2021-05-16 - Everything's Fine...

It has been a day and a half since they got back from that strange place where Everett was a Barbarian and Kailey was an Elf. And a sorcerer too. Since coming back things have been frustrating for the artists. The normal buoyant energy of the house was overcast. Kailey was currently sitting on the couch and glaring at her sketch pad. There is a stick figure and a whole lot of erase lines and aborted attempts to fill in an actual figure. Upstairs the babies sleep so that is probably why the young mother lets out a loud and angry yell and throw the pad across the room and into the wall. It slides to the floor, bending pages and splaying others. "Why can't I draw?!" She demands angrily of the room.

For Everett, he left that morning, like he usually does, for his second home. One made of sugar and sweets. Or at least that's the assumption, he didn't stick around for breakfast. Just a quick nibble on his family members that aren't sleeping when he gets up, after two years, before his alarm clock, and out the door.

Unusual, but not unheard of.
What is unlikely, is he left the vehicles here.

So when he arrives home again, there's no tell-tale rumble of an engine to signal his arrival. Only Flerken lifting her head from her place of comfort at the throw then focusing on the front door. Where Everett stands after the walk from the curb where the uncomfortable Uber dropped him off. The white bandage is removed from around his shoulders, crumpled into his left mitt, while his right falls and dangles like wet noodle.

Everett looks around, then throws the arm brace behind the bushes, to retrieve later. With his left hand he picks up his right and tucks it into his leather jacket pocket. It's a small fight, Everett isn't a south paw.
This morning, shaving was hell. Brushing his teeth a minor operation.
And the whole fucking world is lucky he figured out how to button pants with the wrong hand.

Fishing out his keys, Everett's able to unlock the door and open it. His sour expression quickly vanishing.
Everything is Fine.

Kailey's head comes up as the door opens. Her own stormy expression softening slightly. "You're back early," She says though it may or may not be true. With a grunt she stands up from the catch. Oblivious to the small trickle of red coming from her nose as she heads towards the door. Both sketchpad and Everett are in that direction.

After two steps she staggers and stops walking, throwing both arms out like she is about to lose her balance. And it is close there for a few seconds as she stumbles to the wall that is a mere step away. The sound of her landing against the wall isn't so much loud as hefty. Her hand goes to her forehead as she says, "Ohhh whoa...I feel kinda dizzy. Guess I stood up...too...fast," And she tries to stand up straight again. Using the wall to brace.

Then her eyes roll and Kailey begins to drop to the ground like a limp doll. Syncope or not syncope, that is the question.

"I decided to take a short day," he replies, probably the first lie of soon to be many, with his ususal bass tones. Pausing at the doorway, he looks down at his boots, and then back up, the choice on whether to remove them or not will soon be the furthest thing from his mind.

He puts on a soft, concerned frown. "You've got a little something," Everett begins to say when he sees her eyes begin to flutter. He's seen that look many a time, usually from a man and their naps were more for entertainment. Her, Kailey, falling over isn't recreational.

Long legs make short work of the dash across the room. But what should be a two handed catch turns sloppy and uncoordinated, getting her waist with his left hand, and his right stays firmly in his jacket pocket.
Everything is Fine.

On bent knee, Everett balances the street artist, catching her square between the shoulder blades with his less than gental knee. Better than the alternative. "Kailey! KAILEY!? Fuck, not you too!"
Everything is really Fine.

Kailey is a whole bunch of dead wait in Everett's arms. Blood dribbles from her nose as her eyes, half-lidded, continue to roll. Now that he has her in his one good arm Everett is witness to the fact that she is shuddering and jerking all over. A soft gurgling groan comes from her as her head stays reclined back. The blood going down her throat rather than out her nose at the moment.

Flerken immediately came over and began meowing a second before Kailey began to sway. Whiskers twitching and tail lashing in agitation the cat is now pacing beside the two. Rubbing her face against Kailey's face and making horribly concerned yowls. The cat's blue eyes look at Everett imploringly before she yowls in demand. Even a Barbarian can understand, `Make her better!'.

