Kitty was growing frustrated with herself. She really couldn’t put off seeing him any longer, having spent all day shopping—on Christmas Eve no less, Kitty found herself standing outside the infirmary, stalling. Was this hallway always so cold? She never spent time in it long enough to really notice.
What was wrong? If this was a few months ago she would have already been in there. She would have been in there the second she was allowed to be! Instead she spent the entire day dilly-dallying around. Sure, she was spending the time picking out a gift for him but she honestly could have finished in three hours and well..the sun was already going down. Why was she so nervous? It was just Lance.
But it was Lance! Her stomach did flips while her hands gripped the two gift bags in front of her lap like a protective cross. It was now or never! It was going to be weirder the longer she waited! Taking a deep breath she finally pushed the button aside the door, its mechanic whoosh filling the empty hallway with a signature echo.
“H-Hello~” Kitty found herself entering the room quietly, standing a bit awkwardly in the dimmed room. “Lance..? Dr. McCoy?”
While the elevator made a slow descent, Kurt hummed a jingle he’d picked up from some commercial from the middle of the night. It had been stuck in his head all day. Though, if we wanted to admit it, Nightcrawler felt nervous. Kitty went off Christmas shopping before he could ask her to join him. No one else really knew Lance as well as the two of them did, but she knew him better than Kurt ever could. None of that changed that he was going to visit Lance Alvers alone. Sighing, and shifting his weight onto his other leg, Kurt thought about how he would usually complain about the lift being too slow--and how a little piece of him prayed that it could be even slower.
That wasn’t fair to think. As far as Kurt knew, no animosity existed between them, but there wasn’t any love lost, either. He stared down at the tin in his hands. Whatever Lance had dealt with--was dealing with--it appeared to take a toll on him. Mutants had to look out for one another more than ever. The elevator doors startled Nightcrawler, leaving him staring wide-eyed at the lit corridor ahead.
Kurt stepped out of the lift and continued toward the medical bay. The indented grooved on the tin were traced by nervous fingers while he marched on, but he made sure to not jostle it too badly. A smile grew on Kurt Wagner’s face as he stood a short ways from the doors. Everything was going to be okay, and he believed that.
The medical bay doors hissed open for his arrival. At first, he didn’t see or hear anyone--just the normal sounds of filtered air and machinery that he equated with being anywhere medical. “Hello?” Nightcrawler made sure not to speak too loudly, just in case, and continued walking further inside.
“Mr. Smith is correct.” Sage’s tone sounded as indifferent as ever, but her gaze moved from the man she named to focus on Kitty Pryde. Telepathy did happen to be one of Sage’s mutations but none of that felt necessary to determine how terrified the girl was. While the words might not mean much, maybe hearing one more voice in agreement with the others would. “Lance Alvers must be given the proper care he needs.” She could note Seraph’s mutation working on the pair, their expressions evening out and breaths slowing from their panic. All attention was returned to Alvers and Doctor McCoy once the three mutants spoke among themselves.
Unable to channel them out completely, however, Sage did pick up on faint parts of Nightcrawler’s response while they walked away. “I-I don’t mind it, but… do you think it would help?”
Sage took to action. Kneeling down onto the floor, she did just as Beast ordered and turned Lance on his side. Sage made a note to thank Mr. Smith for his smart performance at a later time. Due to his help, she calculated at least a thirty second difference in moving Shadowcat. Her mutation would surely have made trouble for them.
At the same time, her mind swam with information on Lance Alvers’s condition as deduced by Doctor McCoy. The seizure was due to increased intracranial pressure. A concerning issue with a certain time limit, but manageable. Data continued to dart around and be stored away as she spoke. “What is the next course of action?”
Hank didn’t keep his eyes on the situation, but he paid attention through listening. Once the children were out of the room, with Caleb safely herding them into the kitchen, he turned his attention fully back to Lance, who still tensed and shifted unpredictably. “First, we need to wait for this to pass...” He kept a firm, but gentle hold on Lance’s shoulder and head, supporting him while not fully restricting his movements. Over the next thirty seconds or so, Lance began to slow, and looked far more like he was fully unconscious.
Hank nodded. “Okay... I think his convulsions have stopped. Stay here while I get the backboard. Use your powers. I need to know what’s going on with him.” he instructed plainly as he stood up. He rushed to the closet, opening it up and digging behind the coats and equipment to get to the orange backboard.
//characters: Lance, Hank
//notes: Takes place directly after "Growth Spurt” thread.
//warnings: trigger warning: needles
He greatly appreciated Tess and Caleb's assistance, but this was where his work truly began. There were at least five different emergency procedures to do, and only one Mutant to do them all. Lance wasn't going to get better on his own. Luckily, the boy was already unconscious by the time Hank got him out of his clothes and onto a bed. Even though the logical part of his mind was working away and going through the process of putting in an IV and administering anesthetic, his emotions were still storming around in his mind.
He knew he'd never get used to this; seeing children on his gurneys. As tall and big as Lance was, he was still only eighteen, barely starting to live his own life, and here he was, laying in a hospital bed, having to be given air through a tube. How many other children would he have to see like this? He didn't even want to think about it. It wasn't needed right now, anyway. While finishing securing the intubation to Lance's face, his eye was drawn to a strange looking mark on the nape of Lance's neck.
