2019-10-26 - Hospital Herbs

A crisp fall morning, some time between the showers of rain, and the park is gloriously quiet. The smell of damp grass and growing things fills the air, missed by those who insist on walking around the park's borders on the path while it's soggy, afraid of a little mud.

Not so Juniper. She's out in the middle of the park, having used bright green string to 'cordon off' a few hundred square meters of parkland between four specific trees. More string - red this time - is mapping out shapes in the middle of this space, held down by tent pegs. The woman herself is humming happily, cigarette in one hand and thoughtful expression in place as she considers her work so far.

A short redheaded woman walks out of the nearby hospital under her own power, but not terribly quickly. She's wearing jeans, shoes, and hospital scrubs for a top. Her hair blows around slightly in the fall wind, but she doesn't seem to mind it too much. It's pretty much a mess anyways at this point.

Alison wanders into the park, finding a bench coincidentally near Juniper's marked off work area. She sits on it rather ungracefully, legs and arms sprawled on it, head leaning backwards towards the sky, making her squint as she finds herself looking right at the sun. Ugh. Sitting back up a bit, she digs through her bag, pulling out a couple of metallic pouches, drawing a joint from one, then tucking them away, lighting it and taking a long, slow hit from it, then exhaling directly into the sky.

Turning to consider the lines she's pinned down from a different angle, Juniper catches sight of the redhead just as she's flopping down on that bench. There's a sunny smile directed her way and a cheerful, "Morning honey," with her cigarette-holding-hand lifted in a sort of wave; apparently she's the outgoing friendly sort. She doesn't approach exactly, but through walking the boundaries drawn out in green string, eventually gets closer anyway.

Alison lifts a hand, waving slightly without lifting her head. "Hi." After a moment, she does actually lift her head back up into something resembling an upright position, but the rest of her body doesn't comply. Her eyes seach for the other voice, finding Juniper working sooner rather than later. "Oh, are you the landscaper for the park? It's always so pretty here." She takes another hit from the joint, exhales, and then the wheels in her head turn a little bit. "Oh, sorry, I can put this out if you'd like. I don't wanna cause any trouble."

"Not normally, but I'm planning the layout for something for Halloween," Juniper replies with another bright smile, shaking her head as the other woman offers to put her blunt out. "Nah, it's fine honey. I'd be indulging myself if I weren't working." She draws on her cigarette, exhaling a plume of smoke into the saturated air, the cloud hanging and swirling longer than it would on a less rainy day. "You alright?"

Alison nods a bit. "Yeah, I think so. They just discharged me.." She gestures towards the hospital, but does so in a stupid way that aggravates her shoulder, making her wince in pain. "Fuck. I feel a lot better than I did, anyways, especially with the flu over with." The redhead coughs a bit, smoking a joint not exactly her usual method of relieving pain, but it's what she had access to. "Oh man, Halloween. Snuck up on me.. been kind of out of it for the last little bit." One more small puff from the joint. "Anything cool happen around here for Halloween?"

There's a slightly sympathetic sound from Juniper as Alison winces, and so she decides to take a break, coming on over to settle down on the other end of the same bench that the redhead is on. "I don't know, honey - I've lived here less than a week, but a friend in the same business has asked me to help out with this event. So." She shrugs and smiles again. "Here I am. I'm guessing you've not been here for Halloween either then?"

Alison laughs a little at the revelation of how long Juniper's lived here. "I've only been here about a month myself." She straightens up a bit on the bench, feeling a little self conscious about being so stretched out on it now that she's sharing it with someone. "Sort of, anyways. Last few weeks have been a blur. There was the costume party at the Cabaret--" Alison gestures in the entirely wrong direction of the Platinum Cabaret with a thumb over her shoulder. "--and now suddenly it's.. what, a few days away? I need to get a pumpkin still."

"Be comfortable, honey. There's enough bench for both of us to stretch out," Juniper points out helpfully, not seeming to have minded Alison slouching and sprawling. "Yeah, couple'a days. If you want a pumpkin, suggest you get down to Branch and Bole, most other places have sold out since the patch here in the park got trashed. August's got extra in, though," she murmurs.