Looking around after the quick assessment, Everett does the only thing he knows best how to do. Gently he lowers the dead weight to the floor, and fishes his phone from his pocket. 9-1-1 is only three digits away, everything else is beyond him.

"C'mon, c'mon."
"Hey, yeah. This, um. My name is Everett Woods, I'mm at 6 Oak Avenue. My," he pauses, all the time watching Kailey's twitching girlfriend? Uh, it's complicated. Right, sorry. She stood up and her nose started bleeding and then she fell over. Now she's twitching like a fish."

When the cat starts stroking itself on her unconscious owner, Everett tucks his cellphone between his ear and shoulder, to better use the back of his hand to push the cat from "Shoo, don't get the blood on you. No, not you, her cat. What? Yeah, she got a nose bleed before she fell over. Yeah, I'll stay on the line."
Everett's not going anywhere.
Everything is Fine.

"Roll her over on her side, sir, in case she throws up. Did she take anything that you are aware of?" The operator asks calmly as the sound of computer keys clacking can be heard faintly in her background. "Is this the number we should call back if we get disconnected? I have an ambulance on the way. They are five to ten minutes away."

Meanwhile Kailey continues to twitch, indeed, like a fish. Blood smeared onto lips and nose by cat and moving her to the floor. For a second it seems like her eyes focus on Everett before she makes another gurgling sound. This one more akin to a gag. He should probably roll her over.

"MROOoOOoOWWRR! MOooOEOoRRrr!" Flerken admonishes Everett, skittering away only for a second before coming back. She begins to lick at Kailey's temple, away from the blood, her purr loud and worried. "Mmmmmmrrrrrrt!" The cat tries to encourage her person to feel better.

"You got a good kitty there, sir," The operator says as they continue typing. Very far off in the distance, if one strained really hard, they might hear a siren. Slowly getting closer. So slowly. At least the babies are asleep right now and Cinder is probably asleep upstairs. Blissfully ignorant of what is happening below.

Getting inundated with questions, Everett murmurs, "Ah, fuck. Um." There's a light sigh before he drops the phone somewhere in the middle and looks at Kailey's form. Another backhanded, gentle push to Flerken, he mutters, "Seriously, fuck off," his voice beginning to sound the stress he's under. A large hand on her hip, he gently rolls until she's turned over, then pulls her back, wedges his knee under her and rolls her back after noticing how uncomfortable laying flat on her face looks.

He picks up the phone, exhales, "Ok," Everett answers, "she's turned over. What's the next thing? Taking anything, yeah, she takes like a whole pharmacy. I couldn't rattle them all off, but I could get the bag, it's upstairs. I think, in the bathroom."

Untucking the phone from his ear again, he growls at the cat, "Shut. Up." He head is flicked to brush his hair back, returning the phone to his ear. "What? Oh," he somehow makes those two letters sound timid, "She's an annoying little shit. I mean, yeah, she's great. You want her?" he says, looking squarely at the cat with a challenging look. "She's got all her shots, everything's fine."

The operator on the other side chuckles softly. "That's fine sir, we don't need her medications just yet. Do you know if she's been drinking?" As the question comes Kailey finally stills. Yet remains in that limp state still. A gross rattling sound comes from her breaths. Probably just bloody snot and shit but it is probably not a noise to make Everett feel any better.

The cat, for her part, stops wailing and instead returns to licking at Kailey's face. Dodging the big man's hand to loop back around. Butting up against him with a purrful, "Mrow," That could be interpreted as encouragement. But the cat returns her focus to her person, licking her forehead and then getting long hair stuck in her sandpaper tongue. You know the face a cat makes when it licks hair.

After about another ten seconds Kailey's arm tenses and she takes a deep gasp in through her mouth. Before beginning to cough violently. Cue the cat opera starting up again.

"Drinking?" he asks softly, and then looks over his shoulder, to where she was sitting before she stood. He shakes his head a moment after, turning his head back to tuck the phone back under his chin, so he can use his free hand to push the flippin' cat back again before she's ready for it, and ducks out of the way. "No, quit it," he says sternly to the cat, before his voice becomes calmer for the emergency operator, "I mean, no, doesn't look like anything."

