is up and out, showing he has no intention to do anything of the sort. It does expose the horror of interesting lines in his hand: were someone into palm reading, they'd have to be blind not to see his pulsing, injured heartline. A heartline worn right out and obvious, with that eerie blue tinge in the deep parts of it.

"I got it on me? I've had worse, I've had blue stuff," jokes the boy. Despite the pain he must be in, there's still humor in him; that hasn't been beaten out.

Nightingale has posed:
Shannon nods slowly in confirmation. "It would, at least for a little while. But I tend to heal pretty quickly, so it wouldn't last forever. Let's just say I wouldn't be playing the piano for a little while." The humor does much to lighten her mood; it was really rather nice to see the boy smile. It made her heart ache, though, knowing how unlikely that it was she'd be able to heal his pain right then and there. "Okay, so how is this going to work, with you getting the blue stuff out of one of the cuts on your face? If this works, then when Chris and Mr. McCoy are both here, we can get a lot more done, and get you back on your feet."

Loki has posed:
Jeremy tilts his head a little as she describes that it wouldn't be so bad for her. Interesting. He just smiles a little, but doesn't push on the point anymore. Back to working on his problems. "Okay. So using magic makes things bleed, so don't freak out if my hands are a bit worse. But I'm going to try to manipulate the blue stuff out of my cheek. See if you can heal it while I do that. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work." Jeremy takes a bite of sandwich though, and then carefully sets the rest aside, getting it out of the way. He also picks up some of the clean bandages carefully, as if well aware his hands might be in bad shape.

"Ready?"

Nightingale has posed:
Shannon nods, slipping the glove free of her right hand, and setting it aside. "Ready. If the bleeding gets to be too much, and I call for this to stop, then we stop immediately before it gets worse." She bites her lower lip, worrying a little. Was it really very wise to be trying this? "At the very least, we can still get your hands re-bandaged properly. Just one question... if we have to wait, is there anything you're able to have for pain? Would it make a difference?"

Loki has posed:
"I don't know," Jeremy says, pausing at the pain question, as if that entirely derailed his thought process. He blinks at her once, taking her in. "You're a very kind person, aren't you," observes the boy, in a direct manner. He shrugs, and then flexes his fingers once. "Hand me my backpack, please?" he asks. "Or the book in it, anyway. Looks like a journal," he requests.

If she does so, he'll flip to one of the back pages. It's full of interesting doodles: drawings of birds, mostly, in different positions, and then some directions in some type of runic script. "Okay."

With that, a mild glow spreads between his hands, casting a cool purple hue over the room, and he grits his teeth. Many of the wounds on his face start to ... bubble. It's horrifying.

Nightingale has posed:
Shannon does get the book for Jeremy, and looks as if she might slip the glove off her other hand when she sees the wounds on his face start to bubble; however, she thinks better of it and keeps at least one hand covered. "You'll have to tell me when all the blue stuff is out of them," she warns. "I'm not so sure I want that on me." She gets some of the bandages that had been intended for his hands, to use to daub away the ichor as it oozes out, using her gloved left hand for the task.

Loki has posed:
Jeremy's expression changes, from a sort of focus into a mask of heavier pain. Ripples of the bubbling ichor start to come from his hands, forearms, as well as his face, spreading like the flame causing those in his face to bubble move over his body. Blue paste mixes with blood, coming off his hands, the drips sliding over the digits that have curled into claws of pain as he focuses. The blue does come out of his face, though, to the surface, clinging there in darkened blood. It is clear it's taking all of Jeremy's focus just to get it to the surface, let alone do anything else.

Nightingale has posed:
Shannon winces as she sees the blue paste and darkened blood mixed into an unholy purple so dark it could be mistaken for liquid obsidian. "Try to focus on just your face... " she reminds him, doing her best to keep her voice calm. As the sickening stygian stuff comes trickling from the cuts that marked an infernal battle she could only barely begin to imagine, she reaches up with the bandage to dab it away. "Once it's out, I'll try to heal the cuts, and you can stop dislodging the rest of what's keeping you from bleeding out."

Loki has posed:
"Yeah, that's not ... really going to happen," Jeremy says in a tone that is not cheerful in the slightest. It's a little different, like something in the awful ichor was grinding away at his ability to be pleasant about this. But he's speaking through a wall of pain.

It doesn't look very focused on the face; it's sort of coming up everywhere, the chest bandage starts to show plumes of dark color. Bleeding out could be a very real problem.

