[EVENT] Clinic

[soul_mods]

Characters: Open to all
Location: Clinic
Rating: Various
Time: November 1 onwards
Description: Naturally, what event is complete without a butcher’s list? List of relevant links to the event here.

Comments

[Nov 1/8pm] [CLOSED] Kurt, Tavros

[couragemantra]

[ Kurt had heard about Tavros being in the clinic, and was struck with both relief that he was at least alive and fear that he was extremely hurt. He got up, ever careful of his injuries, and walked across the clinic and down the hall to the room the nurse had mentioned caring for Tavros in. Yosuke was with Souji, still, and they were both thankfully asleep. They shouldn't miss him.

When he stepped in and saw his friend, he walked over to his bed, took a seat at the foot of it, and gave him a tired smile. ] Hey... we've really got to stop meeting in places like this.

[slghtlylessfake]

[The first half of the day had been a blur. If nothing else, he vaguely recalled the events leading up to his injuries, but everything after that one clout to the head was a fog of confusion and pain. By the time the worst of his disorientation had passed, he was in a clinic bed and aching all over with no idea what time it was.

Someone had treated some of his smaller injuries, mostly scrapes and bruises, and valiantly attempted to bandage his head despite his horns being generally in the way. If the color of his blood hadn't been obvious before, it was unmistakable now in the chocolate brown shade of his healing wounds.

When Kurt showed up, he immediately tried to prop himself up further on his pillows, only to flinch and hold a hand to his side instead.]

Kurt...

[Any pain that showed on his face quickly faded to nothing, and then into mild dismay and concern as he studied Kurt.]

Are you, okay? Were you attacked?

[couragemantra]

[ He shook his head, examining Tavros closely. Bruises... a head wound, some brownish orange scrapes... He looked pretty bad, but not terrible. Kurt himself was probably worse off, in some ways, with his cuts. He probably shouldn't even be walking across the clinic to see him, but he kind of had to. He'd been worried. ]

Not exactly. You know my friend, Souji? He... had one of those crazy snakes implanted in him. And he... went crazy. We - that's Yosuke and I - ended up chasing him across the city, and cornered him at the end. And we fought. Nobody really got out unscathed. It was... it was really tough. He ended up cutting me. [ He placed a hand gently over where his shirt hid the bandages on his stomach and his sides, closing his eyes as he remembered exactly how he got each one. ] A week or so and I should be okay, though. What about you? I saw your S.O.S....

[slghtlylessfake]

[Tavros didn't know Kurt's friend Souji, but that was okay. Everyone had gone a little crazy, and Kurt was relatively okay seeing as he was up and about, so it was all okay, right...?

He looked off to the side when Kurt asked after his own ordeal, rubbing his head around his bandaging.]

Uhh... my friend, Gamzee, he also went kind of crazy... uhh, I don't think he had one of those snake things, though... he just, showed up at my hive acting kind of weird, and then we went out, and, he just went crazy...

[He didn't really feel comfortable thinking about it. It was already another of those many things he would rather forget than remember. And besides, it was just that madness wave stuff making them all act crazy. The weird way Gamzee had been acting and talking- that was all it was. No one was to blame.]

I'm sure he didn't mean it, I was also, kind of acting weird I think, so, it's okay...

[He looked down at his lap, then coughed, which hurt quite a lot though he did his best to hide it.]

U-Umm... is your, friend okay?

[couragemantra]

[ Kurt frowned his way through this explanation, but... he could understand. Madness wavelength affected people differently, he knew that much, and if that was what had affected Tavros's friend Gamzee (the "Caprihorn" guy, as Kurt recalled), it was obvious that whatever happened was accidental. He didn't have to like it, though. ]

It's not okay... I mean, neither was Souji going crazy and hurting people. But it's forgiveable, right? Neither of them were in control of themselves and both of them aren't normally anything like that...

[ A shrug and a small smile. ] He's okay. Exhausted and a little beat up, but fine. I'm really glad you're okay, too. I was really worried. I expected the worst, and I can be very pessimistic.

[slghtlylessfake]

[He nodded in agreement, faintly as his head still ached.]

Yeah, it's, not their fault.

[His smile began to reappear, though a bit shyly. It was starting to feel less awkward when Kurt said nice things to him and more like it was... well, nice.]

You were, worried about me? Though, uhh, you didn't have to, uhhh...

[couragemantra]

[ Oh. Here it was again, the creeping, vague suspicion that... well. Maybe something was going on, here. Something that wasn't friendship-related from Tavros's end. Something in the way he was looking at Kurt right now reminded him of the way he'd look at his own unrequited crushes. Shy and hopeful and just a little too warm.

If there was any chance, no matter how small, that his suspicions were at all right... Kurt needed to tell him. Gently. Maybe he could just reaffirm that there was a limit to how far this went, from Kurt's end. ]

Tavros... friends worry about each other. [ And if there was a little extra inflection on the word "friends", that was entirely intentional. He tried to keep his expression neutral. Warm, but... neutrally so. It was hard. He probably looked like he was having muscles spasms of the face. ]

[slghtlylessfake]

"Yeah, uhh, I remember, you said you were worried about me the last time we were here, too." From the way his expression didn't change, it was probably obvious that Tavros completely missed any subtle hints Kurt was trying to get across.

"And, uhh, I was worried about you too, and I'm sorry that I didn't get in touch with you, it's, been a confusing day, but I would have gone to find you if I were, uhhh, able to."

He paused. Kurt was making kind of a weird face.

"Um... are you sure you're okay?"

[couragemantra]

"Yeah. Fine," His voice was pitched higher than usual, though. It was obvious Tavros didn't get it. But then again, Kurt had never "got it" in the past, either. These things sometimes needed to be spelled out. He needed time to process how to best ease them into talking about this, though.