And then he remembers something. Smokey, what was he on? He was like this, that one time. Bleeding nose, the twitc-- oh fuck, no.
As though it hasn't been odd enough already, Everett holds his phone to his head and contorts painfully, trying to roll her over on her side a little so he can do the strange thing: looking up Kailey's nose.

He's so engrossed, Hunting for Gold October that the cat's allowed her lick of shampoo coated hair, and Kailey's arm twitches go unnoticed. Is that? No...
When she shows the first sign of life, the deep gasp, Everett recoils back, not exactly like he was caught red-headed, counting boogers, but not exactly like he wasn't either, "Holy fuck! You ok?!"

"I dunno what you did," he says, turning his attention to drift off to the wall, his focus on the 9-1-1 operator, "but I think she's conscious again."
Say it with me.
"Everything's fine!"

"Does she have a seizure disorder?" The Operator asks on the line before the startled expletive from Everett. "It everything all right sir? What happened?" The operator asks with only a small sense of urgency in her voice. The sirens are getting closer.

Kailey continues to cough and gag, rolling partly onto her stomach with both forearms braced beneath her. Spit and blood pool beneath her as her nose continues to bleed. Big gasps of breath intersperse the coughing and gagging spasms, but she hasn't thrown up. Just left a puddle of ick on the floor. Slowly she lowers her head so just her forehead is touching the floor. Gasping raggedly.

"She's moving, and coughing," Everett says after a moment's pause, just watching Kailey. Maybe for signs if this is a Zombie Dream he's walked into. Once again the phone is tucked under his cheek so he can use his left hand to touch her back and gently soothe with long, tender strokes of the flat of his palm against her back. "You ok, Kitten?" that shouldn't confuse anybody listening after all the stupid cat talk. He waits for a tick, not truly expecting an answer before providing another point of pondering, "They want to know if you have a seizure disorder, I'm not sure what to say. Can you talk?" Everett offers the phone with his brows uplifted with deep concern and puzzlement over her question.

But before she can take the phone, or maybe to give her another moment, a long moment to collect herself, Everett turns the phone back to speak into it himself, "I don't think we're going to need the ambulance. At least not code three. They might want to come and take a look at her anyways, but the sirens..." he lingers and then exhales. "She's, everything. Is fine."

"If she had a seizure and has no history it might be best to get her checked out by a doctor. But the paramedics will be better able to suggest what to do, Mr. Woods," The operator says, her voice still even and calm and soothing in a way. "That coughing is a good sign. Sounds like good, productive coughing."

Productive it may be, but it hurts too. And as Everett asks his question she makes a sound, "Nnnnngggnnnn," But that isn't really words. Her head shakes slightly, but it could just be her trying to shake her head. "Nnnnno," She moans and somehow manages to sway even almost face-planted into the floor.

Flerken comes in and headbutts Kailey's head with an encouraging meow as she purrs loudly. Kailey shakes her head again and one hand sort of waves at the cat. "No...no no. Eeeeeehhh..." She is trying to speak and then just rests her head against the floor again. "Not....not guh...guuuu...uuuhhhh.....d," Her words are slow in coming. Drawling almost like she was drunk."

For a second, Everett wonders how the operator knew his name, his eyes going wide before they shift to the left like his brain is rewinding the tape. Oh yeah, he told them. His eyes narrow for a tick in open suspicion before they return to their normal oval configuration and glace at the production the coughing has brought up, "Uh, yeah, it's very productive. It looks like she ate a placenta. No," he says after a pause, "she's shaking her head no, so I'm guessing there's no history. Maybe everything isn't fine."

His big paw pats Kailey's back a couple of times before returning to the slow back and forth soothing, drawing an imaginary figure eight on her back. "Stay there. The furball will keep you company." Standing up in a swift motion, Everett first moves to the front door and opens it. Leaving the door cracked ever so slightly, enough for someone approaching the door to notice that it is open. Then he heads towards the kitchen. It's pretty easy to start the faucet running, grab a glass, fill it half-way, put the glass down, turn the water off, and then pick up the glass again.
He can do all that with one hand, like a big boy.