Nightingale has posed:
Shit. She had to stop this. Now. "Stop. Just stop. I'll do what I can but there's an awful lot of bleeding." Shannon rests her hand on Jeremy's cheek, seeing there is little time now to wait, if any at all. Closing her eyes, she begins to breathe deeply, hissing softly in pain as the healing begins. "Please try to hold it back, I'll heal what I can..." Please, gods, please, she prayed. Don't let this go south. Please let him be okay.

Loki has posed:
Jeremy is pulling all the goo to the surface, it looks like. There's a lot of effort put into doing just that; if she heals from under it, it might stay on the surface to be wiped away, instead of being healed inside the cuts. It's ... possible. Maybe. His eyes lock onto her face as she puts her hand on his cheek, which is more slick from sweat than any other blood or ichor at this point, probably. "I might pass out," Jeremy says dryly, focused.

Nightingale has posed:
Crap. Things just got real. It went from dabbing away just a little ichor from Jeremy's face, to a -lot- of it away from his chest. Shannon gritted her teeth, knowing full well this was going to hurt, but this had gone pear-shaped faster than she liked. At least the blue stuff was mostly gone from his face, leaving the way clear for medical personnel after her to take care of that. Instead, she rests her hand on his chest, pressing her lips firmly together to try and keep from crying out. She's mostly successful, only choked sounds of pain caught in the back of her throat. However, the tears do trickle, then stream down her face, as she begins to absorb the cuts on the boy's chest. Red begins to blossom in kind on her shirt, making it look as if Tweety Bird had gone into a shooting war armed with only a peace symbol and a flower--and come out on the losing end of it.

Loki has posed:
The healing is.... just amazing. For someone that's been suffering so severely, with awful ichor-magic eating at the insides of long cuts, this is heaven. Which means he'll choose to lean into her help. She may or may not enjoy the fact.

Jeremy flips his hands over and attempts to grab onto her forearms with his bare hands, still holding his spell. It's messy and awful, and his body is shuddering with the effort of holding the magic...

Nightingale has posed:
Messy is perhaps an understatement here. So is awful. Not only does Shannon's shirt bear evidence of the healing, leaving behind only the faintest of marks where the cuts once were on Jeremy's own chest, but now her hands tense up almost instantly with pain. There is no holding back the groan of agony that comes from her as the cuts that were on his hands, now find an echo on hers. It was like being sliced with a hundred shards of glass in each hand at once, leaving them anything but a pretty sight. However, she does force herself to try and uncurl her fingers, and there -is- motion, so perhaps the damage can heal with a little extra time.

Loki has posed:
"You're doing it," Jeremy rasps to her, his voice exhalted, happy, relieved: a bundle of very positive emotions. Maybe she'll hear what good she's doing for the poor boy through the pain she's now gaining off of him. At least she doesn't have lots of magical ichor on her - aside from what he had on his hands, anyway. It's not clinging to her wounds like his, though. It's like it wants to attach to whatever he has in him.
Jeremy doesn't let go. Surely she can handle it; she said she heals herself, right?

Nightingale has posed:
She had to break contact. She -had- to. Shannon tried to wrest her forearms from Jeremy's grasp, in a bid to break free. She's holding back outright sobs of pure pain, and the tears flow freely now. "I c-can't take much more... I heal quickly, but cuts take days, not minutes!" Damn, how had she gotten in over her head like this?

Loki has posed:
"You're doing /so/ good, just a little bit more, and the stuff won't be able to crawl back in when I stop channeling," Jeremy coaxes. He turns a little, up onto his knees on the medical bed now, and the food tray clatters to the floor loudly. He's trying to hang on, but he's also been through hell: not only just now, but in general, and if she jerks away, she'll get loose of him.

Nightingale has posed:
This could not end well. No way, no how. Holy hell, Shannon was bound to not only wind up in the medbay again, but likely with the dressing down of her life for it. By now, there is attention from medical personnel on duty who, while having kept a discreet but watchful eye on the healing, now look ready to step in between the teens if necessary. Though Shannon tenses, she remembers the suffering that Jeremy had to go through, with the ichor inside of him. Just a little longer, a few less openings in his skin to permit the stuff back into his veins. Just a little longer....

Loki has posed:
The teens look terrible; the process is clearly killing Shannon, to the view of an onlooker. In reality, it has only been maybe a few minutes - most of that spent before the nurse chedk on them. It isn't like Jeremy was hooked up to any machines or alarms. But now? This looks horrendous. There's blood all over. The staff start to step in. "Enough!" the head of the medical team says, physically getting into the mix, and attempting to separate them.