"Don't worry about it, though. It's been hectic and confusing for everyone, lately. I'm just glad all of my friends are safe, even if everyone's not exactly unscathed..." A slightly awkward laugh, but why...? That wasn't at all funny. Oh god. This was going terribly. it was going to go terribly. Worse, if his suspicions were wrong and Tavros actually didn't have those kinds of feelings. How was he supposed to do this...?

[slghtlylessfake]

He nodded faintly, not really catching the connotations of that rise in pitch either.

"Yeah, uhh, that is a good..." He trailed off briefly, frowning. "Actually, I guess I still need to, check on some of my friends too... but, I am sure that they are okay." He nodded a little as if to further assert his sureness, though he wasn't completely sure. But he didn't want to think about that, so his attention went back to Kurt. Kurt was something he liked thinking about. He just wanted to think happy thoughts... with that, something occurred to him, and he suddenly smiled brightly.

"Anyway, I'm glad that you came to, see me, so, thank you... though, I think they won't let me leave for a while, uhh... but, maybe once they do, we can do that thing that we talked about before with watching, uhh, I think the human one was, peter pan, right? And, talk about it and stuff, like we said."

There was rare excitement in the way he talked about it. Watching and talking about human Pupa Pan with Kurt. What was there not to be excited about?

[couragemantra]

"Probably..." He allowed, his smile at this point tight. It only got worse when Kurt heard Tavros's suggestion. Yeah, he had suggested that back when Tavros was sick, but he'd thought it a completely platonic thing. At that point, he only had the slightest of suspicions that maybe Tavros had feelings that went beyond their being friends. He was still only marginally suspicious but it was getting harder and harder to ignore it.

Truthfully, the last thing he wanted was to do the non-kissing equivalent of what Souji had done to him. That was what it really came down to. He didn't want to potentially raise Tavros's hopes up as time went on, only to dash them gently but painfully later. Chances were, if he was right about this, it would still hurt. But not as much as it would if he continued ignoring the issue.

He took a deep breath, and met Tavros's yellow-tinted eyes with a regretful frown. "Maybe... But, um. I think we need to talk, first. About some stuff. Important stuff."

[slghtlylessfake]

His excitement faded somewhat, but it didn't go away completely. When he thought about what Kurt could possibly mean about 'important stuff,' it was topped off by a hefty dose of nervous butterflies; he completely misread Kurt's frown. Was he going to...? No, it would be silly to think that. It was probably something totally unrelated. Right?

He continued to be hopefully nervous regardless.

"Uhh, okay, I guess we can do that, sure... what is it that we need to, talk about?"

[couragemantra]

Kurt was starting to feel sick to his stomach, now. Could he actually do this? He knew more than most how hard it was to be a kid and like somebody who didn't like you back.

"Tavros... what would you call our relationship? I know that trolls have the romantic quadrants, and then they have normal friendships. If it were up to you, where would our relationship lie?" He bit his lip after asking the question. It was a decent question, right? Not too presumptuous either way. He fully expected his friend to panic at the assumption that anything romantic could be going on, whether Tavros thought it was or not. He was just sort of like that, easily surprised.

He decided to quickly elaborate, keeping this in mind. "I guess what I'm trying to ask is, do you see us in the quadrants or outside them? Because for me... I think right now we're outside the quadrants. Or... if we were inside them, we'd be heading more in the direction of moirallegiance. I... really hope we're on the same page, here, that's all."

[slghtlylessfake]

Kurt was right about that first part; at being asked where they were in the quadrants, he was blushing in record time as his brain struggled with what to say other than 'uhh.' Maybe this was the time to get it out there, to man up and say out loud how he f-

Outside the quadrants. His mind locked up just as he was about to speak, suddenly intensely uncertain. The blush already began to fade, and the butterflies were getting violent. He looked down at his knees.

"Uhh..."

Say something!

I want to, Rufio, I really do, but...

Then say it.

"I... red. Flushed. I, am flushed for you."

The blush came right back, and he felt nervous in a not so bad way all over again, as if having the self-esteem to say something like that would make everything okay.

As such, he looked to Kurt for his response.

[couragemantra]

"Oh! Okay. Definitely... not on the same page then," Kurt replied, his voice going high again with nerves. He could almost feel himself shaking a little, as if he was being rejected again himself. He shuffled a little closer and placed a hand over Tavros's, in the hopes that maybe some warm but firm physical contact would make this somehow easier to take. "I'm... uh. Not. Not flushed for you. I'm really, really sorry for anything I might've done that would've given you the idea that maybe I was. I'm not any good at human romance and I'm probably about a hundred times worse navigating the intricacies of troll romance, and... I'm really sorry."

He looked away and down at a random spot on the floor, then, just breathing in and out. "It's just... not mutual."

[slghtlylessfake]

Even as he said they weren't on the same page, even as his voice raised like that, he was still blindly hopeful. This was Kurt. After everything between them, it had to work. It had...

Oh.He exhaled, quickly as if he'd been punched in the stomach. It made his chest hurt to do it, but the pain was so far away right now. He could feel his hopes slipping, and just the thought of it nearly sent him into a panic. Everything outside of him and Kurt and Kurt's hand on his right now was just confusing right now and he ignored it. Rufio, rufio would know what to do in a situation like this, right? Rufio wouldn't give up hope so easily. He needed to be Rufio right now. He took a deep breath. It hurt even more than his exhale had. Again, it was distant. He shifted his hand under Kurt's, taking hold of his and gripping it perhaps just a bit too tightly. As he spoke, he kept his eyes on their hands, but he occasionally glanced up at Kurt before quickly looking down again. He was hardly aware of what he was saying, just of what he wanted