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Post by Markise Sterling on May 16, 2009 17:18:36 GMT -5
Markise had noticed that Ariel hadn't brought up that he'd said he'd stay again, and part of him was relieved by that. It meant he wouldn't have to rethink it and risk letting Ariel talk him out of it. He'd only agreed to stay before because Ariel had insisted.
He shook that thought off. It hadn't been that long, but everything was different now. He'd assed everything up in front of Anna, DareandMichael were sickeningly happy again, and Ariel... Ariel was confusing him when he let himself think about it. He'd been told to leave Ariel alone, been asked for help, then had his help refused, then had it accepted anyway. And Ariel had gone brooding now, so Markise sat down in that chair after all.
"Was the Healer coming back?" he asked. He realized that Ariel would have to be moved to a real room for his stay, but wasn't sure when it would happen. When he'd been in the hospital... There was another thing he didn't want to talk about.
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Post by Ariel Logan Callahan on May 16, 2009 17:28:50 GMT -5
"Probably," Ariel said. He wasn't sure, but the man had said that he was going to run the tests and come back as soon as he could, so he didn't know when it would be. He didn't even know if he would be moved, any and all injuries had been taken care of by one of his brother's friends when he was younger, the mediwizard of the group. "I don't know when."
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Post by Markise Sterling on May 16, 2009 17:42:40 GMT -5
Markise nodded, not that Ariel would see, and went quiet. He didn't feel like torturing himself any more than he had to, and forcing small talk was ridiculous. He and Ariel had never bothered with small talk. Markise caught himself. He didn't need to be thinking about himself with Ariel in any capacity at all. He needed to think about what he was going to do while he was staying to visit with Ariel. His mother had talked with the nurses a lot. As long as she was close enough to know what was going on, she was content enough. And there he was thinking about the hospital again.
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Post by Ariel Logan Callahan on May 16, 2009 17:56:09 GMT -5
Ariel turned his head to look at Markise. He opened his lips to say something just as the Healer came back in. His eyes darted up to the man and he turned his head from Markise. He had to ask him to repeat what he said. You're lucky, all the tests were clean. Ariel had heard that plenty of times in the past few months, but never had he been this relieved.
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Post by Markise Sterling on May 16, 2009 18:12:11 GMT -5
Ariel was such an unbelievably lucky bastard. He'd been a prostitute for how long now, and as far as Markise knew, this was the only time he'd gotten hurt like this. And he was clean. There wasn't any reason for him to learn anything from this.
Markise knew he should be glad, knew it would have been so much harder to leave with the guilt of knowing Ariel had caught something, and that he'd been the one to get him involved in the first place, but he just kept hoping that Ariel would give it all up. When I'm high. What were the chances he'd give it up? They made me feel good. Something Markise had only done in bursts of physical activity. Stop thinking about it, he told himself.
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Post by Ariel Logan Callahan on May 16, 2009 18:45:21 GMT -5
Ariel barely heard when the Healer said he would be moved soon, barely registered when he left. All he knew was that he was alone with Markise again. A few awkward minutes later and they were in a new, nicer room. A few awkward hours later, a nurse was coming in and informing Markise he had to leave. Ariel sat up a little further in the bed, "Will you be here tomorrow?" he asked, hoping he didn't sound too hopeful.
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Post by Markise Sterling on May 16, 2009 18:57:53 GMT -5
It hurt Markise to see that look on Ariel's face, so he dropped his gaze. "Yeah," he said. He wasn't going back to school, wasn't going to his shop, anywhere that Anna might find him, or Dare, if Anna dragged him into it again. Which meant he wasn't going far at all. "I'll be here in the morning." He'd ask at the desk how early he could come back. He tried not to think about why he intended do so. He told Ariel goodbye and lifted his gaze just long enough to do so before he let an impatient nurse shoo him out. He'd just go to the gift shop and hang out there until they kicked him out.
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Post by Ariel Logan Callahan on May 16, 2009 19:21:16 GMT -5
Ariel watched Markise leave and then was forced to lay down and take more potions, he couldn't resist the pull of sleep. He soon found out that even wizarding potions weren't a match for an early morning-onset of withdrawal from...well, from drugs in general. He hadn't had a smoke in over twenty-four hours, he hadn't had anything else for nearly two days, other than the drinks he had had at the bar the previous night.
And so sometime in the early hours of the morning, he woke up, feeling as though all his muscles were tearing apart. His eyes snapped open only to squeeze shut tightly as he curled in on himself. He was sweating and breathing hard and in a snap he realized what was going on. Had he even been doing that much? It hadn't felt like it had been that much! But he also knew that his family was prone to addiction.
He didn't know why the nurses were in the room or why they were yelling at him to try to get answers, he just knew that he hurt and that when he begged for Markise to come, they didn't know who he was. No, he didn't want Maverick, he wanted Markise! It was all a blur, but eventually he heard the words Markise Sterling, Maverick Callahan, and [/i]owls[/i] before a male nurse rushed out of the room. Why weren't the potions working anymore?
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Post by Markise Sterling on May 16, 2009 19:36:34 GMT -5
Markise hadn't slept. He'd dozed on and off in a creaky wooden chair in the waiting room, waking every time he tried to move his stiffening body. He snapped awake at a commotion just outside the door, what sounded like people attempting to restrain an owl.
Then the door opened and a mediwizard he didn't recognize asked, "Are you Markise Sterling?" Markise nodded, and he could see the owl start to calm down, though it nipped at the arm of the man holding him. "Send her back to the owlery," the mediwizard said, and Markise heard a voice mutter, That explains that.