Jeremy turns his head sideways, and much like the floating objects earlier, sends the staff member off of them into the visitor's chair. They need a bit longer to finish.

During the time Jeremy's concentration was broken, the ichor seeped back into his forearms just a little. The cuts were mostly taken by Shannon, so they aren't deep at all: just these shallow channels of shiny bubbling blue.

Nightingale has posed:
No, Shannon was definitely -not- in good shape. But it seemed the small cuts on Jeremy's forearms were the last of it. She was probably never going to hear the end of this from Chris, or anyone else within earshot, for at least the next week. Most of which was very likely to be spent in the medbay, if she was lucky! "Please," she managed to spit out, from between clenched teeth. "It's just the small cuts now... but someone better get me to the medbay after this!"

Loki has posed:
Jeremy lets go of her, pulling his hands back, trying to break the connection of what Shannon's ability was doing, finally. He broke his spellcasting as well, and dropped one leg towards the floor. He nearly loses his balance, from the effort, though-- but catches himself on the edge of the bed's medical railing. "...I feel disgusting, but the pain's /gone/," Jeremy says, panting, before he takes in Shannon's state.

Jeremy himself has a lot of various disgusting liquids of red and blue and sweat and so on on him, but the cuts are healed. On Jeremy, anyway. The staff members seem befuddled by the whole thing.

Nightingale has posed:
     Jeremy is not the only one who looks like hell warmed over, with the various disgusting ooze and fluids dripping from now unblemished skin. Shannon herself is quite a mess, with her backing away so that medical staff can start tending to her wounds. They do not look too terribly pleased with her putting herself at risk like she did, and there is bound to be one dickens of a lecture later. She's ushered to one of the other beds, and a screen put up for privacy's sake, as the wounds on her chest need to be tended to--and some modesty preserved, with a young gentleman in the room! "Did it work...?" she calls out, her voice something of a croak from the intense pain. "Are they all gone?"

Loki has posed:
If Jeremy does anything else, it won't be apparent through the screen, but it sounds like Jeremy is relaxing back into his bed. Possibly with the staff pressing the issue.

"Yes," comes Jeremy's voice.

"The young man is resting now, be calm, Miss Shannon: let's focus on you," one of the nurses insists to Shannon firmly, as they work on her.

"I want to talk to her for a second, can you step out?" Jeremy asks. For some bizarre reason, they STEP OUT. Must be magic. He talks through the screen.

"Are you good, over there?" Jeremy asks, tiredly. "I don't want you to die, really, but I'm tired. Do you need some healing now, or rather I come back later, or none of the above?" Jeremy asks, his tone sounding as tired as he is.

Nightingale has posed:
There's a pained inhalation, a shuddering sigh, and a bit of sniffling as Shannon fights back the tears of pain. "Don't you kill yourself over this, either," she murmured, her voice tense as she deals with the afteraffects of the unusually intense healing. "Can you manage, and not put yourself at risk?" Ha. Fine one she was to talk about -that-, after the stunt she just pulled! Mentally, she began to debate whether it would be Chris or Samuel who got to her first, to tell her off!

Loki has posed:
"I don't know how familiar you are with mythology, or folklore, or tales," Jeremy says, through the screen. He still sounds tired, but chatty, it sounds like, from his bed. "They often have stories where say, a poor beggar will come to the door, asking for food, and if he's turned away, he'll curse the people inside. But the poor carpenter who lets in said beggar, feeds him, and so on, does very well, as it turns out to be God himself, who turns his shack into a palace, and so forth. Sometimes it comes in other forms. Lessons aimed at teaching children to be kind to others, to be giving. I think most cultures have some version of it," Jeremy says, thoughtful.

"So, I am asking you, do you want anything in repayment /now/, or later, or are you fine on your own. If you're fine I'm going to rest, but as I don't feel like my veins are being eaten alive anymore, I have some room to do something minor."

Nightingale has posed:
"Always show kindness, you never know if you entertain an angel unawares." Perhaps not an angel, in this case, and the reference to mythology gets Shannon's attention. "If you can heal some of this... I've never quite been put to the test that far before." She's got the idea now that this 'Jeremy' is perhaps not quite who he seemed, but for now was letting matters play out. "So you like mythology, too? Which ones are your favorite?"

Loki has posed:
"Sometimes. Maybe you did entertain an angel," Jeremy comments through the screen, serenely. "You sound okay to me though. If you still need it later or enter a coma, we can just revisit this," suggests the young mage tiredly, as if that were the best of both words for the pair of them.

As if on cue, the staff comes back in, to rush to attend to the poor injured young teens again.