Curious, he gently examined it. It was a light scar. Recent. It stood apart from the other scars that dotted Lance's body. It was darkened skin, and appeared like a needle had been ripped from the skin after injection. He knew the appearance from his experiences with addicts in his residency years. Odd, though, that it wasn't anywhere near the usual places to inject. On top of that, Lance had no other injection sights.
Hank carefully administered medication to lower intracranial pressure through the IV now leading into Lance's bloodstream. By his dosages, Hank guessed lance would be stuck like this for the next ten hours.
Well, he wasn't going to be like this alone. Hank sent a text message to Caleb using the speech-to-text on his phone, reading: “Pulling an all-nighter, so I'll have to skip dinner tonight. Let the others know where I am. I'm sure Tess has already informed the faculty. Thank you for helping with the kids. See you tomorrow.”
He pulled up a chair next to the bed, sitting down with a cup of coffee and a book. It was one of his favorites, a book he'd loved since childhood. Contact, by Carl Sagan. He took a healthy sip of coffee, then set the cup aside and parted the book open.
Hours passed without so much as a sound besides the equipment surrounding Lance's bed. The teen was still as a statue on the bed the whole time, as would be expected. Hank still occasionally looked over to check and make sure his hair hadn't fallen in an awkward way over his face.
It was probably five in the morning when Lance first moved on his own again. Hank caught sight of his hand slowly and sluggishly lifting up, and gently took hold o fit before Lance could reach his face. “Oh, hold on there, Lance.” He stood up, placing his book on the table behind him. When he turned to face Lance again, he saw the teen's brown eyes staring at him in dazed discomfort. “I know it's not comfortable, but you needed it. You came to us in a pretty bad state.” Before he could properly examine Lance, he had to remove the tube, which was in and of itself an uncomfortable process.
Lance discovered that for himself when Hank instructed him to 'pretend to cough', then pulled the tube out once he did. Well, he wasn't pretending to cough now. He winced and hacked, which did nothing to help the still lingering soreness in his head. Hank offered a gentle pat on his shoulder and a cup of water as comfort. “Do you know where you are?” Hank asked, far more as examination than actual conversation.
He nodded and swallowed some water back. Once his throat was clear enough, he mumbled out, “Institute...” Hank nodded, satisfied. As he jotted down some notes on a clipboard, Lance took a better look around. It was dimmed in the underground room, which was nice, seeing as Lance felt like he had a hangover.
“What's the last thing you remember?” Hank asked next.
Lance wasn't sure how to feel about how calm and chill Hank was. It wasn't in a detached way, but it was... oddly collected. He never did like that doctor-tone. Still, he thought on the answer, trying to recall. “... Screaming. There was... screaming.” Lance began, brows tensely furrowed with mixed emotion. “Everything was too loud. I... got dizzy. Kitty was there...” He paused and mouthed 'Why', speaking to himself as he looked away. He looked as if he was piecing the story together backwards. “She was there with Kurt... We were... arguing, and... I tried to leave... That's when I got dizzy...” He moved onto the next chunk of memory. “She... She helped me, and then...” He drew a blank, slowly shaking his head. “I dunno... Next thing I remember is... Some lady... She was helping you carry me.”
Hank nodded. “That was Sage. She's one of our staff, here.” He put the story together in a proper order in his mind. He decided to fill in the gap in Lance's memory. “You had a seizure after Kurt teleported you all back here. We think you might have had a sudden growth in power.” Lance stared at him for a while, confused as to what it meant. He got more powerful? Sure as hell didn't feel like it. And then, a more knowing look came out in Hank's features. “It usually happens a lot more gradually than this, but it can end up this bad if you repress your powers. It's not safe.”
Lance furrowed his brow silently, looking at his feet and nowhere else. “... So?”
Hank let out a little sigh, smiling gently. “How long have you been having trouble with your powers, Lance?”
Lance looked around the room, anywhere but Hank's face. “... I dunno. A while, I guess...”
“Did anything happen before your powers began to get out of control?” Hank leaned into Lance's line of sight. And then Hank was faced with what very well could have been a brick wall, put up by Lance's emotions.
Lance looked away very pointedly, crossing his arms tiredly over his stomach. “Th'fuck you want me to say..?” He shrugged. “It just started happening. That's all.” he stated firmly.
Hank knew there was far more to it than that. He figured it had to be something big, given how Lance insisted on shutting the conversation down. “Okay.” he conceded politely, jotting down some more notes on his clip board as he walked away and to a near by counter.
“Where are my clothes...?” Lance asked, still not making eye contact.
“Hm?” Hank glanced over his shoulder. “Ah, planning to leave as soon as you can, right?”
Lance finally looked over, eyes tired, but grumpy. “Considering it.”
“You'll be here for a little while longer. I had to cut your clothes off to properly care for you.”
“W-what...?” Lance's face changed from grumpy to resigned. His shoulders slumped noticeably. “Those... Those were my only clothes.”
Hank turned around fully, face a little surprised. His only clothes? They were the same clothes he'd always seen him wearing, come to think of it. The poor kid had nothing to wear... “Well, in that case, I'll send someone out to go pick you up some new clothes as soon as you're not on bed rest.”
Lance blushed a little, the realization that his only remaining piece of clothing was a pair of old boxers. “When will that be...?” he questioned.
“Tomorrow afternoon.” Hank tapped the edge of his clipboard with his pen. “You're stuck in that bed until your head's not on the verge of literally bursting.” Lance sighed out slowly, rubbing his head. “Don't worry. We have TV in here.”
