RP: Somebody? Anybody?

[tt_alicia]

Date: 16. July, 2002
Characters: Alicia Spinnet and OPEN
Setting:The Med Center - Afternoon
Content: Worksafe
Status: Open: Public


Tap, tap, tap…

Over and over Alicia’s fingertips made contact with the hard surface of the counter facing the waiting area. She propped her head up on her hand and looked over the empty waiting area. Boring. Just like everything else had been. No patients, which was good, and all supplies had been stocked, which was also good, but it just made for an insanely long and boring day.

She couldn’t remember the last time things had been this quiet, and even communicating with the other med centers showed that nothing was going on there. So she had made another rounds to check on the two patients that were currently there. One was sleeping off the effects of an antidote and the other one was just asleep.

With a sigh, began making plans for what she could do when it came time for her to leave. Maybe she should start up the grill and invite a few people over to dinner. Yes, that was what she would do. If only this day would end, or something, anything would just happen.

Comments

[tt_adrian]

Adrian couldn't believe he'd been so stupid. His tests had never failed him before beyond an upset stomach but this time... Well, it was beyond his abilities, that was for sure.

His skin was purple. He had gathered the three separate ingredients he'd been testing (all local herbs as far as he'd been able to tell!) and a sample of the mixtures he'd been working on as well and made his way to the Med Center, feeling like a first year who melted through his cauldron. Other than the purple of his skin and slight head ache - which he could easily attribute to stress and embarrassment, he supposed - he felt fine, but he didn't want to take a chance on apparating so he walked.

Coming in with a sigh, he was grateful the air had cooled a bit and he wasn't a sweaty purple mess as he looked up to find Alicia Spinnet standing in the lobby area. "Hello?" he asked, his hesitance and self-loathing obvious in his tone.

[tt_alicia]

Tap, tap, ta-

Alicia’s tapping stopped instantly when a purple man walked through the door. From the tone of his voice she guessed that his current colouring wasn’t intentionally and that it hadn’t been done to show his support for Pride of Portree. After a beat, she snapped out of it, recognizing that not only was her entire day of doing nothing at an end, she was actually obliged and more than interested in helping this man, whom she failed to identify at this point; the purple was simply too distracting.

“Hello,” she greeted him as she stood up and grabbed her datapad. “Please, please come inside.” In an instant she was by his side, holding out her arm to him trying to gauge whether he needed physical support or if whatever had happened to him had simply affected his skin colour. “We’ll go down to exam room 1. You all right to walk?”

[tt_adrian]

"I walked here just fine," he gave her a smile so it didn't seem like he was sassing her, and then nodded. "Thank you, though," he was surprised someone who used to fly so aggressively against him would be so kind, but then again old rivalries had been old news in this new society since he'd arrived (well, for the most part).

"I'm ok, I think, just a headache and the purple, I just don't know what caused it and so I figured here was my best bet at finding out. I brought the things I'd been working on." He fished in his cargo pants pocket for the baggies he'd magicked to carry to the goods, and then produced four vials of mixtures he'd been playing with as well.

[tt_alicia]

“Oh, alright, that’s good,” Alicia smiled back, pleased to hear that at least at first glance whatever had happened to him was solely superficial. “But please, let us know if anything feels differently, yeah?”

Walking alongside him, she watched as he fished out the baggies and summoned a tray for him to place them on. “I’ll get those to analysts to get started on, if I can just have you press your thumb here,” she presented him with the datapad, “and tell me if you are aware of any allergies that hasn’t been registered yet.”

[tt_adrian]

Adrian nodded, feeling very much like this was something he'd been through too often thanks to his chosen profession.

He did as he was asked once they'd settled into an exam room and nodded again, "No allergies besides hay fever in the autumn, but I don't even know if that rings true here." He hadn't quite thought of that, he suddenly realized.

"So, slow day?" He didn't often see the Med Center so quiet.

[tt_alicia]

Rather than check the name of the purple man, Alicia quickly scrolled down to the part of his record where she could add the note about his seasonal hay fever. “I don’t think that would interfere with anything, but at least now we’re aware of it, Mister…” she assured him while she scrolled back up to see his name. “Pucey.”

Once inside the examination room, she began cleaning her hands. “Yeah,” she chuckled. “Very slow, which I know I should be happy about, but good Godric it’s boring.” It was when she was floating the tray of various instruments to collect samples for analysis, that she connected the dots between the mop of dark curly hair and the surname she had just seen on the chart. “Adrian?” she asked him, and gestured for him to take a seat on the examination cot. “I’m sorry, I didn’t recognize you there. Must be the colour. Now, have you ingested anything or do you think it was simply by touching it?” Any ideas at this point were welcome, for no other reason than it would give her a clue about where to start testing him.

[tt_adrian]

When she recognized him, he smiled at her and nodded, glad for a friendly face. Adrian wasn't big on visiting the Med Center for anything other than his own work.

"I tasted them," he sighed, feeling like a lashing was coming on. "I always do, though other herbologists and certainly postionsmasters have warned me off it. There's just nothing I trust more than my own mouth." He shrugged and gave her another grin, hoping to charm his way out of admonishment.

[tt_alicia]

“Oof,” Alicia pulled a face when Adrian revealed that he had tasted whatever it was he had found. Technically, she knew she ought to warn him of doing anything like that ever again, perhaps even suggest alternative methods, but she got the feeling that this wasn’t the first time he had done – most likely not the last time, either – and that he had already heard the speech before. And he did, indeed, confirm her thoughts on that a moment later. “Well, I’ll spare you the speech then,” she said with a small chuckle, “and simply tell you not to do that again, yeah?”

Casting a protective spell on her hands, she pulled the tray closer to her and picked up a swab from the swab kit. “I’ll just do a saliva swab, to see if the analysts can get anything from that,” she explained, “open your mouth, please.”

“And then I’ll do a blood sample next,” she spoke while she trailed the swab along the inside of his cheek, and sent it in a sealed container to lab on the other side of the wall. “If you’ll hold out your arm like this.” Stretching her arm out and exposing the inside of her elbow, she demonstrated. “What were you hoping to find when you tasted the… berries?”

[tt_adrian]

Adrian nodded in understanding and gave a properly abashed look at her warning. He then did what he was told, and only flinched a bit when she took his blood.

Shrugging again he said honestly, "I don't know. First off I try to see if they're edible, of course, or poisonous. I guess we can check both of those off. Once I know about that I can test for other properties, medicinal mostly in testing. And of course tasting helps me know off the bat if they're comparable to anything at home."

[tt_alicia]

Alicia nodded; frankly, every reason Adrian gave made sense to her, though despite her being Gryffindor she would never have dared doing it that way on the same scale that he did. “Makes sense,” she ventured carefully, still trying to think of an alternative to his method. “Do you have any back-up when you do this?” The test results would be ready soon, and there was no harm in making conversation that could potentially save his life at some point.