Carrying the glass over, Everett returns to his knees and offers the glass down to Kailey for a second, then leaves it on the floor within reach, "Here, I brought water." When he sees the cat bothering Kailey again, he scoops her under the belly and moves the Calico further away. "She's talking a little. I think everything is fine."

"The ambulance is almost there. Just keep her talking if you can," The helpful woman says. The sirens are close now. A block or two away and if one stepped out they might be able to see the lights of the emergency vehicle reflecting off houses.

Kailey lifts her head and it bobs as she looks at Everett. She looks groggy and out of it with drool and blood all over. It isn't her best look for sure. One of those messes that tests the length that a partner is willing to go too. "Can't...mmmovvve g'd," She gets out even as she hefts herself to roll onto her side with a groan. Reaching for the cup she seems to take it.

But it slips from her shaky grip to clatter on the floor, spilling water all over the place. That is enough to send Flerken across the room and up onto the back of the couch. The ambulance pulls up outside, the siren having been silenced a block or two away. Quickly the crew grabs bags and comes up, knocking on the door before they enter. "You called for an ambulance?" The young man in the lead asks as his eyes take in the scene.

He saw their baby being born.
A little nose blood and drool is no comparison. Not even close.

Everett looks back, his brows raised, knotted with concern and when she complains about moving, he supplies, logically, "Well then, don't move. You dropped a fountain of blood from your nose like that scene in, what's it 'Here's Johnny!' that movie, you know." His left-hand makes the c'mon motion, encouraging her to fill in that blank before he gives up and waves The Shining clue off as she takes the glass then adds to the mess on the floor and hissing in a breath.

"Yeah." Everett gets to his feet again, still keeping his head tilted to balance the phone between collarbone and cheek. With a step back, he points down at the immobile woman on the ground, "She stood up to greet me when I got home, then," he pantomimes something coming from the nose, "she just started bleeding, then got woosie, hit the wall and almost hit the floor, but I caught her just in time." As the young men approach and set down their bags, one getting a penlight to shine into Kailey's eyes and out to test her eye dilation while the other opens his bag.
Realizing he's still on the phone, his gaze turns to the floor before he speaks, "The ambulance is here, I think everything's fine."

"Do you need me to stay on the line?" The operator asks as the paramedics go about their job. Moving in to help her sit up and stabilize against the wall. Checking blood pressure, temperature, and other things while the other asks questions and flashes lights. Kailey is vaguely able to reply. Though the question of her name earns, The Shinning!" She manages to articulate loudly.

The young man look up and back at Everett, then back as Kailey then adds, "Kailey Holt-t-t." There is still that slight stutter and slurring. "Hard to think," She says after another few seconds. The one asking questions pulls out a wipe and begins to carefully clean up her face.

"Did you hit your head? Did you take anything we should know about? Do you have a history of seizures?" Are among the questions asks, giving her time to respond. Because she is delayed, but talking with more and more confidence as the minutes tick by. But so far all of the answers are in the negative. Then comes the real question, "Do you want to go to the hospital."

Kailey turns to look up at Everett with a pained and scared expression. He knows that she hates hospitals. The last stay wasn't that long ago and lasted awhile. Making her very on edge by the time she got back. Now this? "I...I don't..." She stutters over her words, obviously fighting with herself. She knows she should go, but her phobia keeps her from voicing it.

Not answering the operator right away, Everett hovers over the emergency medical team while they start to take her vitals, backing off whenever they ask him to. ... only to slide in a little closer and lick her temple or hair and purr-- no wait, that's the dumb cat. Only to inch a little closer while he watches the crew working on getting Kailey healthy again. Her crying her name is The Shining earns a small smile from the gorilla, at least until the paramedic turns to look over his shoulder at Everett.
Then Everett's grin falters and he shrugs with one shoulder while pouting his lips. He has no idea what she's talking about. Fortunately, she's able to follow the movie title with her actual name, though the stuttering doesn't give Everett any confidence.