Alison blinks a little. She definitely missed that happening. "Branch and Bole, huh?" The woman pulls her phone and fires up Friendzone, finding Branch and Bole's page. "Nice, I'll have to head over there." She holds out her joint towards Juniper, "I won't tell anyone if you take one hit at work, promise."

Well, that's just neighbourly, and Juniper isn't about to be rude enough to refuse. Taking the joint she lifts it to her lips, drawing slowly and then passing it back, holding breath for a few seconds before exhaling contentedly. "Mmn. That's.. smooth, actually. Never tried hospital weed before," she acknowledges, a lazy smile turned Alison's way. "Thanks hon."

Alison laughs! And then she coughs, and that most definitely aggravates her shoulder. "Hospital weed, I wish! That's just from the dispensary place over on.. Maple, I think?" She takes the joint back, taking one more hit from the dying blunt, then stubbing it out into the other pouch from her bag, then tucking it away. "No problem." Alison says nothing for a few moments, but then says, "Would you mind doing me a favor and looking at my shoulder? I couldn't really get a good look at it in the mirror, and the painkillers they gave me make it pretty numb for the most part. I just wanna know how bad it is."

"They didn't even sort you out with proper painkillers? That sucks. But I've heard good things about the dispensary," comes the thoughtful reply, and then a nod. "Yeah, I can do that," Juniper confirms quietly, turning to face Alison properly, and assuming the other woman will present that shoulder to her, she gently lifts the sleeve or whatever, shifting the fabric around until she can see the wound,

Alison turns her back towards Juniper, then tugs the hospital gown down around over her shoulders, leaving her on the bench with just a cyan blue bralette. There's not a whole lot to hide from prying eyes, however, so she's not terrible self conscious about stripping down a little as need be. She reaches up and peels back the bandage from one shoulder, revealing five long cuts over her pale freckled skin, diagonally over her shoulder blade, starting from her neck. There's no bleeding, but there is some obvious inflammation and brusing, and there are a /lot/ of stitches holding it together. Whatever happened to her, it couldn't have been pretty.

"Wow, what the hell caused this, honey? You get in a fight with a bear?" Juniper asks almost absent-mindedly, having no real idea what would cause this kind of wound other than something like that. Cats and wolves tend to have four claws after all. ""Five lines, all stitched up, neat as a pin. You'll need to keep those dry," she murmurs, a very delicate fingertip tracing a border around the five cuts so Alison can get an idea of where the damage is and isn't. "It's gonna hurt like a bitch, but as long as you don't get infected, taking it easy and eating well should see you through."

Alison doesn't quite have anything to say in response, initially. "Uhhh.. I'm not super sure what happened. I was sick in bed, and then I.. was at the diner to get my paycheck, and then there were bears? One got me in the shoulder, but then I just suddenly woke up in bed screaming." She gives her head a little shake. "One hell of a dream. The hospital told me that I must have wandered out of bed with a fever or something." She covers the wound back up with the bandage that had been peeled away, then puts the gown back over her shoulders. "Thanks, I appreciate it. It just kinda stings right now.."

Alison turns back and smiles at Juniper. "I should probably get headed home. I don't wanna get too wet in this.." She raises a hand, gesturing vaguely to the sky. "Really don't wanna get sick again. Oh! The name's Alison, by the way. You?"

"Huh." Juniper doesn't say anything else to the dream explanation, but she also isn't looking at Alison like she's grown a second head either. She glances away as the woman gets back into her scrub top, nodding quietly. "No problem, glad I could help. And yeah - you probably should." Rising, she heads over to where a pile of her stuff is under one of the four trees, rummaging until she comes up with a collapsible umbrella, coming back over and holding it out to Alison. "I'm Juniper, and you should take this just in case the heavens open while you're heading home."

Alison holds out her hand in a gesture of refusal. "Oh, no thanks, I should be good. I'm gonna call an Uber.. grew up in Seattle, I can handle a bit of rain until they show up." She grins a little wider. "And you'll probably still be here working for a bit, I guess? Don't want you to get soaked either." Alison stands, tugging her crossbody bag over her uninjured shoulder like one might wear a more standard purse. "Nice to meet you, Juniper. See you around town."