Markise was walked quickly to an elevator, his mind hardly able to process what the mediwizard was telling him. Turn for the worse... asked for you... seizures... in good hands... He better be in good hands!
Markise silently cursed the hospital for having the gift shop, tearoom, and waiting rooms on the fifth floor when Ariel was on the first, and when the elevator opened, he took off for Ariel's room. And was stopped.
"Sorry, luv, you can't go in until he's stabilized." She saw the mediwizard then and asked if he'd found Markise.
"That's him," the mediwizard said, drawing an arched brow and a somewhat smug look from the woman.
"Why the hell was I hurried up here, then?" Markise demanded.
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Post by Ariel Logan Callahan on May 16, 2009 19:56:50 GMT -5
Maverick had been dead asleep and having a quite wonderful dream about a particularly voluptuous brunette he had met a couple of weeks before when an annoyingly loud tapping started coming from the window above his bed. At first he couldn't figure out why in the world every time he moved in the dream it resulted in a tapping noise. Was the woman have some strange piercing he wasn't informed of?
Eventually, though, the tapping pulled him from the dream, a slow, agonizing feat, and he sat up groggily. He immediately turned his head to the window and his eyebrows came together as he turned in the bed to sit on his knees. "What in hell do you want?" he grumbled as he opened the window. The owl all but squawked at him before he even had a chance to take the piece of parchment attached to its leg. He resisted backhanding it and took the little scroll.
The owl waited until he had opened the scroll before it left. Maverick's eyes scanned the page and he grew more confused as he read. Your brother Logan.....mugged by muggles.....condition is worsening.... No, surely they had the wrong person, his brother knew how to behave himself, and he was supposed to be in school, where there were no muggles.
Still, everything in the note pointed to it being the right person. So he groaned and got out of bed. He switched out his loose sweat pants for worn jeans and tugged on a shirt as he shoved his feet in his shoes, grumbling the whole time about Ariel having the nerve to get him up at...three in the morning. He dropped his half-empty box of smokes into his pocket and walked out to apparate to the hospital.
Once there, Maverick ignored the raised eyebrow and suspicious look he got from the woman at the counter and was soon directed to Ariel's room, his belt not even done up yet. He barely spared a glance for the shorter blond kid as he came up to the nurse. "I'm Maverick, what's wrong with him? Let me in." If Ariel wasn't dead already he was going to wring his neck. But the nurse refused to let him in. If looks could kill, Maverick knew he would have no trouble getting into the room, just have to step over a couple of people...
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Post by Markise Sterling on May 16, 2009 20:32:21 GMT -5
Markise was in his own world until he heard the name Maverick. His eyes widened and he looked up, finding Ariel's brother immediately. His eyes did a reflexive sweep since the man hadn't so much as noticed him, and hoped he could fade into the walls somehow. Then he glanced aside at Ariel's room. This was what Ariel had been afraid of. This was one of the reasons he'd pretended to be Maverick in the first place.
Markise tried to think fast, but his mind was still jumbled and so he did the first thing he could think to do, and gestured for the nurse to come over. He hoped she'd believe him.
The nurse said something else to Maverick, hopefully excusing herself, then came over and told Markise again that no, he couldn't go in. He shook his head and lowered his voice, giving her his most pitifully pleading look, one that got him almost everything he wanted at the clubs. She listened.
"I'm Logan's friend, I said I was his brother so you wouldn't call him because... he's abusive. In about every way he can be. Please, please, don't let him in! Eventually the nurse offered to have a mediwizard or another nurse go in with Maverick, if they let him in, but she couldn't just take his word for it. She could, however, make sure that Logan wasn't taxed by any of his visitors. Including you, her eyes said before she turned back to her station.
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Post by Ariel Logan Callahan on May 16, 2009 20:46:13 GMT -5
Maverick could have growled in frustration at not being let in. He didn't care if they were just now starting to get Ariel under some form of control, he wanted to get in there and figure out what the hell had happened! Finally he did let out a low growl and turned, his hands loosely on his hips as he walked across the hall, then turned to head back toward the door. His eyes caught on the little blond and he looked up at the nurses. "Who the hell is he?" And why was he there? His mind shot back to a day years before and something he hadn't seen more than a hint of since. Still, his eyes narrowed.
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Post by Markise Sterling on May 16, 2009 20:58:23 GMT -5
Markise struggled a moment with wrestling himself into some sort of control. He didn't want to look afraid, or particularly protective of Ariel, no matter how much he was feeling both. He'd already straightened up, both literally and figuratively, so he hoped that Maverick would turn his attention off him pretty quickly. He widened his stance, crossed his arms over his chest, and pretended he couldn't feel the man's eyes boring into him.
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Post by Ariel Logan Callahan on May 16, 2009 21:04:51 GMT -5
Maverick did a quick sweep of his eyes over the kid and his eyebrows came together when the others informed him that Markise had brought Logan in claiming to be his brother. "Who do you think you are?" he asked Markise, then turned his attention to the nurse. "How long has Ariel been here?" And why was he with Markise? And why were they all calling him Logan?
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Post by Markise Sterling on May 16, 2009 21:27:38 GMT -5
Markise considered himself saved from answering Maverick when the man turned back to the nurse. He was so tempted to leave a note for Ariel that he was going back to the castle to grab the polyjuice potion he'd never used. He was afraid of what would happen while he was gone, though. Maybe they'd let him in and he could tell Ariel himself when he was stable?
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