As the questions come, Everett knows enough to know he wouldn't be helping if he answered for her. The answers to the questions are as informative as to how she answers. There've been a number of concussed bikers that needed a little help after fooling around, running head-first into a moving motorcycle, just so see who, or rather what would win. It was funnier when it was the guys.
And he does know, does know her fear. So when the question is voiced, Everett's eyes plead with her. Her answer, though, makes him close his eyes and release a long, sad sigh before his eyes open again, wetter then they were when he closed them. A quick series of blinks chase that away. She's a big girl, an adult. If she doesn't want to go, he won't force her. If she refuses medical treatment, the emergency medical team can't either and they start to pack up. They might even make one last-ditch effort, giving advice in case she should fall again while handing over a handi-wipe.

Everett thanks the men, and apologizes for wasting their time, they say the usual: better safe than sorry. One tells Everett that it might be worth making her go before something horrible and preventable happens. But the ape just nods as he escorts them to the door out.
Only then does he take the phone back from between his shoulder and cheek, while he looks straight at Kailey, more openly worried now that it's just about the two of them, "Nah."
He takes a soft, cleansing breath before finishing, "Thanks for your help; I guess everything's fine here."

Kailey is shaking her head slowly as Everett begins to tell them no. Trying to hold up a hand it feels like it weighs a hundred pounds. "No. No no...Don't...I don't...like hospitals," She gets out with some effort. A look of concentration crossing her face. The waving hand weakly tries to grab at the paramedic as he stands. Fingers weak the fabric simply slips through her hands.

Yet the movement and words have them pausing in uncertainty. "I...should go. But I don't wanna stay," Kailey says firmly and as steadily as she has managed yet. "My head is starting to hurt though. So I'm gonna close my eyes..."

A little worry, but the one already out the door heads to grab the gurney. "Are you sure miss?" The one she grabbed at asks. "You shouldn't sleep until you get checked out, even if you didn't hit your head."

"Yeah. Yeah sure," Kailey says as she covers her eyes with her arm, knees curling up and head going to rest on them, arm included. "Nnnnnnn...Eeev...c'mere," She moans as the other paramedic brings in the gurney. Dropping it low and glancing back at their partner and potential patient.

"Can you get onto the gurney on your own?" One of the paramedics asks. She doesn't recall and it doesn't matter. Because the question is moot when she tries to move and finds little strength in her limbs as yet. It almost has her faceplant in the water, but the young paramedic catches her. The other comes over and they both in unison lift her onto the gurney.

"Ev, call Grant or Mia an' come to the...come after me," Apparently Hospital is too long a word for her to want to try. "My meds too!" Her hand reaches out to grab his as the paramedics make their last adjustments to the gurney to take her out, strapping her down and such.

"Uh-huh. Thanks," he says into his phone as he's being bid, still watching Kailey with concern. Concern and helplessness. She's hurt and there's nothing he can do to help her.
His cellphone beeps when the call is ended and he stuffs the device back inside his leather jacket before he comes over there like she's asked, murmuring, "You're doing the right thing. Be safe first, find out what happened." There's more it's there on the tip of his tongue, but he stops talking when the gurney comes in and he helps her climb into it without being asked.

Once she's lifted up to, well. Closer to his height, he uses his left hand to brace a portion of his weight over her head, careful of her groomed hair so he can lean down so she doesn't have to speak loudly, so he can listen intensely to her instructions. He might have asked her who Mia is, but the request is an or. And her phone's around here somewhere. The more animated request for her medication has him nodding twice.

"Don't worry, Kitten. Just as soon as Lillian gets home so she can look after the kids, I'll meet you at the hospital with your meds."
When she finds his hand, still crammed into his leather jacket's pocket, it's lifeless. He doesn't interlace her fingers, he doesn't squeeze her hand reassuringly, he doesn't use the hand to lift hers to his lips and give her a kiss on her knuckles.

What he does do, is glance down to follow where her hand's disappeared before turning his gaze back to her eyes. The worry in his visage fades some as it's replaced with trepidation. His lips smack when they open, signaling a broken vacuum. Before he steps away, signaling the men to take her away he tells her just one thing before a weak, sheepish grin.
"Don't worry; everything's fii-iine."